I'm not generally in a rush; if they can get it here in a week or two that's fine as long as they tell me what day it'll be here.

I'm not saying it's a great deal for the company, but what can you expect consumers to do if Amazon has the cheapest price AND prime shipping you already paid for?

That said some companies at least raise their prices on purpose when posting to Amazon in order to meet their standards for things like returns and Prime shipping.

You say this like it's somehow a bad thing? Amazon has built an extremely efficient distribution network comprised of all major shipping companies and a vast array of third party sellers. The price you're seeing is the result of billions of dollars of investment paying off.

Most of the time I'm not in a rush, but I still pick 2-day Prime because it gets delivered to my door by UPS or sometimes FedEx. If I select slower shipping or order from another site it might come USPS or SurePost (handed off to the USPS). Best case with USPS is it ends up in the mail box down the road - worst case I have to drive to town and get it at the post office.

If Amazon would let me pick a slow option that was still UPS/Fedex, I'd do it. Same with other sites, sometimes I won't buy from them if they only ship USPS and I know it won't fit in the box.

For me, Prime is great because it means most thing come to my door at no extra (other than the yearly fee) cost.

thin profit margins on amazon is not the same as costs of doing business on amazon. Amazon takes a hefty cut.

Amazon's cut all in (shipping, listing, stocking, etc.) is often on par with the shipping cost for the slowest option with carriers.

15-20% of price sold at? No way.