14 ms·

Amazon has 150M Prime members

76 points by elorant 7y ago

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
brink 7y ago
I'd feel much more comfortable with Amazon if they had a viable competitor.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- sky_rw 7y ago
  One Amazon is worse enough.
  - rantwasp 7y ago
    that's not how competition works. when there is competition, the customer usually wins.
- cpolis 7y ago
  Brick and mortar retailers?
- hotgeart 7y ago
  Aliexpress, 50% of Amazon come from there (Alibaba dropshipping).
esotericsean 7y ago
I never really had any issues with using Amazon’s services (I’m just talking about usability here, not getting into the fact that they’re a horrible company), but in the past year or so many of my packages from Amazon haven’t been arriving on time. I’m starting to lose faith each time I order something that I’ll actually receive it when it says I will.
- chrisseaton 7y ago
  > in the past year or so many of my packages from Amazon haven’t been arriving on time My experience is the opposite - for me regular Prime delivery now regularly arrives in less than ten hours (order before bed, it's there before 9 in the morning.) I don't even live in a major urban area!
- seascage 7y ago
  Same here, I've ordered 2 packages the last 3 months and they both arrived a month late. Although, it might have been Royal Mail screwing up.
- luckylion 7y ago
  But it's guaranteed to arrive by tuesday! I've chosen not to renew my Prime for exactly that reason. Why pay for premium shipping if you don't get premium shipping? This in turn has lead me to not order as much of the small stuff, things I can also buy in a local store. Buying those while doing my grocery shopping has taught me something else: Amazon isn't cheap, they were pretty much always similarly priced, for items below 10 Euros, Amazon was slightly more expensive in about half the products I checked.
chiph 7y ago
Prime delivery is nice, but I need to buy a replacement hard drive and they won't deliver it to my nearby Amazon locker for some reason. I don't want it sitting on my porch all day (pirates), but they won't let me schedule a future delivery for when I'll be home either. So I'm creating a calendar event for later this week to try & time the delivery. Sometimes fast delivery is too fast.
- beamatronic 7y ago
  That’s a bummer about the locker. Ship it to your office?
  - giancarlostoro 7y ago
    This is what most of my coworkers do. Order on Sunday to the office.
- krf 7y ago
  Not sure if it is an option for you, but I've resorted to using a PO box for these cases. So far, everything seems to be able to be shipped to the PO box address when a locker won't do.
- atom-morgan 7y ago
  > I don't want it sitting on my porch all day (pirates) Assuming you aren't constantly claiming this is happening with prior orders, Amazon will probably just send out another one free of charge.
- erichurkman 7y ago
  I would pay extra to pick a delivery day. 'Prime day' of the week is similar, but not quite the same.
- pfarnsworth 7y ago
  I'm not sure where you live, but at least in the SF Bay Area, we have the option to set a "delivery day" and the shipments all arrive on that day. I've never used it though but it sounds like it could be very useful for you in situations like this.
djhworld 7y ago
I used to be a prime member, for quite a number of years, but I cancelled it as I didn't feel I was getting the value out of it that I originally thought I was. There's a break even point somewhere where the cost of shipping vs. number of orders made makes sense with prime, but I wasn't using the service enough to warrant that. Additionally the other services you get with a prime membership (Amazon Video, Amazon music etc) didn't really have that much appeal.
- liamcardenas 7y ago
  As someone who shops at Whole Foods all the time, despite the seemingly ridiculously small discounts you get as a prime member, it does add up to cover most of the cost of prime membership. I do use prime services, so I might otherwise keep my membership — but I would consider cancelling if I were just using it for shipping.
  - js2 7y ago
    5% back at Whole Foods using the Chase Amazon card vs 3% back without Prime. $119 annual Prime membership pays for itself after just $5,950 of Whole Foods shopping. :-)
    - freyir 7y ago
      Nice, sounds like the cost can be recouped after just a few trips to Whole Foods.
    - cobookman 7y ago
      5950/12 = 496$/month. Not that crazy for family with kids to spend even at a cheaper grocery store.
      - mrep 7y ago
        You also get 5% back at Amazon so it's definitely doable (I know i hit that last year).
      - 7y ago
The_suffocated 7y ago
Am I the only one who has misread the title as "Amazon has 150M prime NUMBERS"? I thought that the article was about some weird practice of reusing prime numbers for encryption ;-D
- Mountain_Skies 7y ago
  Dear Department of Mathematics, Our client, Amazon.com Inc., has a trademarked the word Prime for all uses, across the known and yet to be discovered universe. Immediately cease and desist from using the term "prime numbers" to describe those a natural number greater than 1 that cannot be formed by multiplying two smaller natural numbers. Our client understands this may cause some minor inconvenience to yourself and your colleagues. As a token of goodwill, we are offering all fulltime staff in your department Amazon Prime membership at the discounted student rate for one (1) year. By reading this letter, you implicitly agree to the above terms.
- anentropic 7y ago
  same here :)
heavyset_go 7y ago
Prime membership isn't worth it to me. "Free" shipping is priced into the cost each listing, and is glaringly obvious when comparing prices for the same item between Amazon and another retailer. Usually there is a few dollar difference, which is what the shipping cost would be with the other retailer. Many of the items I find on Amazon are cheaper to buy directly from the manufacturer on AliExpress, and I have no need to pay a middleman's markup. There is also the issue of the counterfeit items I've received, and the quality of Amazon's branded products. When I went to return a knockoff product, reporting it as a counterfeit item wasn't even an option to mark as my reason for returning it. I've also had one of their branded surge protectors fail on me recently.
- hyperbovine 7y ago
  I guess 150m people value their time more highly than you :)
  - heavyset_go 7y ago
    It takes more time out of my day to file for returns, package and ship my returns and try to figure out why my hardware failed due to poor quality Amazon branded products than it is to go with another retailer. Trying to ascertain whether or not reviews I see on Amazon are legit, or are even for the same product as the product they're listed under, are significant time wasters, too.
    - dpark 7y ago
      And so you buy generics from AliExpress?
      - heavyset_go 7y ago
        I'm not sure what you mean by generics. There are a lot of white label products on Amazon that use the same stock pictures as the manufacturers do on AliExpress. It's often just cheaper to order it from the manufacturer instead of through a middleman. Branded products, that aren't just white label products, I try to buy directly from the manufacturer. For example, I buy my Apple replacement chargers directly from Apple.
OrgNet 7y ago
I just canceled my free month of Prime a few weeks ago, that I used for Christmas time... back to 7 day deliveries which is fine by me (but it does feel that they add artificial delays for non-prime members).
- refurb 7y ago
  Same here. I get a month of prime when I know it’s worth it in terms of volume - moving, Christmas, etc. I recently cancelled and got not only a further 3 months free, but also another month free, then an offer for another month for $0.99. They are working hard to keep people from cancelling.
pkamb 7y ago
I wish the Prime Video streaming app was better. Absolutely unusable on an Apple TV. Cross-platform trash that behaves so poorly compared to native UX. The official Twitch app is the same. And they shut down API access for a number of high quality 3rd party Apple TV apps for Twitch when they launched the official one.
redindian75 7y ago
'Prime Video' is worth the price for me. We get new release Indian movies for free & great TV series. Free shipping on Prime items is just a bonus. They have added free overnight, free next day 8AM and even sameday 6pm for my zipcode. Cutoff is noon for same day delivery! I do not see a huge pricemarkup, and sometimes I dont even need to order $35 worth of items. The two toys I ordered was $5 & $8 each, it got delivered 8AM next day,
- michaelbuckbee 7y ago
  This is definitely part of the value for me. It's like if my Netflix subscription came with a bonus of free shipping from Walmart.
  - dmix 7y ago
    Not only free shipping but often same day or early next day shipping for 'free'. I'm both impatient enough and use Amazon enough where buying it every year is worth it for me. Plus ditto re: Prime Video, it's not bad, although probably the least good of my three (I'd rank: 1. Netflix, 2. crave.ca to get HBO in Canada, then Prime 3rd) the library is surprisingly deep and I've used it quite a bit.
dnhz 7y ago
And for comparison, Costco has 98.5 million members.
- toomuchtodo 7y ago
  And they actually treat their workers well.
pickdenis 7y ago
I don't have much to contribute, except my thanks for your reminding me to cancel my prime subscription. They REALLY tried to get me to not do that. I had to click "yes actually end it" around 5-6 times. I bet each of these hurdles keeps a couple million subscriptions in their pocket every year.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
jammygit 7y ago
Amazon makes it really easy to accidentally resubscribe to prime, as well as accidentally subscribe to random products that have a subscription option. The dark patterns are such a turnoff. I try to buy locally but sometimes I still need to use amazon, eg, a Self published book will only be available through them
- growlist 7y ago
  > Amazon makes it really easy to accidentally resubscribe to prime, as well as accidentally subscribe to random products that have a subscription option. The dark patterns are such a turnoff. True. I ended up with a Prime Music subscription at £7/month without realising I was paying for it. But then it's easy to cancel, so it's not that bad.
anonsivalley652 7y ago
In the US alone, over 2/3 households have Prime. Regardless of opinions of said company, that's an astounding market penetration. It makes you think they could become similar to the fictional Tyrell Corporation or Big Brother but more likely Central Services. And that inverted techno totalitarianism seems more likely to happen/be happening voluntarily (and with network effects like not wanting to be the only green imessage bubble or FOMO of AR social networks) rather than with force. But really, they seem like they will gain an oligopoly or a monopoly before gradually raising rates on what was cheap to get everyone hooked on fast/free shipping and free movies in the early days: want supplies and support with your Amazon Pacemaker or Amazon Ocular Implants? you must continue to be a Prime subscriber or we repossess them. Now with Prime, only $1299 per month!

76 points by elorant 7y ago

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

brink 7y ago

I'd feel much more comfortable with Amazon if they had a viable competitor.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
sky_rw 7y ago
One Amazon is worse enough.
- rantwasp 7y ago
  that's not how competition works. when there is competition, the customer usually wins.
cpolis 7y ago
Brick and mortar retailers?
hotgeart 7y ago
Aliexpress, 50% of Amazon come from there (Alibaba dropshipping).

esotericsean 7y ago

I never really had any issues with using Amazon’s services (I’m just talking about usability here, not getting into the fact that they’re a horrible company), but in the past year or so many of my packages from Amazon haven’t been arriving on time. I’m starting to lose faith each time I order something that I’ll actually receive it when it says I will.

chrisseaton 7y ago
> in the past year or so many of my packages from Amazon haven’t been arriving on time My experience is the opposite - for me regular Prime delivery now regularly arrives in less than ten hours (order before bed, it's there before 9 in the morning.) I don't even live in a major urban area!
seascage 7y ago
Same here, I've ordered 2 packages the last 3 months and they both arrived a month late. Although, it might have been Royal Mail screwing up.
luckylion 7y ago
But it's guaranteed to arrive by tuesday! I've chosen not to renew my Prime for exactly that reason. Why pay for premium shipping if you don't get premium shipping? This in turn has lead me to not order as much of the small stuff, things I can also buy in a local store. Buying those while doing my grocery shopping has taught me something else: Amazon isn't cheap, they were pretty much always similarly priced, for items below 10 Euros, Amazon was slightly more expensive in about half the products I checked.

chiph 7y ago

Prime delivery is nice, but I need to buy a replacement hard drive and they won't deliver it to my nearby Amazon locker for some reason. I don't want it sitting on my porch all day (pirates), but they won't let me schedule a future delivery for when I'll be home either. So I'm creating a calendar event for later this week to try & time the delivery. Sometimes fast delivery is too fast.

beamatronic 7y ago
That’s a bummer about the locker. Ship it to your office?
- giancarlostoro 7y ago
  This is what most of my coworkers do. Order on Sunday to the office.
krf 7y ago
Not sure if it is an option for you, but I've resorted to using a PO box for these cases. So far, everything seems to be able to be shipped to the PO box address when a locker won't do.
atom-morgan 7y ago
> I don't want it sitting on my porch all day (pirates) Assuming you aren't constantly claiming this is happening with prior orders, Amazon will probably just send out another one free of charge.
erichurkman 7y ago
I would pay extra to pick a delivery day. 'Prime day' of the week is similar, but not quite the same.
pfarnsworth 7y ago
I'm not sure where you live, but at least in the SF Bay Area, we have the option to set a "delivery day" and the shipments all arrive on that day. I've never used it though but it sounds like it could be very useful for you in situations like this.

djhworld 7y ago

I used to be a prime member, for quite a number of years, but I cancelled it as I didn't feel I was getting the value out of it that I originally thought I was. There's a break even point somewhere where the cost of shipping vs. number of orders made makes sense with prime, but I wasn't using the service enough to warrant that. Additionally the other services you get with a prime membership (Amazon Video, Amazon music etc) didn't really have that much appeal.

liamcardenas 7y ago
As someone who shops at Whole Foods all the time, despite the seemingly ridiculously small discounts you get as a prime member, it does add up to cover most of the cost of prime membership. I do use prime services, so I might otherwise keep my membership — but I would consider cancelling if I were just using it for shipping.
- js2 7y ago
  5% back at Whole Foods using the Chase Amazon card vs 3% back without Prime. $119 annual Prime membership pays for itself after just $5,950 of Whole Foods shopping. :-)
  - freyir 7y ago
    Nice, sounds like the cost can be recouped after just a few trips to Whole Foods.
  - cobookman 7y ago
    5950/12 = 496$/month. Not that crazy for family with kids to spend even at a cheaper grocery store.
    - mrep 7y ago
      You also get 5% back at Amazon so it's definitely doable (I know i hit that last year).
    - 7y ago

The_suffocated 7y ago

Am I the only one who has misread the title as "Amazon has 150M prime NUMBERS"? I thought that the article was about some weird practice of reusing prime numbers for encryption ;-D

Mountain_Skies 7y ago
Dear Department of Mathematics, Our client, Amazon.com Inc., has a trademarked the word Prime for all uses, across the known and yet to be discovered universe. Immediately cease and desist from using the term "prime numbers" to describe those a natural number greater than 1 that cannot be formed by multiplying two smaller natural numbers. Our client understands this may cause some minor inconvenience to yourself and your colleagues. As a token of goodwill, we are offering all fulltime staff in your department Amazon Prime membership at the discounted student rate for one (1) year. By reading this letter, you implicitly agree to the above terms.
anentropic 7y ago
same here :)

heavyset_go 7y ago

Prime membership isn't worth it to me. "Free" shipping is priced into the cost each listing, and is glaringly obvious when comparing prices for the same item between Amazon and another retailer. Usually there is a few dollar difference, which is what the shipping cost would be with the other retailer. Many of the items I find on Amazon are cheaper to buy directly from the manufacturer on AliExpress, and I have no need to pay a middleman's markup. There is also the issue of the counterfeit items I've received, and the quality of Amazon's branded products. When I went to return a knockoff product, reporting it as a counterfeit item wasn't even an option to mark as my reason for returning it. I've also had one of their branded surge protectors fail on me recently.

hyperbovine 7y ago
I guess 150m people value their time more highly than you :)
- heavyset_go 7y ago
  It takes more time out of my day to file for returns, package and ship my returns and try to figure out why my hardware failed due to poor quality Amazon branded products than it is to go with another retailer. Trying to ascertain whether or not reviews I see on Amazon are legit, or are even for the same product as the product they're listed under, are significant time wasters, too.
  - dpark 7y ago
    And so you buy generics from AliExpress?
    - heavyset_go 7y ago
      I'm not sure what you mean by generics. There are a lot of white label products on Amazon that use the same stock pictures as the manufacturers do on AliExpress. It's often just cheaper to order it from the manufacturer instead of through a middleman. Branded products, that aren't just white label products, I try to buy directly from the manufacturer. For example, I buy my Apple replacement chargers directly from Apple.

OrgNet 7y ago

I just canceled my free month of Prime a few weeks ago, that I used for Christmas time... back to 7 day deliveries which is fine by me (but it does feel that they add artificial delays for non-prime members).

refurb 7y ago
Same here. I get a month of prime when I know it’s worth it in terms of volume - moving, Christmas, etc. I recently cancelled and got not only a further 3 months free, but also another month free, then an offer for another month for $0.99. They are working hard to keep people from cancelling.

pkamb 7y ago

I wish the Prime Video streaming app was better. Absolutely unusable on an Apple TV. Cross-platform trash that behaves so poorly compared to native UX. The official Twitch app is the same. And they shut down API access for a number of high quality 3rd party Apple TV apps for Twitch when they launched the official one.

redindian75 7y ago

'Prime Video' is worth the price for me. We get new release Indian movies for free & great TV series. Free shipping on Prime items is just a bonus. They have added free overnight, free next day 8AM and even sameday 6pm for my zipcode. Cutoff is noon for same day delivery! I do not see a huge pricemarkup, and sometimes I dont even need to order $35 worth of items. The two toys I ordered was $5 & $8 each, it got delivered 8AM next day,

michaelbuckbee 7y ago
This is definitely part of the value for me. It's like if my Netflix subscription came with a bonus of free shipping from Walmart.
- dmix 7y ago
  Not only free shipping but often same day or early next day shipping for 'free'. I'm both impatient enough and use Amazon enough where buying it every year is worth it for me. Plus ditto re: Prime Video, it's not bad, although probably the least good of my three (I'd rank: 1. Netflix, 2. crave.ca to get HBO in Canada, then Prime 3rd) the library is surprisingly deep and I've used it quite a bit.

dnhz 7y ago

And for comparison, Costco has 98.5 million members.

toomuchtodo 7y ago
And they actually treat their workers well.

pickdenis 7y ago

I don't have much to contribute, except my thanks for your reminding me to cancel my prime subscription. They REALLY tried to get me to not do that. I had to click "yes actually end it" around 5-6 times. I bet each of these hurdles keeps a couple million subscriptions in their pocket every year.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

jammygit 7y ago

Amazon makes it really easy to accidentally resubscribe to prime, as well as accidentally subscribe to random products that have a subscription option. The dark patterns are such a turnoff. I try to buy locally but sometimes I still need to use amazon, eg, a Self published book will only be available through them

growlist 7y ago
> Amazon makes it really easy to accidentally resubscribe to prime, as well as accidentally subscribe to random products that have a subscription option. The dark patterns are such a turnoff. True. I ended up with a Prime Music subscription at £7/month without realising I was paying for it. But then it's easy to cancel, so it's not that bad.

anonsivalley652 7y ago

In the US alone, over 2/3 households have Prime. Regardless of opinions of said company, that's an astounding market penetration. It makes you think they could become similar to the fictional Tyrell Corporation or Big Brother but more likely Central Services. And that inverted techno totalitarianism seems more likely to happen/be happening voluntarily (and with network effects like not wanting to be the only green imessage bubble or FOMO of AR social networks) rather than with force. But really, they seem like they will gain an oligopoly or a monopoly before gradually raising rates on what was cheap to get everyone hooked on fast/free shipping and free movies in the early days: want supplies and support with your Amazon Pacemaker or Amazon Ocular Implants? you must continue to be a Prime subscriber or we repossess them. Now with Prime, only $1299 per month!