Submitted 9 months ago by AnActOfCreation@programming.dev to technology@lemmy.world
https://slate.com/technology/2024/01/quit-amazon-prime-how-to-free-shipping.html
Archive link: archive.ph/3M27c
Buying anything on Amazon hardly seems viable anymore. There’s so much counterfeit crap there, and a million low-effort rebrandings of the same stuff you can get on AliExpress for cheaper.
Shop local when you can, and at least shop not-Amazon for the rest.
Shop local when you can
Not sustainable for me, I price it from time to time and local stores are usually, at best, double what Amazon or even Walmart has it for and that’s if the local store even has what I’m looking for to begin with
So my choices are Amazon or Walmart (or similar big name stores) and going to Walmart…yea fuck that it’s a last resort for everything but groceries…
There’s so much counterfeit crap there, and a million low-effort rebrandings of the same stuff you can get on AliExpress for cheaper.
I keep seeing this over and over, but I order a lot off Amazon and I’ve never had a problem with it. Don’t know if I’m just incredibly lucky or what, but the only times I get counterfeit / cheap Chinese crap is when I order it on purpose.
Ofc, those things I can just get off AliExpress too and sometimes I do when I don’t mind waiting which is the biggest issue with AliExpress, the waiting
I, and probably millions of others, are shopping where the best price/value is and nothing else because we can’t afford not to. I wouldn’t mind shopping locally owned and paying the premium…if I could afford it. Stop pushing for expensive alternatives people can’t afford and push for regulations instead.
Ya simple solution: don’t buy no-name chinesium crap regardless of the storefront and you won’t be disappointed
I can’t say that I have ever gotten anything counterfeit from Amazon. What I have been victim to is no name garbage that has 4.5 stars due to thousands of fake reviews. Generally it is stuff that is difficult to research good brands and the review websites often simply redirect back to Amazon. It’s also very little use leaving a bad review because Amazon will remove it. For an example, Louis Rossman bought some fuses on Amazon. The 2A fuse did not blow until 10A was passed through it. That was not a fluke either. He left bad ratings which were removed and those products continue to be sold on Amazon. That is shit easily that can start a fire. If there actually was blow back, the manufacturer would simply stop selling that named version but keep the half a dozen other identical ones up they use to flood the results. So while this may not have ever been an issue for you, it can easily get someone killed. Your conclusion is spot on. We need regulation for this garbage. While Walmart is generally seen as garbage, there is at least someone responsible for purchasing shit to put in the stores and they generally have it tested. That is not the case for Amazon or Walmart’s online marketplace or AliBaba.
If I see something on Amazon that I want, I just go to the manufacturer’s website and order it directly from them. If they don’t have a site that sells it, then I try other online stores besides Amazon. If they only sell on Amazon, then I decide I just don’t need it.
damn right
every time i’ve intentionally picked the ASNDSZYY brand i’ve been disappointed in the thing and in myself. now i’d rather just spend up front for something actually good rather than waste time and effort going back and forth returning things
I think people who see countfeit stuff don’t know what they are buying before they go on Amazon and order from Chinese brands. I know what I’m going to buy before I go on Amazon so I never have the issue. I just use it to check prices and buy if it’s a good enough discount.
It’s getting to the point where even searching for specific products is almost pointless. I did a search for a specific phone model recently and the phone showed up as the fifth result after four prompted results and several ads. When it becomes a chore to even track down a very specific thing you want, why would I keep going back?
The only search worse than Amazon is probably Wayfair.
Amazon hardly seems viable anymore. There’s so much counterfeit crap there, and a million low-effort rebrandings of the same stuff you can get on AliExpress for cheaper.
What do you mean? You don’t want to buy PRAZO USB-C CABLE FOR DATA TRANSFER AND CHARGING, 3M LENGHTH, COMPATIBLE WITH LAPTOP, DESKTOP, IPHONE, ANDROID?
I love these.
EXTRA HIGH QUALITY PREMIUM KNIFE AND FORK AND SPOON CUTLERY EATING SET COMPATIBLE WITH RICE DISHES, ASIAN FOOD, CHIPS, SAUSAGES, CHICKEN, GALAXY S24+, SALAD.
plus i have gotten several obviously used items when it wasn’t even available as used and cost full price.
I got a motherboard once where it was obvious that someone bent the pins then returned it. I had purchased new item though
Every trip to Amazon overwhelms me with choice, then I realize it’s all from Ali, then I close the tab.
I really only buy things from it now if I know what I’m looking for already
Shop local when you can,
So local strangers working to support some local guy’s Maui beach house need our support instead of local strangers working to support some faraway guy’s Maui Beach House?
It’s all local business when their main cost is the employment of locals. Don’t be a snob.
Anybody know more about this?:
I’ve heard the following sentiment & a similar stat over the years:
When you spend money locally, those dollars don’t just evaporate to some corporate headquarters across the country or around the world. Instead, they tend to stay in the community, where they’re reinvested between three and six more times. When consumers spend $100 at a chain store, only $13 stays in the local community, on average. At a local business, that number rises to a healthier $48.
I can imagine a local shop owner sponsoring the local little league team… and I know the average hole-in-the-wall donut or phở restaurant owner won’t have a beach home, and I like they have the potential to make a decent bit of dough without college degrees… but perhaps somebody’s actually analyzed this?
You’re kidding right? Are there actually people thinking they just can’t live without Amazon Prime? Seriously? Fuck even if you HAVE to order something off of Amazon, which you absolutely don’t HAVE to do, you don’t fuckin need prime just for… what… slightly faster shipping?
Free shipping, but at that point you should question why you are buying so much from amazon in the first place to make that worth it
I effing hate amazon and what it stands for. Yet, it’s one of the very rare companies here (krautland) that actually give a damn about support and reliability.
Got a prob? It’s solved saturday night.
Got a prob with <most other german companies>? You can call us mo-fr between 11:00 and 12:00 but only when it’s not fullmoon. Also your estimated queue time is 2hrs. And wait till you hear our mind-dissolving on-hold-“music”…
When amazon says “it’s in stock and can be with you tomorrow if u order within 2hrs from now” then it is like this.
You get the gist…
So, on topic: i only buy prime when i plan to order a lot of stuff the coming month. For occasional orders i don’t need prime. Most of the time i can just use another free trial instead of actually paying.
It’s the Walmart problem. People buy from Amazon because they can’t afford some necessities at MSRP when going to a local store.
Some of the stuff I can get in bulk on Amazon are as much as 50% cheaper than getting those same things in bulk from a restaurant supply (which is cheaper than buying them at a grocery store). And that’s before Subscribe&Save’s 15% off. Coffee (for example) costs would drive me into the poor house if I didn’t get my beans from Amazon… and I end up getting higher quality beans than my grocery store at that lower price.
Do I NEED coffee to live? No. But it’s not exactly a luxury in the modern world. There are things I buy that I need; there are things that I buy that I want. And as much as I hate it, most of them are not available locally or are FAR more expensive locally. I never go to Amazon first, but I very often find myself landing at Amazon last.
And yes, that doesn’t justify Prime on its own. But because I have Prime, I get those things that I couldn’t find cheaper elsewhere the very next day. Prime will never be necessary when there’s free shipping options, but boy have they packed it out with more features than (for example) Walmart’s subscription model.
Here’s what I get with Prime that I appreciate:
I mean, a lot of it I could get on the High Seas as it were, but it’s the law of convenience. They make it easy and there’s a value prop there for me.
If I JUST wanted free shipping, Prime would be a complete waste of money to me. But I’d still end up giving Amazon my damn paycheck because the alternatives are just not there where I live.
$25 gets you free shipping anyways unless they changed it!
It’s not really how much you buy, but how conveniently. I also thought it was silly to pay Prime, until pandemic. Then I discovered it’s silly to goto stores.
I go to the grocery once a week, and very rarely goto other stores. Al those trips to Walmart and target and kohls and those horror that are malls, just gone. I want free shipping on my shampoo, for example, because it saves me a trip to the store. If I had to wait until I had $35 worth of stuff to get free shipping, I’d probably end up with anther trip to a store: my time, my car costs.
Granted I also get things like shampoo in larger sizes than my local store Carries, so arguably more efficient in many ways
On the contrary, during the great formula shortage of 2021/2022, Amazon Prime and the recurring delivery option was the only way I was able to get formula for my twins. Speed was important l, but so was Amazon’s huge supply chain.
Since then, we live in a remote place and getting some stuff just isn’t possible at the one store near us. Amazon is really one of the best ways to get things we need. Now, of course, I hate them, but I also hate Walmart and don’t really have choices beyond those or a gas station convenience store.
The practices of those businesses, and people choosing them over other options, is exactly why you don’t have other choices now
Then imagine living without Amazon altogether… impossible
I cancelled Prime late last year, and haven’t really missed it, either.
Leaving Prime also meant the end of free Amazon Prime Video (you can still rent or buy many movies without it), but I’ve been able to bear it.
While I had Prime, I think there was 1, maybe 2 instances where I wanted to watch something and it was actually included with Prime. Every other time, Amazon Video had the movie, but they wanted an additional fee to watch it, so this was absolutely no loss.
One thing to note: Every time I check out on Amazon, now, they offer me a reduced price 1-week “trial” of Prime, to get the expedited shipping, for like… $5 or so? If you cancel yours, and also see this offer: You can take the offer, submit your order (and get the free 2 day shipping), then once you get the shipping confirmation, go in and cancel the Prime subscription. Since you’ve had it for only a few hours, Amazon actually refunds the price you paid. In effect, you get the shipping benefits for free. We’ll see if they close this loophole, but for now, it works.
If you decline a few times they’ll eventually offer you an entire month of Prime for free. I’ve thus never paid for Prime, ever.
No gain or loss there. Amazon’s logistics are so grabasstic now that delivery lead times are about the same with or without Prime. So I don’t particularly care.
I only buy commodity bullshit on Amazon anymore, and sometimes not even then. If they have it for a good price I might get a pack of crimp connectors or a roll of 3D printer filament or nuts and bolts or something. Otherwise it’s just wall-to-wall Chinese word salad non-brand knockoff shit on there anymore. You may as well just shop on AliExpress since at least they’re honest about hawking tat from Shenzen and it’s cheaper to boot.
You might find this very interesting
There have been zero times Amazon video has had something I wanna watch
I canceled my prime subscription when it was announced they would be putting ads on prime video. I don’t even use prime video but I cancelled out of principle.
Same here. It’s a future that I don’t want. Ads everywhere and you cannot escape.
Same. Gonna have to find some way of pirating the shows I ‘purchased’ on prime so that I can still go back to them.
I think that you can still watch them.
If you link your account to Vudu, Google, and Movies Anywhere they should appear on the other platforms I believe?
Same. And for me the shipping was still 2 days or more to my location. No point.
I thought this meant the writer is forgoing Amazon as a service completely.
Cause that would be something worth reading. Not these first world problems ffs
Seriously. I have stopped doing as much business with Amazon as I can. Terrible company. Bad for the planet.
I wish I had alternatives. For man yof the stuff I need, my only option is amazon simply because local shops dont stock them.
The crap people write nowadays.
It’s surprisingly easy to live without any subscription. I don’t have any. If you’re tech savvy you can either block most ads that subscriptions give you, or bypass the service entirely and get free premium or just dl videos/music etc.
And as the services get worse there’s little incentive to actually keep a subscription. Netflix is becoming pretty dogshit for example.
Or if you’re not tech savvy, buy physical, wild concept I know
Now’s a good time to be looking for cd’s and bluray that people are purging
Prime used to mean something. Guaranteed 2 day shipping with no minimum for no extra charge. $5 for next day shipping. Then next day disappeared. Then the 2 day guarantee disappeared. Then delivery times were in the 3-5 day range for most things. Then, in my university town, around the time of students returning to school for terms it would be 1-2 weeks. I’m not paying an ever increasing annual fee for that.
Back then, Amazon was the shit. My GF at the time and I cancelled our Costco membership because shipping was good and selection was better.
Now, Amazon is shit. And now back to buying in-store whenever possible. And got a Costco membership again.
I have a running cart in my Amazon and about once every two weeks I’ll hit the purchase button.
Just not worth it anymore.
Yeah it has definitely gotten worse outside urban centers, but there it’s actually gotten better with same day shipping options on orders over $35. I can impulse buy shit at work and it’s there when I get home.
I literally had an Amazon CSR tell me “Prime” shipping was an estimate
I’ll go further, I stopped using Amazon entirely and I don’t miss it.
The junky shopping experience is especially clear once you leave and come back.
I only ever order books from amazon anymore, and usually only when I get a gift card or a product isn’t for sale elsewhere.
The prices aren’t even that good anymore.
if you want to try an Amazon alternative of books, try ThrifBooks, they have new books as well as used ones
Mitzi of the books I buy are reference books, that site actually has a decent stock, thanks!
There’s a great website called geizhals.de which gives you a price comparison for a lot of different online stores for each product and there are almost always multiple stores that sell it cheaper than Amazon.
Do you know an English version or alternative?
The junky shopping experience is especially clear once you leave and come back.
I mean, the junky shopping experience isn’t unique to Amazon. You could find it in Walmart and TJ Maxx and any number of other low-income retailers a decade ago.
But that’s largely a result of the pivot to Planned Obsolescence as a universal standard for consumer products. Things are junk because if they don’t degrade in quality you won’t be inclined to buy new ones. Your shoddy kitchen appliances break after a couple of years. Your electronics die just in time for a new release. Your IKEA furniture can’t be disassembled without destroying the particle board its made from, so you need something new every time you change residences. Everything from your AC unit to your car radio to your dishwasher is designed to fail inside ten years, because that’s how business gets you back in line to shop.
The prices aren’t even that good anymore.
Greedflation, baby. Everyone’s got to justify their existence with steadily increasing profits.
you must live near a metropolis where you have multiple sources for products are already in your area because in many parts of the world amazon is supplying many things that are not sold at local brick and mortars.
Jesus, they were just saying that they themselves don’t miss it, not that no one should ever use it, no need for all the snarky sarcasm.
The prices aren’t even that good anymore.
That’s because they have been forcing suppliers/sellers to raise their prices.
I dropped Scamazon Slime a long time ago when I figured out they were not meeting their 2 day shipping promise. I really have never missed it.
I hate Amazon for a variety of reasons, but I can’t you seriously after you said scamazon slime.
I can't you either.
Twinklebreeze.
they were not meeting their 2 day shipping promise
Oh. That’s like visiting Canada for a bit, where ‘prime’ usually feels like a week.
I’ve been living without it my whole life so I guess it’s possible
Lmao it’s surprisingly easy to live without AMAZON.
I can’t imagine being such a simpleton that this is a revalation worthy of a write up
I’ve never had prime. Whenever I look at Amazon now it’s basically a local AliExpress with loads of cheaply made Chinese stuff. Amazon is not cheap anymore either. eBay is always cheaper.
Dude… We’re trying to live without Amazon and this guy is just giving up prime??? What a martyr…
This may be true at the moment, but Amazon can control how shitty the non-prime experience is.
Personally, I’m trying to avoid Amazon altogether. It’s much worse now, and flooded with cheap defective shit. I’ve also been noticing that a lot of manufacturers don’t sell on Amazon (guessing Amazon takes a big cut).
I can’t live with Amazon, so I NEVER use them out of principle.
Christ, we cancelled it a month ago and I feel so fucking stupid. Stupid that we had it for so long for… what? I don’t need anything so quickly that a couple of days delivery makes a difference. Food, water, heat, somewhere to sleep are things I need on a strict schedule. Knock off earbuds and some silicone molds for frozen shot glasses can absolutely wait. AND IT’S STILL FREE SHIPPING, you just add to cart and buy once you hit $35.
Wow, never thought I’d see a headline like this. I’ve never had Amazon prime except for the free month trial. I had no idea it was such a problem for others that there are articles written about it.
I wait for “try prime for 30 days” offers. I’ll sign up for it, instantly cancel it to prevent recurring bills, and then order whatever it was I was thinking of over the last six months. Because once upon a time I’d be on Amazon all the time, browsing this and that, but it has become such a cesspool that I infrequently bother. If I wanted to wade through a sea of Chinese OEM crap and counterfeit products, then I might as well use Aliexpress and be done with it.
I been anti-amazon for about 5 years now.
Nothing lost or needed. If I need something I go to local store to find it.
My only issue with Amazon is tools that uses their cloud services and Twitch. But since last December I decided to switch to YouTube with ad blocker.
Planning on de-google and de-microsoft within the next two years.
Every time I've ordered something from Amazon, they always push Prime for fastest shipping. Then when you turn that down, they give you an option to pay a little more this one time to get your order shipped faster. I always pick the cheapest shipping option. The order generally comes just as fast as the fastest shipping, without paying the extra money.
They are going to ship according to whatever is easiest and cheapest for themselves if you pick the cheap shipping option. By now in most large population centers, Amazon warehouses are already stocked. Until they start cutting shipping costs, it will almost always arrive well before their estimates. So just save yourself the money and ditch Prime.
I just order from aliexpress. 10 day shipping (to canada) is worth the ~30% discount and the mask-off, low-cost chinese product offering. I’m sick of getting ripped off by useless garbage with 5 stars from amazon.
And Jeff, I am coming for you.
Prime is a waste of money.
It’s a joke unless you need something overnighted or next day and as a bonus - it will usually be improperly packaged and delivered with malice.
Prime Video catalogue is a pale shadow of what it used to be. Exclusives have dwindled. Now they want 3 bucks for no ads on top of paying for Prime? Naw.
Counterfeits are everywhere. That’s what Aliexpress is for (half joking). Frequently have to check the manufacturer’s site when pricing or picture seems dubious.
One delivery driver commandeers our neighbors’ empty driveway, swings the back doors open and blasts shitty pop music at full volume while fumbling through deliveries for 30 minutes every other day.
Buying direct is now often the same price more or less and you can get in a week anyway for negligible shipping price. Or even free shipping if you spend x amount.
So we cancelled too.
Yup. I stopped using Amazon for anything but maybe searching the closest thing to a unified search engine for goods, and when I find good information or a product I need, I will find somewhere else to buy it.
Turn Amazon into a search engine. Buy somewhere else.
We just dropped Prime a month or so ago and I can’t see ever getting it again.
I wanted to cancel Prime for a long time due to all the creeping enshittification. The last straw were ads on the Fire TV boot screen (I switched to Shield TV Pro) and the notice that ads were coming on Prime Video. I immediately canceled after that mail. 90 EUR less from me. Next incentive: order less.
Musk, bezos, guillotine
Engywuck@lemm.ee 9 months ago
Some of us have been living without an Amazon account since 2007 and we’re still alive. Go figure.
KpntAutismus@lemmy.world 9 months ago
i have reverted to this lifestyle, and i love it. creating the 5-6 accounts for local platforms was a slight hassle, but now i can enjoy the benefits of a “small” company which still cares about what the customer thinks.
KnightontheSun@lemmy.world 9 months ago
Can you please expound on this?
I gave up on Amazon last year. I do without many things which is fine, but there are some things that are more difficult to find without them. I am still doing without as I’d like to figure it out for the long term.
Can you give examples of the vendors that supplant Amazon for you?
helenslunch@feddit.nl 9 months ago
What “local platforms” are you referring to?
dogslayeggs@lemmy.world 9 months ago
I started boycotting Amazon back in 1999 when they pulled the 1-click patent bullshit. I loved them before that.
swayevenly@lemm.ee 9 months ago
In 1999? Brah.
Krackalot@discuss.tchncs.de 9 months ago
I barely manage, but I suvive.
freebee@sh.itjust.works 9 months ago
Sometimes shop around on amazon. Find something I like or need: look for the website of the producer or distributor, order directly from them. Usually same price, sometimes cheaper. Fuck the middleman.
Engywuck@lemm.ee 9 months ago
Well, this is exactly what I do sometimes. And not only for Amazon, but for quite a lot of local marketplaces.