return2ozmaIt’s Surprisingly Easy to Live Without an Amazon Prime Subscription
After canceling Prime, I’ve been able to reevaluate the necessity of that ultra-fast, always-free shipping and have found it mostly unneeded. Amazon still ships free when your cart is above $35, albeit a few days slower. After leaving Prime, I’ve been happy to wait. The products still arrive relatively fast, and the selection is still excellent. I’m also less inclined to make impulse purchases. If the tech giants can have their years of cost-efficiency, I guess I can too.
nocturneSince they added commercials to prime video we have been considering dropping prime. Video was really the only thing keeping us lately.
I can never find anything to watch on Prime Video. My subscription is any to renew in September and I’m about to turn off auto renew. I’ll still order my regular things from Amazon but now I’ll wait until my cart has $35+ in it for free shipping.
NoneYaI was the opposite. Never used the video but wanted it for the shipping advantages. I canceled because of the ads out of principle even though I didn’t use the videos.
I’ve found that I don’t use the shipping as much as I used to and don’t need to.
kismatticWas one of the people who dropped it after the commercials were added. Started using our library instead and haven’t really missed the video streaming. I’ll log in via a browser every so often and get offered a free month or week of prime and immediately cancel. Was able to access prime day deals without paying for anything.
I use Kanopy through my library for free streaming. They have quite a bit of a selection too! Also there’s Freegal music streaming, like Spotify, but free through the library.
Hey OP I did not know we had a frugal community. Thank you for your post now I can post there. …no sarcasm.
Enjoy!
What is Video? Prime member asking…
SHOW_ME_YOUR_ASSHOLEAmazon Prime is also a video streaming service like Netflix. It is included with your Prime shipping subscription but they recently started showing ads.
I had been considering getting rid of prime. The commercials were the last straw. I haven’t had it for 3 months now and haven’t cared at all.
That’s when I dropped prime. It’s been just fine.
Is this satire?
I think most people think you NEED the Prime subscription to use Amazon and that’s false.
OgmiosThough I’ve never used it myself, my understanding is that a subscription is actually less expensive than paying the shipping directly for lots of things.
You can get free shipping without the subscription if you spend over $35.
Amazon has free shipping on almost everything if you spend over $35 on the order. If I need to increase how much I’m spending I add some hand soap or some kind of dry grocery item.
Unfortunately the 5% back at whole foods makes up for the cost every month for produce and vegetarian substitutes my family eats.
I think so. I don’t even use Amazon.
It’s pretty wild how deeply some people integrate products into their lives.
Dumped prime years ago and never missed it. Here’s a secret: they will keep offering you 30 day free trials. I think I’ve had it five times now since I stopped paying.
Good to know! Thank you
So you pay triple at local stores. Bravo.
WxFischNot OP but we dropped prime and basically stopped using Amazon a few years ago when they started trying to put a giga-warehouse (their branding) in our residential neighborhood and we found that aside from the useless junk we didn’t need anyways, most local stores are the same price or less than Amazon. Target especially if you have a RedCard can have great deal on decent things.
Oh, for real? I’ve been “saving” mine for the next time I need to buy computer parts in bulk to build one.
Why save it when you’ll spend more than $35. Unless you want all the parts to build in 2 days and there are special discounts for Prime members.
That’s what I did last time and it took over a month for me to get all the parts. I figured that taking advantage of Prime would probably shorten the wait to about a week because I’m importing all the parts from the US.
Check if the sellers are ‘prime eligible’. Not all of them deliver in 2 days. There is a small list of exception.
I wanted to buy a product which said 14-20 days for delivery. I ordered using my friend’s Prime account and it still took the same amount of time.
Nice tip. Thanks!
I always look elsewhere and use Amazon as a last resort, especially for expensive or easily scammed stuff like PC parts. I prefer B&H for that in the US. They ship free and faster anyway over $50. And I save time by not needing to inspect everything to see if it’s used or counterfeit.
I really just hate the marketplace models Amazon and Newegg use.
Unfortunately, I don’t have a reliable local PC parts shop so I feel forced to shop online and import from the US if I want quality at a lower price. Items sold or shipped by Amazon have been the most reliable for me so far. It’s not that I don’t want to look elsewhere but I don’t have that luxury. Local shops have been sketchy with their quality and their prices.
I’ve been doing it since December. Agreed
Did you ditch Amazon entirely or just wait until you spend over $35 for free shipping?
I haven’t bought anything from Amazon. Bet eventually I will but I’m kidding just buying stuff from stores locally atm
I thought I cancelled 2 months ago and I was billed this week. I went through the same steps and when I got to a page that said something like “confirm cancel” I hit it again.
The top of the page said “you have 364 days left to enjoy prime benefits”
This time I scrolled down and there was another box to click. A second confirmation. Such bs
This is an example of dark patterns. It can also include multiple steps to ‘confirm’ a decision, where the confirm button is beneath the decline button, only for the final step to have the button locations (or colours, shapes, etc) reversed. It’s done on purpose to confuse people into giving up. Unfortunately, even if it works one time, it’s justifiable for the company to continue the practice.
Reach out to their customer support and get a refund.
If you haven’t used any of the benefits since its renewal, you can call to get a full refund. It did the same to me, and I was able to get the newest renewal fee back.
I cancelled two years ago and they renewed it somehow.
Then this year I let it use a cancelled card as the default and my one working card was on a list of 20 or so cards. It kept warning me that my card would not renew my prime subscription. Nah, they just ran an if statement over my cards to renew it.
I didn’t really fight it because my family uses my prime video which has ads but I’m prepping them that it’s not gonna be there next year.
It is surprisingly easy to not order things off of Amazon, too.
True, you do have to be wary of drop shippers on eBay though. A handful of times down I order something on eBay only to get it in Amazon packaging and with an Amazon gift packing slip - then I look up the item name on the gift receipt and find that the Amazon listing was cheaper and the eBay seller just skimmed off the top.
It helps to not click sponsored listings, and avoid listings with expedited shipping for free + free returns. Also if you do get drop shipped, mention it in your buyer feedback so others can search for it.
I really wish there was a non-profit or coop or public utility like replacement for amazon and ebay. Yeah you need a website and infrastructure and warehouses but this is becoming so fundamental to our economy that it’s not good to let this “rent seeking” to continue. Make it a fair marketplace that is democratically controlled and optimizes for customers and sellers and workers instead of for shareholders. There is no need for amazon or ebay to exist.
Similar to paypal, all they did was make wire transfers easy. At least I can finally wire money immediately in the EU without extra costs making paypal and their tax on the internet economy superfluous (damn lazy banks!).
Governments ignoring ecommerce as a vital infrastructure has created these completely useless plutocrats.
Ignoring the other benefits to prime outside of shipping, this is a major caveat:
"Amazon still ships free when your cart is above $35, albeit a few days slower. "
Most people are fine with slower, but if you’re forced to make your order $35 to get free shipping, you’re likely buying stuff you don’t want/need just to get to that amount.
Just to save like $10 a month?
I don’t think you save money by cancelling, unless you actually don’t buy stuff from Amazon to begin with.
For me, having Prime is still worth it. Several grocery items are still cheaper from Amazon, and ordering for same/next day means I don’t have to waste time/money/energy going to a store to get that same item.
But that doesn’t mean I won’t cancel the moment Prime stops being a good value.
We buy as little as possible from Amazon, though it sort of doesn’t matter because our choice is basically Amazon or Walmart (where we live there aren’t any other retailers).
Basically we buy as little from all of these shit companies as possible. We keep a running list of things we do need to buy from Amazon and when the tally is $35 or more, then we make the purchase. It doesn’t cost us anything extra because it’s stuff we can only get from Amazon and it’s all stuff we need.
CosmicTurtle0 [he/him]I’ve posted this elsewhere in similar comments. The value of Amazon has shifted from “buy anything” to “buy something that’s annoying to find”.
Unfortunately local brick and mortar stores are to blame as well.
Say you’re looking for a 3-ring binder. You likely know where to go for it at your local Walmart. You aren’t tied to a particular brand (or you are) and it doesn’t take you long to find it.
But now let’s say you’re looking for something small like car wax. You’re not sure what you need. You’d think it’s in the care care section but you’re not seeing it. The Walmart app says it’s in aisle K44 and your in, what the hell? Z4? Map does you no good. And when you get there there are so many small products that you can’t find it.
Amazon has done studies and the majority of shipped products weigh less than something like 5 pounds. People find Amazon search better than the in-store experience.
Walmart, and most B&M stores unfortunately have no incentive to change because they want you to browse. For Walmart, it’s basket size (items per cart) whereas Amazon is the speed of checkout.
if you’re forced to make your order $35 to get free shipping, you’re likely buying stuff you don’t want/need just to get to that amount.
Nnnnooo. I’m pretty sure I need toilet paper. My order was $33 for the main stuff I needed to buy and then I threw in toilet paper to push the order over $35. I needed that anyway.
Also, you could ask your spouse if anything else is needed around the house. Also, also, you could just wait until you need something else and batch the orders into 1 order over $35, instead of ordering a bunch of single $5 items.
It’s really not that hard. You should try it. Cancel Prime for 3 months. If you hate living without it after 3 months, then you can resubscribe. There’s no penalties.
I dropped it months ago. Only had it for 2 shows and you can get free shipping if you look elsewhere. Plus got tired of being ripped off with fake clothes and junk. The time for Amazon has passed.
I’ve never had one nor would I even consider it.
I mostly buy on ebay now and sometimes the main store. If I have no resort but to use amazon then I use someone else’s account but that hasn’t had to happen yet in a while (wanted to get the new pixel 8a and amazon had a promotion with a free $100 gift card)
Yeah but those fuckers stay trying to trick you back into it.
They’re also trying to trick you into staying.
CallateCoyoteI specifically remember canceling a few months ago but they decided to just charge me for another year anyways. It’s a total mystery to me.
Yeah I cancelled my Prime that I had for about 7 years a few months ago and… Its fine. Better maybe cause I don’t buy something stupid online I didn’t need. I try to find stuff locally first and free shipping makes me able to just buy something if I need to but haven’t found anything I NEED to buy from them.
I missed Prime Video but honestly with ads I can also just use Tubi and it’s the same jank cheap movie experience without supporting Bezos.
I do think it’s funny that I know some people who did the whole prime day this year and complained they bought garbage and that the prces were the same when they had to return the items and buy a new one but also the waste still hurts me
OMG YES. I canceled my subscription 2-3 years ago and I’ve never once thought about resubscribing!!! Highly recommend. 99% of the time I still get free shipping because I exceed the $30 threshold. If I don’t, then I’ll just add an item to the cart and wait until I need something else. If it’s something urgent, then I do pay for the shipping, but it’s still way cheaper than $139 per year. Bro, it’s fine.
I don’t care about Prime Video or Music, so for me it 1000000% made sense to cancel.
I hate that Amazon tries to trick me into signing up for Prime on every purchase, but that just pisses me off even more and makes it less likely for me to consider signing up.
And in other news: the sea is wet and the sky is blue.
DaeThe last straw for me was that Amazon drivers always seem to have some kind of problem finding my apartment. So even though instructions say “leave at my door,” it always ends up in Parcel Pending on the other side of my complex.
NOBODY ELSE has an issue finding my apartment: UPS, USPS, Uber Eats, even fucking Door Dash! But I might as well be living in the Bermuda Triangle to Amazon, so WTF was I paying for Prime for?
And honestly, like so many others, I’ve found it not even the least bit tempting to go back. Ebay has been a reliable alternative.
HupfMaybe they’re using different map providers by default? Check Open street map, Apple, Google and Bing and see if some will route to the wrong side of the building, for example.
If you’re that curious, of course. I’m not telling you what to do :-)
It probably takes too long to go to each apartment, especially ones on the opposite end, and they probably are incentivized/punished more on time than accuracy.
I’ve never had one, other than their free trials. Only then it was to make use of the next day delivery.