Couldn't agree more. I stopped my Amazon prime membership and now almost exclusively use Target and Walmart. Both offer free shipping for orders >$35 without a membership. And most of the items I buy are cheaper at Walmart and Target. I find Amazon to be overpriced.
> And most of the items I buy are cheaper at Walmart and Target.
Even used products aren't cheaper on Amazon. Ebay's usually cheaper (and, these days, maybe more trustworthy) and for books in particular both Abebooks and Alibris are usually cheaper, even with shipping, and sometimes way cheaper—which is weird, since Abebooks is owned by Amazon. Blindly using Amazon is a great way to be ripped-off. One cannot trust their prices or products, at all. Even non-tech-savvy relatives are starting to catch on that whole categories of products ought not be purchased on Amazon, ever.
If you want to see a ripoff just look at prime pantry. Most of those items you can use clicklist on and pickup same day at a Kroger store. Walmart has the same as well.
If you can easily get to a Kroger or Walmart and don't mind this errand, I don't think you're the target market for Prime Pantry. If you live in a city without a car, lots of things are either less convenient or more expensive. The grocery stores themselves are expensive, and if I'm going to have to walk or Uber home with my groceries that adds an extra hassle or cost. At that point something like prime pantry can be very worth it.
I get that, completely fair use case. There's Jet.com as well and no memberships and free shipping (opposed to the 5.99/box) prime pantry charges. Target does some things on a subscription basis that beats out amazon pretty much across the board too.
For books, if you're ok with older books, and don't mind if they're occasionally a little more beat up (but the condition classifications are usually accurate), thriftbooks.com is addictive. Super cheap books, and the first time I saw "free shipping in the US over $10" I went right ahead and spent $200.
Maybe so. But I recently was shopping for a piece of furniture at Target. Great price, not available in store. So I went to check out and it told me allow 7-10 days for shipping. I then typed the product into Amazon and found the same product for 30 dollars more. But it would arrive tomorrow.
For certain items definitely, and it pays to shop around, but you can get some incredibly steep discounts at Amazon if you're willing to wait and use a price watch tool. I routinely get non-essentials at a 25-50% discount because I'm willing to wait for Amazon's pricing algorithm to do something strange.
