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Walmart, Jet.com and Target offer free 2 day shipping if you order $35, $35, or $25 respectively. It so happens in my area, all three use Fedex ground, which te
by wbond 9y ago
Walmart, Jet.com and Target offer free 2 day shipping if you order $35, $35, or $25 respectively. It so happens in my area, all three use Fedex ground, which tends to be more reliable than UPS.
Additionally, most items that cost less than $6-8 each tend to be significantly cheaper at Walmart or Target, or you can by a single item rather than a 3-pack, which is a common Amazon strategy.
If you buy a decent number of higher price items, Amazon tends to have a price advantage, so the $99-per-year Prime subscription is worth it. However, you will throw a bunch of money away if you are buying a handful of small-ticket items from Amazon on a regular basis.
- Shank 9y agoThe biggest thing is probably convenience. Even Amazon regularly reminds me of this, by saying I saved > 50 trips to the store for 1-off items that I've ordered on Prime. From shipping speed to not having to go blunder around a store looking for an item, Prime makes sense. It makes even more sense if you comparison shop. With Amazon, you can pick the _exact right item_, whereas a big box store like Walmart or Target will only stock a few options at best, 0 at worst. I was looking for a specific light bulb at Home Depot the other day. Didn't find it. Went to Lowe's. Didn't find it. Ordered the exact item from Amazon while walking out of Lowe's. I only went to stores for the time convenience (I obviously needed it urgently), but they failed for lack of stock. That's what Amazon offers to me -- instant availability of a huge range of items, and ridiculously fast shipping on the smallest of those items.
- wbond 9y agoI agree that shopping at physical stores tends to be a waste of time, with poor selection. I am referring to shopping at walmart.com, jet.com and target.com, which tend to have many of the exact same small-ticket items as amazon.com, but at cheaper prices and without a subscription for 2 day free shipping. It seems they tend to ship the items from a local store, and thus can use low-cost ground shipping and get it there in two days.
- dingaling 9y agoI don't know what Amazon USA is like nowadays but the UK site has reclassified many smaller items as 'Add-ons' which can't be ordered individually, even with Prime. The items seem to vary but range from rulers to multipacks of soap, duct tape, packs of pens, USB sticks and even once a big exercise ball that I was considering. Nowadays I usually go straight to eBay for small items and pay the Royal Mail postage for them.
- vageli 9y ago> It makes even more sense if you comparison shop. With Amazon, you can pick the _exact right item_, whereas a big box store like Walmart or Target will only stock a few options at best, 0 at worst. I was looking for a specific light bulb at Home Depot the other day. Didn't find it. Went to Lowe's. Didn't find it. Ordered the exact item from Amazon while walking out of Lowe's. I only went to stores for the time convenience (I obviously needed it urgently), but they failed for lack of stock. That's what Amazon offers to me -- instant availability of a huge range of items, and ridiculously fast shipping on the smallest of those items. Why didn't you go to lowes.com or walmart.com? This isn't an apples to apples comparison.
- dawnerd 9y agoAnd why not check the lowes/homedepot sites before bothering to go into the store? They both have pretty good stock indicators and they'll tell you exactly where the item is.
- lxchase 9y agoI agree with this. In the past few months, I've found walmart.com to be cheaper than amazon.com for manytdepartments/products (certainly not always true). However, the point is it might be worth it to comparison shop at the cost of an additional minute.