Amazon Prime $67 (instead of $99) For One Day Only (New Memberships)

scott

I wasn't interested at $99, but went for it at $67.

Please use the MFO amazon link to start your purchase if you do take the deal. Look under the "Support Us" page.

Benefits:
FREE Two-Day Shipping on eligible items to addresses in the contiguous U.S. and other shipping benefits. For more information, go to Amazon Prime Shipping Benefits.

FREE Same-Day Delivery in eligible zip codes. For more information, go to Order with Prime FREE Same-Day Delivery.

Prime Instant Video: unlimited streaming of movies and TV episodes for paid or free trial members in the U.S. and Puerto Rico. For more information, go to About Prime Instant Video.

Prime Music: unlimited, ad-free access to hundreds of Prime Playlists and more than a million songs for members in the U.S. and Puerto Rico. For more information, go to About Prime Music.

Prime Photos: Secure unlimited photo storage in Amazon Cloud Drive. For more information, go to About Prime Photos.

Prime Pantry: Access to Prime Pantry, where members can purchase and ship to addresses in the contiguous U.S. low priced grocery, household, and pet care items for a flat delivery fee of $5.99 for each Prime Pantry box. Prime Pantry orders cannot be shipped to addresses in Alaska, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico.

Amazon Elements: Access to Amazon Elements products, Amazon's own line of everyday essentials.

Prime Early Access: Get 30-minute early access to Lightning Deals on Amazon.com and new events on MyHabit.com. For more information, go to About Prime Early Access.

Kindle Owners' Lending Library: access to members in the U.S. For more information, go to Kindle Owners' Lending Library
Kindle First: Early access for members in the U.S. to download a new book for free every month from the Kindle First picks. For more information, go to Kindle First.

Deals and Discounts, Compliments of Amazon Mom: These include 20% off diapers through Subscribe & Save and 15% off eligible products from your baby registry. For more information go to Get 20% off Diaper Subscriptions or About the Completion Discount.

Membership Sharing: Two adults living in the same household can create an Amazon Household to share certain Amazon Prime benefits. For more information, go to About Amazon Households.

VintageFreak

I have found that other stores are increasingly matching Amazon on price and they have advantage of "Ship to Store". Sorry MFO, but I've stopped purchasing on Amazon for most part.

Besides Amazon starting to charge tax for me now. Defeats the whole purpose of shopping online.

hank

I don't use the media features. But consider the shipping alone worth the $99. Good call Scott.

[Deleted User]

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scott

Even if Amazon does charge for sales tax in some instances (it may vary by which warehouse the product is coming from), there are a lot of instances where Amazon will offer the product cheaper. I don't go into Best Buy anymore, for example. Unfortunately, look at Radio Shack. Why go into Best Buy to buy a charger that will probably cost $20 when on Amazon it probably costs half as much.

Look at Target and Wal-Mart, I've seen plenty of instances where I've been in both stores and the online price at the store website is cheaper. Could I probably price match? Sure, but would rather not have to.

With Prime Pantry, Amazon is inching a little towards Costco.

It also comes down to how much you use Amazon. At $99, Prime wasn't appealing although it probably would have worked for me. At $67? Yeah, sure.

The other thing about Prime is that it removes the $35 requirement for free shipping. You can order a $2 item and get free 2 day shipping.

Amazon Now is also rolling out to more and more areas, offering delivery within a couple of hours.

Again, it's understandably not for everyone but on sale I thought it worked for me.

Accipiter

With Prime Pantry, Amazon is inching a little towards Costco.

When will the drones fly by and offer free food samples.

scott

Accipiter said:

With Prime Pantry, Amazon is inching a little towards Costco.

When will the drones fly by and offer free food samples.

Costco will be around for a long time I think partly because of a continued positive customer experience (although the thing that drove me bleeping mental was that they are so aggressive at check-out if you have the basic membership asking you to upgrade - they have someone going around with scanners scanning your card sitting on the cash register while you are checking out.) There's also the novelty of the experience - the cheap eats in the front, the samples (although people blocking the aisles near samples as if there's no one else trying to get by was annoying), new things often.

However, Costco locations are much more suburban than urban and people continue to move towards urban areas. "The urban population in 2014 accounted for 54% of the total global population, up from 34% in 1960, and continues to grow. The urban population growth, in absolute numbers, is concentrated in the less developed regions of the world. It is estimated that by 2017, even in less developed countries, a majority of people will be living in urban areas" (http://www.who.int/gho/urban_health/situation_trends/urban_population_growth_text/en/)

Amazon doesn't offer produce or other perishables (dairy), but who knows. That is really the next wave of service from Whole Foods and others. We live in an era where I can now order in advance from the local Starbucks from my Starbucks phone app.

Eventually there will be more and more of this:



While I don't have anything against Costco (I've pondered signing up again at times) and don't think it's going anywhere, I do think that there will be an increasing amount of quick delivery services and more and more people who will have their groceries come to them - whether via Prime Pantry or delivered from Whole Foods by services like Instacart.

msf

Regarding sales tax - customers are liable for sales tax. The issue is not one of whether one owes sales tax, but whether vendors help customers pay it by collecting the tax from them. If not, customers have to do extra work to comply with the law (typically declaring and paying the sales tax with their annual state income taxes).

I'll acknowledge that likely 99.9% of people do not report purchases on which they still owe sales tax. Colorado is one state that requires online vendors to report the purchases you made with them. Ignore the sales tax you owe at your peril.

Regarding price matching - if you don't want the hassle of having a store near you match its web price, you can order the product online with ship-to-store. A minor nuisance, but you avoid negotiating a price match. On the other hand, Best Buy's explicit policy is to price match online vendors, including Amazon, so it's easy to get Amazon's price there. I've done both (web order and BB price match).

Costco - I agree that it tends to be suburb oriented, but it has been making inroads into cities, unlike Walmart. Having a "good guy" reputation definitely helps.

@Maurice - definitely (no current rationale for tax laws biased toward internet commerce). Leveling the playing field will also make it easier for small local stores to compete. They can do that with a combination of personal service and prices that are in the same ballpark as online merchants (even if marginally higher). When the online merchants have to collect sales tax, that brings the prices closer together.

little5bee

@scott Costco is great for rental cars...unbeatable pricing. We just got back from New England and rented a midsize car for 10 days at the Portland, ME airport for $168. I get a family discount at Enterprise, since one of my sons works for them, and Costco beat that price. Last summer, we went on a month long road trip to Canadian Rockies and Pacific Northwest and saved $900 on the car by renting through Costco. We travel a lot, so between rental cars, vitamins, and eye exams, the Costco membership pays for itself. I wish the travel destinations weren't so limited....those deals are probably great, as well.

I got a year of Prime a couple years ago at a discount and found we didn't use it that much, so I let it go. I am quite organized, so my bf and I place our orders together to get the free shipping. I mostly use Amazon for specific items that I don't feel like driving everywhere to find.

Sorry....don't know how this ended up in your pm.

Kaspa

If you have a son/daughter in college, you can get the student version even cheaper. Amazon allows multiple ship-to addresses.

hawleyl

Has anyone read the reviews?

http://www.amazon.com/What-Amazon-Prime-Complete-Membership-ebook/product-reviews/B008J2AJPW/ref=cm_cr_pr_btm_link_57?sortBy=helpful&reviewerType=all_reviews&formatType=all_formats&filterByStar=all_stars&pageNumber=57

little5bee

@hawleyl

Yes, I noticed that, too, when I had Prime.

hank

They gave me 2 free months of Prime a while ago to compensate for a snafu on an order. Takes us to the end of year. I've had some non productive exchanges with their reps recently over an issue. May let Prime go when it runs out.

For $99 I can belong to Costco and (hopefully) enroll in Walmart's 3-day free shipping plan which is still in trials. Amazon is smooth when it works - a well-oiled machine, but trying to resolve problems that arise can be extremely frustrating. A lot of the reps really don't know up from down. (It's more apparent when you talk to them in person.) Not their fault. I suspect many are underpaid and undertrained and probably continually forced to jump through administrative hoops.