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I cancelled Prime last year after getting fed up with Amazon in several ways. Bringing ads to Prime Video was the straw that broke the camel’s back. I do still

I cancelled Prime last year after getting fed up with Amazon in several ways. Bringing ads to Prime Video was the straw that broke the camel’s back. I do still end up ordering from time to time, and the checkout process for non-Prime members is horrific. Multiple Prime sign-up offers that I always need to carefully read so I don’t click the wrong thing, illogical default shipping options, with more tricks to try and get the user to sign up for Prime while choosing shipping, after having already declined multiple times. I don’t know why any non-Prime customer would want to sign up for Prime after such a user-hostile experience full of dark patterns. I graphed out my orders since the start of my Amazon account. There was a steady uptrend over 20 years, with yearly growth since 2018. All of that ended 2023. My orders fell off a cliff, dropping by 60% in 2024. The treatment of non-Prime customers isn’t winning me back, it’s pushing me further away. I think my goal for 2026 will be not to order anything from Amazon. It’s been such a bad experience. Apparently their goal of being the world’s most customer-centric company only applies to Prime users. I hope this judgement will get them to change their ways, but I’m assuming they will do as little as possible to comply, and still pushing Prime hard.

udkl 1y ago
For good or for bad, I've switched to Walmart for many of my orders as well as home delivery of groceries now and then and they have been decent. It's good to have competitors who are catching up.
- inetknght 1y ago
  Do frozen foods get delivered still frozen? I live 15 minutes away from the nearest wal-mart and frozens/refrigerables are my biggest concern.
  - udkl 1y ago
    they don't do anything special for frozen items .... it's just as if you get it in bags from the store. .... add in additional time for neighborhood deliveries if any ..... usually they arrive semi-frozen .... you can track the delivery driver from the store (where they hopefully keep it in a cold room) to your home... for me it takes them from 20 mins to 1 hour for delivery ...
  - jjani 1y ago
    How is this a concern? Does Amazon not sell frozen food (no fresh food from Amazon around here)? Otherwise why would Walmart be unable to
    - Rebelgecko 1y ago
      Walmart doesn't include ice like Amazon does, but for me it doesn't make a difference unless the delivery driver is goofing off
    - inetknght 1y ago
      > How is this a concern? Does Amazon not sell frozen food I don't know anything about Amazon other than I will never buy anything from Amazon because Amazon is a fucking terrible company.
  - 5555624 1y ago
    It's not any different than going to Walmart yourself and getting groceries -- they just put them in plastic grocery bags. I've never had a problem with anything refrigerated or frozen. (Well, I've never ordered ice cream.) The key is to be home when they deliver it; so, you can put those things away immediately. They offer two-hour delivery windows and usually deliver within the window. In my experience -- I'm disabled and use them for groceries almost weekly -- about 5% fall just outside the delivery window. (Usually 10-20 minutes late.)
    - b112 1y ago
      I feel someone will soon start a website "melted-icecream.com", where someone tracks orders all over the country, from major online suppliers, and graphs how warm the ice cream is. Would be interesting. Once melted, ice-cream is never ice cream again.
- bombcar 1y ago
  Walmart + Target + Home Depot cover much of what I would have used Amazon for, and all offer free shipping in some way without joining any club. Walmart pickup is great.
  - kevin_thibedeau 1y ago
    Home Depot reuses SKUs for different products. When they fulfill an order from a local store it's a gamble if you're going to get the item you wanted. You also can't exchange those orders online and are forced to go to the same store it came from.
    - everdrive 1y ago
      Best feature for home depot (and lowes) is that you can always constrain your query to the store. And when you do this, each product's page will show the the aisle and row the item is located at. (yes, I know the smartphone app will help you here but 100% of smart phone apps are bad, as are those who recommend them) Just spend a few minutes writing down your items & aisles and go visit the store. Trust me, it's better. The convenience of delivery just is not worth the stupid roulette that online retail has become.
      - brewtide 1y ago
        I do this every trip. I take screenshots of the page per item (usually only a handful) once I get to the parking lot. Then, I optimize my trip around the store to never double back. It's worth it.
      - willis936 1y ago
        I did this recently for a lawn mower that wasn't actually at the store the website said. We went to the exact location and it wasn't there. We talked to customer service and they said they could order it for us. No thanks, Home Depot.
- MrMember 1y ago
  I used Walmart delivery for groceries a fair amount last year and didn't have a single issue. I used it maybe six times this year and there was an issue with the order five of those times. Several times it was delivered to the wrong address. The other times I was missing around half of my order. I was able to get refunds without any issue every time but the experience was so awful I canceled and haven't used it at all the second half of this year.
  - arachnid92 1y ago
    Your experience mirrors mine. My wife and I used Walmart+ for grocery deliveries basically every week for a year without any issues up until a couple of months ago. Suddenly, they started fucking up every single order, delivering things to the wrong address, missing items, or even claiming to have delivered an order that never arrived. After calling and complaining for the 10th time in a row, we gave up. We were so pissed off we even made a point of canceling the service, even though we get it for free as a credit card perk.
bombcar 1y ago
Prime ain't what it used to be. Used to be reliably 2nd day delivery, by a real shipping company, and good movies added, etc. Now it's as slow as "free" delivery, by a random contractor who does God knows what to the package, and prices aren't even better than Walmart or Target on many things. The "avoid subscribing to prime" shuffle you have to do to even order anything anymore drives me away too, I only use Amazon if it's more than 5% cheaper.
- al_borland 1y ago
  I really have to wonder if non-Prime and Prime deliveries go through the same shipping pipeline to simplify the process. When I order without Prime, it seems my order just sits for a few days, then it hits my credit card and I get it 2 days later. Almost like giving everyone free 2 day shipping wouldn’t cost them anything at this point, so they just artificially delay normal users to make the service worse. Occasionally the order will trigger right away and I’ve gotten non-Prime stuff in 1 day with free super saver shipping.
  - arcbyte 1y ago
    > it seems my order just sits for a few days, then it hits my credit card and I get it 2 days later I have Prime and this is the majority of my orders. Lately I have been seeing a lot of free overnight deliveries tho, so maybe something is brewing.
  - bombcar 1y ago
    I suspect they’re doing some “intelligent batching” of some sort to save costs on shipping SOMEWHERE. But it’s all inscrutable to me. I do miss the “$5 digital credit for forgoing prime shipping” I used to abuse.
  - sershe 1y ago
    A much simple explanation is that each order is assigned a priority f(elapsed time, is prime) prime orders starting much higher so the processing of your order gets delayed behind all the incoming prime orders until its priority catches up due to longer elapsed time
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
crazygringo 1y ago
> I don’t know why any non-Prime customer would want to sign up At least for me, it's easy -- the Prime credit card, which has no extra fee beyond Prime itself. I get 5-7% back, instead of the 1-2% with my other credit cards. It literally pays for itself and more over the course of a year. The faster shipping is just a bonus. And I'm not buying junk I don't need either. It's literally just regular toiletries, my normal grocery shopping at Whole Foods (also 5% off), and then just replacing all the things in my home when they wear out or break -- kitchen things, bedding, electronics, and so forth. All things that are usually cheaper on Amazon than anywhere else anyways. (I still use Target.com for things that are cheaper there.)
- bobro 1y ago
  Same here. I was shocked when I first read the offer and am still shocked now that I get such a large cash back rate. It easily pays for itself.
- udkl 1y ago
  Try the PayPal Debit card if you are in the US (and I think UK) .... you choose the category each month for a 5% cashback.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  - crazygringo 1y ago
    I don't think Amazon purchases fall into any of their available categories: https://www.paypal.com/us/digital-wallet/rewards/rewards-categories https://www.paypal.com/us/digital-wallet/rewards/rewards-cat...
- kjkjadksj 1y ago
  It’s usually cheaper if you can source it from the manufacturer even paying their shipping rate. In fact the pricing structure on amazon often seems to include this shipping from manufacturer charge in the total cost just you aren’t aware of it. You still get 3% back on that card without prime on amazon fwiw.
Ntrails 1y ago
> I think my goal for 2026 will be not to order anything from Amazon This has been my position for upwards of 5 years. Between the quality / UX / social issues - well frankly I'd rather spend money elsewhere (although not at all is likely)
JamesAdir 1y ago
As a non-US based customer, I can totally relate. Even though prime is not really applicable to me (in terms of free shipping, a small selection of the media libary, etc), I'm still getting pushed to try Prime each time I try to shop at Amazon. The main problem is that unless it's a specific brand store, with products sold and shipped by Amazon, all the other products are pure junk. I can easily find them on AliExpress with much lower prices.
WorldMaker 1y ago
I have similar experiences though a different usage graph. My shipping peaks were college (textbooks and college needs/wants) and early in owning my own home. After that point I didn't need as much delivered, so many of my purchases had moved digital (books, music, videogames) or back to retail stores. I realized late in 2020 that the only two Amazon purchases I made that year (in 2020!, with quarantines and lockdowns and it being weird to visit physical stores, I still made more retail store purchases than Amazon purchases) were inconsequential and neither of them shipped as Prime delivery because all of them I took a discount to wait a week for (because there wasn't any rush). In the meantime I was fed up with Prime Video and wondering why I was paying for it. Between the dark patterns cancelling Prime and the many dark patterns trying to get you to join Prime I also stopped feeling like a welcome customer of large sections of Amazon's website and have gone even more back to boring old retail stores. My biggest remaining relationship with Amazon is because of the kindle, but their worsening DRM decisions do keep me wondering if I need to explore another ecosystem despite kindle's hardware advantages (including the possibly sunk cost that I invested in too much kindle hardware).
BobaFloutist 1y ago
Just for personal use, and not any sort of support for Amazon's business practices: When you get a free (or cheaper than you're currently paying for shipping) Prime offer, you can accept it and then the second the order has gone through go into your account and cancel it and still get the remaining number of promotional days, as well as the benefits for the current order. It's a slightly annoying step, but I figure if they're going to be dumb enough to keep offering me free promotions I might as well take advantage of it.

udkl 1y ago

For good or for bad, I've switched to Walmart for many of my orders as well as home delivery of groceries now and then and they have been decent. It's good to have competitors who are catching up.

inetknght 1y ago
Do frozen foods get delivered still frozen? I live 15 minutes away from the nearest wal-mart and frozens/refrigerables are my biggest concern.
- udkl 1y ago
  they don't do anything special for frozen items .... it's just as if you get it in bags from the store. .... add in additional time for neighborhood deliveries if any ..... usually they arrive semi-frozen .... you can track the delivery driver from the store (where they hopefully keep it in a cold room) to your home... for me it takes them from 20 mins to 1 hour for delivery ...
- jjani 1y ago
  How is this a concern? Does Amazon not sell frozen food (no fresh food from Amazon around here)? Otherwise why would Walmart be unable to
  - Rebelgecko 1y ago
    Walmart doesn't include ice like Amazon does, but for me it doesn't make a difference unless the delivery driver is goofing off
  - inetknght 1y ago
    > How is this a concern? Does Amazon not sell frozen food I don't know anything about Amazon other than I will never buy anything from Amazon because Amazon is a fucking terrible company.
- 5555624 1y ago
  It's not any different than going to Walmart yourself and getting groceries -- they just put them in plastic grocery bags. I've never had a problem with anything refrigerated or frozen. (Well, I've never ordered ice cream.) The key is to be home when they deliver it; so, you can put those things away immediately. They offer two-hour delivery windows and usually deliver within the window. In my experience -- I'm disabled and use them for groceries almost weekly -- about 5% fall just outside the delivery window. (Usually 10-20 minutes late.)
  - b112 1y ago
    I feel someone will soon start a website "melted-icecream.com", where someone tracks orders all over the country, from major online suppliers, and graphs how warm the ice cream is. Would be interesting. Once melted, ice-cream is never ice cream again.
bombcar 1y ago
Walmart + Target + Home Depot cover much of what I would have used Amazon for, and all offer free shipping in some way without joining any club. Walmart pickup is great.
- kevin_thibedeau 1y ago
  Home Depot reuses SKUs for different products. When they fulfill an order from a local store it's a gamble if you're going to get the item you wanted. You also can't exchange those orders online and are forced to go to the same store it came from.
  - everdrive 1y ago
    Best feature for home depot (and lowes) is that you can always constrain your query to the store. And when you do this, each product's page will show the the aisle and row the item is located at. (yes, I know the smartphone app will help you here but 100% of smart phone apps are bad, as are those who recommend them) Just spend a few minutes writing down your items & aisles and go visit the store. Trust me, it's better. The convenience of delivery just is not worth the stupid roulette that online retail has become.
    - brewtide 1y ago
      I do this every trip. I take screenshots of the page per item (usually only a handful) once I get to the parking lot. Then, I optimize my trip around the store to never double back. It's worth it.
    - willis936 1y ago
      I did this recently for a lawn mower that wasn't actually at the store the website said. We went to the exact location and it wasn't there. We talked to customer service and they said they could order it for us. No thanks, Home Depot.
MrMember 1y ago
I used Walmart delivery for groceries a fair amount last year and didn't have a single issue. I used it maybe six times this year and there was an issue with the order five of those times. Several times it was delivered to the wrong address. The other times I was missing around half of my order. I was able to get refunds without any issue every time but the experience was so awful I canceled and haven't used it at all the second half of this year.
- arachnid92 1y ago
  Your experience mirrors mine. My wife and I used Walmart+ for grocery deliveries basically every week for a year without any issues up until a couple of months ago. Suddenly, they started fucking up every single order, delivering things to the wrong address, missing items, or even claiming to have delivered an order that never arrived. After calling and complaining for the 10th time in a row, we gave up. We were so pissed off we even made a point of canceling the service, even though we get it for free as a credit card perk.

bombcar 1y ago

Prime ain't what it used to be. Used to be reliably 2nd day delivery, by a real shipping company, and good movies added, etc. Now it's as slow as "free" delivery, by a random contractor who does God knows what to the package, and prices aren't even better than Walmart or Target on many things. The "avoid subscribing to prime" shuffle you have to do to even order anything anymore drives me away too, I only use Amazon if it's more than 5% cheaper.

al_borland 1y ago
I really have to wonder if non-Prime and Prime deliveries go through the same shipping pipeline to simplify the process. When I order without Prime, it seems my order just sits for a few days, then it hits my credit card and I get it 2 days later. Almost like giving everyone free 2 day shipping wouldn’t cost them anything at this point, so they just artificially delay normal users to make the service worse. Occasionally the order will trigger right away and I’ve gotten non-Prime stuff in 1 day with free super saver shipping.
- arcbyte 1y ago
  > it seems my order just sits for a few days, then it hits my credit card and I get it 2 days later I have Prime and this is the majority of my orders. Lately I have been seeing a lot of free overnight deliveries tho, so maybe something is brewing.
- bombcar 1y ago
  I suspect they’re doing some “intelligent batching” of some sort to save costs on shipping SOMEWHERE. But it’s all inscrutable to me. I do miss the “$5 digital credit for forgoing prime shipping” I used to abuse.
- sershe 1y ago
  A much simple explanation is that each order is assigned a priority f(elapsed time, is prime) prime orders starting much higher so the processing of your order gets delayed behind all the incoming prime orders until its priority catches up due to longer elapsed time

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

crazygringo 1y ago

> I don’t know why any non-Prime customer would want to sign up At least for me, it's easy -- the Prime credit card, which has no extra fee beyond Prime itself. I get 5-7% back, instead of the 1-2% with my other credit cards. It literally pays for itself and more over the course of a year. The faster shipping is just a bonus. And I'm not buying junk I don't need either. It's literally just regular toiletries, my normal grocery shopping at Whole Foods (also 5% off), and then just replacing all the things in my home when they wear out or break -- kitchen things, bedding, electronics, and so forth. All things that are usually cheaper on Amazon than anywhere else anyways. (I still use Target.com for things that are cheaper there.)

bobro 1y ago
Same here. I was shocked when I first read the offer and am still shocked now that I get such a large cash back rate. It easily pays for itself.
udkl 1y ago
Try the PayPal Debit card if you are in the US (and I think UK) .... you choose the category each month for a 5% cashback.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- crazygringo 1y ago
  I don't think Amazon purchases fall into any of their available categories: https://www.paypal.com/us/digital-wallet/rewards/rewards-categories https://www.paypal.com/us/digital-wallet/rewards/rewards-cat...
kjkjadksj 1y ago
It’s usually cheaper if you can source it from the manufacturer even paying their shipping rate. In fact the pricing structure on amazon often seems to include this shipping from manufacturer charge in the total cost just you aren’t aware of it. You still get 3% back on that card without prime on amazon fwiw.

Ntrails 1y ago

> I think my goal for 2026 will be not to order anything from Amazon This has been my position for upwards of 5 years. Between the quality / UX / social issues - well frankly I'd rather spend money elsewhere (although not at all is likely)

JamesAdir 1y ago

As a non-US based customer, I can totally relate. Even though prime is not really applicable to me (in terms of free shipping, a small selection of the media libary, etc), I'm still getting pushed to try Prime each time I try to shop at Amazon. The main problem is that unless it's a specific brand store, with products sold and shipped by Amazon, all the other products are pure junk. I can easily find them on AliExpress with much lower prices.

WorldMaker 1y ago

I have similar experiences though a different usage graph. My shipping peaks were college (textbooks and college needs/wants) and early in owning my own home. After that point I didn't need as much delivered, so many of my purchases had moved digital (books, music, videogames) or back to retail stores. I realized late in 2020 that the only two Amazon purchases I made that year (in 2020!, with quarantines and lockdowns and it being weird to visit physical stores, I still made more retail store purchases than Amazon purchases) were inconsequential and neither of them shipped as Prime delivery because all of them I took a discount to wait a week for (because there wasn't any rush). In the meantime I was fed up with Prime Video and wondering why I was paying for it. Between the dark patterns cancelling Prime and the many dark patterns trying to get you to join Prime I also stopped feeling like a welcome customer of large sections of Amazon's website and have gone even more back to boring old retail stores. My biggest remaining relationship with Amazon is because of the kindle, but their worsening DRM decisions do keep me wondering if I need to explore another ecosystem despite kindle's hardware advantages (including the possibly sunk cost that I invested in too much kindle hardware).

BobaFloutist 1y ago

Just for personal use, and not any sort of support for Amazon's business practices: When you get a free (or cheaper than you're currently paying for shipping) Prime offer, you can accept it and then the second the order has gone through go into your account and cancel it and still get the remaining number of promotional days, as well as the benefits for the current order. It's a slightly annoying step, but I figure if they're going to be dumb enough to keep offering me free promotions I might as well take advantage of it.