I turned it off last year and barely noticed. Free shipping if over $25 of amazon packages. They generally arrive “early” every time if you’re in a city because the stuff is already in the local warehouse and the delivery truck is already headed your way and artificial delays might not be a great look

Yeah, they don’t want to hold your orders in a warehouse anyway. I think it only makes a difference around Christmas time tbh.

Delivery times at Christmas with prime were over 2 weeks so no help there

I did not renew my Prime membership this year after Amazon raised the annual price again. We have too many streaming services in our house as it is, and we don't order enough from Amazon to take advantage of the free shipping.

I've also found Amazon's prices getting less competitive, especially for things you'd usually buy at placed like Target (drive up pickup is amazing). Combined with the endless search results that are likely counterfeit and full of fake 5 star reviews, it's just too much work to buy things from Amazon for too little benefit.

As a consequence I've found myself ordering more from retailers directly, without any real downgrade in shipping.

I love how target has solved the Amazon as competitor issue with just incremental improvements. I much more strongly trust target’s product curation staff over amazon’s anything goes mentality

I just hope that Target doesn’t follow Walmart in copying Amazon’s flawed shared inventory system. I hate having to constantly check for other 3rd party sellers who both sell the same (potentially fake) product AND use Amazon warehouses and fulfillment. It’s for this reason that our household has been gradually moving more and more of our purchases to Target.

Unfortunately there's a lot of niche stuff on Amazon that Target won't have -- 3d printing filament e.g. And there aren't that many 3D printing stores in town here. In fact there are none.

+1 the counterfeit items on Amazon are getting out of control. It's so stupid that there are so many millions of cheap knockoff products in any category with an overflowing number of fake 5-star reviews.

I've been using Fakespot but at the same time I have always wondered wtf Amazon is doing about it at all.

I'm not doubting that there are a shit ton of counterfeits on Amazon, but I am wondering how I've managed to avoid them so well. I have literally never received something from Amazon that I thought even had the possibility of being fake.

Could it have to do with the specific categories I shop in? Maybe the stuff I buy from Amazon just isn't profitable enough for the bad guys to bother counterfeiting?

Same here. I don't doubt people's experiences, but I have never received a counterfeit product while shopping relatively heavily and in various categories (electronics, baby clothing and food, books, kitchenware, stationery, etc.).

Maybe you do have one that’s counterfeit but is functionally ok? I had several items that didn’t pass (a Braun thermostat and a wheeled kitchen stool).

I suppose that's possible, but if the thing I got works just as well as the thing I ordered, what's the difference?

My prime membership expired last week.

same cancelled prime and most orders over 25 so was free anyways so it was money well saved at 15 a month for basically same end result. They seem to be testing scaring you with saying 2 3 weeks delivery time but in reality shows up in 2 days (using same logistics)

Same experience here in India. I didn't renew my Prime membership last month and soon found myself making all my purchases on Flipkart (Walmart) and actually found it to be better overall.

Now Amazon India's supposedly experimenting with a $12 (999 Indian rupees) "Prime Lite" plan, and even that is unappealing to me [1].

For entertainment, Amazon Prime in India is a weird concoction of content and placeholders for other streaming services that you have to pay extra for. They intend to be some sort of single-stop gateway to multiple streaming services, but end up being a total mess.

[1] https://techcrunch.com/2023/01/14/amazon-prime-lite-membersh...

I am actually surprised how flipkart continues to be mediocre. Amazon is usually cheaper, has better product reviews, and has more selection than flipkart. Walmart has owned them for years at this point. Like step it up already.

Time for Walmart+ maybe? They seem to be providing a lot of extra benefits like Prime as well, with the added advantage of lower prices and heavily stocked supercenters everywhere around me.

I've cancelled my prime membership when they announced the latest price hike. It ends in February, but I've already started ordering from other places more, comparing prices for everything, and buying from Amazon way less. For me, Amazon is now largely failing as a retailer - expensive, full of fakes and low quality items, really bad search, even their customer support isn't what it used to be.