Amazon Super Saver Shipping threshold is now $35.00

[Zeke]

That's funny , free shipping costs me a lot of money

It does. It's all built in to the price.

 

[ChevyEFI]

The main thing keeping a percentage of my purchases on eBay instead of Amazon is there is no shortage of selllers unable to accout for their own overhead in their pricing.

And, Amazon has more stringent seller restrictions, which indirectly adds to that issue.

 

[bimmerZ5]

Amazon Prime FTW!!!!!!!

I can see how it might not be worth it to some people, but for my family, there are so many ways to "game" their offers that I easily save $80 over the course of the year. I was initially skeptical about Prime as well, then we got Prime for free for 3 yrs and realized it was actually worth it. You can share it with family too, so that's one way to split the cost. Regardless, there are so many benefits to prime, and we happen to use those benefits that it works out for us.

Same goes for our executive membership with Costco. The rebates we get from the membership at the end of the year covers the membership cost with plenty left over for a little shopping spree.

 

[Ign]

I'm surprised this didn't come sooner. How many other retailers (let's say tool and automotive online retailers in the spirit of this forum) will ship an order for free with a minimum of $25 or $35? I just ordered some solid aluminum stock from Amazon 'cause I could get it with free shipping while I'd have to hit $50 to get that from Enco.

 

[Hootbro]

...

I've been trying to push home the message on Car + Driving = Money argument to my wife. I use cargly to record all my gas costs for both of our cars. My wife's car is costing ~$0.18 a mile for gas over the last 60 days. My wife is the kind of person who will make a twenty mile round trip to get to the store to save $2 on an item she wants. I had to sit her down and explain that driving 20 miles at $0.18 a mile means that she just lost $3.60 in gas, and had a net loss over if she had just gone to the place 2 miles down the street and paid a little more. I'm trying to teach her that if you run 4-5 errands on the same side of town at once, your cost for each stop goes way down. I could make a similar argument for Amazon and how it saves in my gas/car costs.

........

Wish you luck with the wife and math thing. Women are hardwired to shop regardless and it is more about the act of going through the motions than the savings.

This sums them up pretty well:

 

[whyNick?]

What are u guys actually buying? I have prime but only need it for school books, cheaper and 2 day pays for itself over my school that marks them $100+ over.

Aside from that its just small random bits. I don't see many tools or autoparts that are deals. Just no tax is what makes it work.

Wow, it'd be quicker to list what I don't buy from Amazon .

I'm a cheapskate so I never pay more on Amazon than I'd spend locally, but I'm busy and there aren't a lot of stores close to my home so even if Amazon's price is about the same as it is in the store it's worth it for me to buy online and wait for two days for it to be delivered to my house instead of spending the time and gas to go to the store. As I mentioned ealier, we buy a lot of staple grocery items (mustard, coffee, soy sauce, and dried beans and rice are recent buys) and toiletries (baby diapers, first aid stuff, deodorant, shampoo, razors, toothbrushes) on a regular basis. If it's something you use up fairly quickly you can set up a "subscribe and save" on the item; amazon will ship it to you at a pre-determined interval and you save another 5% or so off the price.


I've found some great deals on auto parts too. Some highlights from the last year or so:

Front and rear pads and rotors for my Dodge Ram 2500- I found these on amazon for over $100 less than the local auto parts store wanted for the same brand and PN.

A front hitch for the same truck- I got this from Amazon Warehouse Deals for about $120 (the best I could find elsewhere was $180) because the box was slightly damaged.

A full exhaust and headers for a Jeep CJ- $75 cheaper on Amazon than I could find anywhere else.

A replacement rearview mirror for my wife's car- $25 (over $100 at the dealership)

A water pump for my camper- $35 on Amazon, $50 everywhere else for the same one

I almost bought a set of Torque Thrust D wheels for my car on Amazon, they had the best price by a few bucks but they only had 3 in stock at the time I wanted to buy .

Some of Amazon's tire prices beat Discount Tire and the Tire Rack, unfortunately they won't ship them to Ohio .

Now please excuse me, I'm going to go watch Duck Dynasty, it's free on Prime Video right now .

 

[Chadwilliam1]

I just placed a $23 order and I am a prime member. I had a dremel mandrel in my order which counted as an add on item which wouldn't ship. So I deleted from my wish list. I just wont buy it from Amazon.

 

[bowlofturtle]

Wow, it'd be quicker to list what I don't buy from Amazon .

I'm a cheapskate so I never pay more on Amazon than I'd spend locally, but I'm busy and there aren't a lot of stores close to my home so even if Amazon's price is about the same as it is in the store it's worth it for me to buy online and wait for two days for it to be delivered to my house instead of spending the time and gas to go to the store. As I mentioned ealier, we buy a lot of staple grocery items (mustard, coffee, soy sauce, and dried beans and rice are recent buys) and toiletries (baby diapers, first aid stuff, deodorant, shampoo, razors, toothbrushes) on a regular basis. If it's something you use up fairly quickly you can set up a "subscribe and save" on the item; amazon will ship it to you at a pre-determined interval and you save another 5% or so off the price.


I've found some great deals on auto parts too. Some highlights from the last year or so:

Front and rear pads and rotors for my Dodge Ram 2500- I found these on amazon for over $100 less than the local auto parts store wanted for the same brand and PN.

A front hitch for the same truck- I got this from Amazon Warehouse Deals for about $120 (the best I could find elsewhere was $180) because the box was slightly damaged.

A full exhaust and headers for a Jeep CJ- $75 cheaper on Amazon than I could find anywhere else.

A replacement rearview mirror for my wife's car- $25 (over $100 at the dealership)

A water pump for my camper- $35 on Amazon, $50 everywhere else for the same one

I almost bought a set of Torque Thrust D wheels for my car on Amazon, they had the best price by a few bucks but they only had 3 in stock at the time I wanted to buy .

Some of Amazon's tire prices beat Discount Tire and the Tire Rack, unfortunately they won't ship them to Ohio .

Now please excuse me, I'm going to go watch Duck Dynasty, it's free on Prime Video right now .

While I do admit amazon does have good prices they aren't always the lowest. I got some nice prem rotors for $20 shipped a pair.

I guess it doesn't work for me on random grocery items. I'm already at stores like Walmart during my lunch breaks. So I pick things up already.

I clean house on some pricing mistakes tho and sold on eBay.

I should use my prime video. Lol. Last I check 6-8 months ago it *****.

 

[nicksnothereman]

No clue where to put this, but I figured it impacts us deal seekers, so I put it here.

Props to SD for the alert.

One now needs at least $35.00 worth of stuff to get free shipping.
Prime is unaffected as of now I guess.

This blows.

Even worse in my state Amazon will start collecting for "The Man" starting in November.

Agree with everything you've said.

Amazon's prices (to begin with) aren't that great when it comes to what I buy. With ebay squeezing out small/medium sized sellers this is getting troubling for availability/choice.

 

[FarmerPete]

The one reason I haven't actually signed up for Amazon Prime is because I can't find a good front end for their instant video. Sure, I know I could watch their stuff on some kind of set top box like a Roku or even my PS3. The problem is, my TV watching is all done on our "Home Theater PC". Basically, it's a desktop computer permanently hooked up to the TV via HDMI. It works great. The Netflix website is so much more couch surfing friendly compared to Amazon. I love being able to rate things and have suggestions come up. With Amazon, I feel like I'm going through KMart looking for stuff on super clearance scattered across the store. They need a good computer front end. Either a website that is inviting, and the wrong click doesn't charge me $3.99. It needs to be so easy my wife and little kid can use it without accidentally charging me $40 for a TV show they thought was free, but only the first 2 seasons were free.

 

[EdJack]

I'm probably going to sign up for Prime. I have the Sears Shop Your Way Rewards MAX, and I'm loving it. With Sears, you have to spend $59 for free shipping. And when I find a "Hot Deal" at Sears, I would always have to pad my cart to get the free shipping, which then kind of negated the value of the Hot Deal. With Sears SYWRMax, I just drop the hot deal in the cart (might be 10 bucks), check out and on my way with free shipping.

I shop on Amazon way more than I shop on Sears. So I figure I'll get my money's worth for Prime.

 

[5mall5nail5]

Prime is worth it to me. Saves me a lot of money per year.

Prime changed too. They now ship by weight. For instance it used to be 3.99 for 1 day shipping on Prime eligible items. A welder, a camera lens, a tooth brush, didn't matter. Now, they go by weight. I needed a roll of 1000' of CAT6 cable. Used my usual sources and they were all expensive. Threw my order through Amazon and did 1-day shipping only to find that it was MORE expensive than a local place because they were charging me not $3.99 but $16.99 or something. So you give them $80, you get 2-day shipping (well, it takes more than 2 days sometimes... but....) on most things (but usually it was free "super saver" anyway) and they charge you now by weight for 1 day. Kind of losing its appeal honestly.

 

[StillKeen]

I keep stuff 'saved for later' in my cart, and then when I need a specific item, I add across enough saved items to get me to the $25 limit. So I guess now I'll have to add a few more. The sales tax is a pain, as it takes away some of the savings.

My main gripe with amazon (I do order like every second week, so its not stopping me shopping there), is the incorrect prices. I was buying hammerlite paint, and they had it down from $40 to between $6-10, depending on color. Yet HD have it for about $6 as their regular price. So now I'm careful to check that the amazing Amazon sale price really is a sale price.

 

[ren71]

They now ship by weight. For instance it used to be 3.99 for 1 day shipping on Prime eligible items. A welder, a camera lens, a tooth brush, didn't matter. Now, they go by weight. I needed a roll of 1000' of CAT6 cable. Used my usual sources and they were all expensive. Threw my order through Amazon and did 1-day shipping only to find that it was MORE expensive than a local place because they were charging me not $3.99 but $16.99 or something. So you give them $80, you get 2-day shipping (well, it takes more than 2 days sometimes... but....) on most things (but usually it was free "super saver" anyway) and they charge you now by weight for 1 day. Kind of losing its appeal honestly.

I think you're mistaken ,I've been a Prime subscriber for the past 8 years or so and have never seen them offer next day shipping on all items in your cart for $3.99. Each next day item was 3.99.
Next day shipping is actually better now since they give you one price that's usually cheaper than paying a next day charge for every item.

And one thing that hasn't been mentioned is the convenience of not having to deal with return hassles at a brick and mortar or other stricter online places.
Ive never had buyer's remorse from amazon that I couldn't reverse.

Slap a free return label and you're done. True the prices aren't as good as they used to be with tax and all but it's still very convenient for me.