Amazon Add On Item Program Hitting Prime Members Nerves!
Okay, I knew I wasn’t loosing it. I had a commenter ask if I am sure I know what I’m talking about and then I found more people complaining about so not to beat a dead horse (is it me or do you get an awful image every time that saying is said) — but this Amazon Add On Item Program is NOT good people.
Here are a few comments from Amazon’s site.
Short and skinny of this whole add on b.s. is that I had several items I ordered before that were free shipping and are now add-on items. Total B.S. Yes. It does defeat the purpose of Prime and when Amazon starts tacking on taxes in the next year or so, I’ll be dropping Prime because I have a gut instinct that more and more items I was able to purchase with free shipping will now require me to purchase $25. Man I am so hoping the usually reliable Amazon gets burned to the ground on this derriere move.
I knew I wasn’t losing it!
Interesting reply from Amazon because it comes from MBA’s who are looking for ways to outsmart its loyal Amazon Prime customers. Using key trigger phrases like “conserve resources” and “reduce our environmental impact” is a simpleton marketing ploy that belittles those of us who bought the Amazon Prime membership with the intended benefits of receiving any prime eligible item without the $25.00 mininum that is required for those without the membership.
To quote the Amazon rep’s reply, “Unfortunately, our system won’t allow the order for the add on items for below $25.00 orders.” It’s not a system problem or glitch; it’s a well-thought-out strategy.
This is truly a disappointment and I don’t buy into Amazon’s jargon that, “Our new Add-on program allows Amazon to offer thousands of low-priced items that would be cost-prohibitive to ship on their own.” Look at what is already happening to others who have replied here about items they have purchased in the past that were not a part of the Add-on program and now they are. Soon we will all being paying $40 to $80 for a membership that’s only covering the cost of an extremely limited library of movies and tv shows.
Read more here from Amazon’s forum.
So what do you think? Amazon Add On Item good or bad? At the end of the day, it’s Amazon’s call and sure they need to make more money but it’s just sad. What’s next? Is Zappos going to lose free shipping (Amazon company)?
blech. I hate when good companies go to the dark side.
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8 comments on “Amazon Add On Item Program Hitting Prime Members Nerves!”
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Hi! I'm Molly a blogger in Dallas, TX. Welcome to Digital Mom Blog, where we talk about parenting, technology, mom life and geekery. Want to know more? Read on. -
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I see, unfortunately, this as an underhanded way for Amazon’s marketing
department to appear as though they are offering their customers more
catalog items than in the past. When in reality, they are setting
themselves up to bring in more revenue ( a guaranteed $25+ just to make
these add on items available to customers in a depressed economy). They
truth is that many of these items were available with Amazon Prime
before this Add On program was launched. But then they found a way to
make at least an additional $25 per order, and make you, the customer
feel they were offering you something that wasn’t available to you in
the past. The fact that these items are completely unavailable until you
pay them $25 for items you may not need nor want and that there is not
an option to pay for the single item’s shipping clearly shows the
company’s intent to make money at the expense of their customer’s
wallet. The reality is Amazon has a theoretical internet superstore
monopoly and needs some healthy competition. If they think at least some
of their customers aren’t intelligent enough to see through their
marketing fleece, and I’m sorry it has come to this Amazon; I, as well
as many of my family and friends once had a lot of respect for your
marketing practices, but that has quickly dissolved away.
This is horrible for Prime members. I hope enough of them leave that Amazon will have to rethink this strategy. Another brilliant strategic move that is bad for consumers…Amazon decided to locate warehouses in CA, thereby agreeing to charge CA residents sales tax. To make matters worse and to undermine smaller retailers who would otherwise be able to sell items to CA without sales tax, Amazon is also supporting federal legislation to make all online retailers charge sales tax. None of this is good for the consumer.
This is no good. I went to buy something this morning that was Prime Eligible last year and is now an Add-on Product. Needless to say I won’t be renewing my membership to Amazon’s Prime service. It should read Free Shipping on “some” products. Whammy.
Addon program crap is affecting most of the products I buy on amazon. it has rendered my amazon membership completely useless. Amazon is cheating. If it has become such a large company WITHOUT addon program so far, why is is suddenly becoming so greedy and cheating like this? oh and btw it is not a feature, so please dont call the addon program a feature. By your terminology, World war 2 was also a feature.
If most people would understand this and no one would buy addon items, that would be a united response against bad customer behaviour. Hope that happens soon. Good day to you. I refuse to let a company DICTATE to me what I MUST buy in order to do THEM the favor of keeping THEM in business.
Prime Membership = free 2 day shipping on orders over $25
Non-Prime Membership = free shipping (usually 2 day) on orders over $25
Sorry, I am having a hard time understanding the benefit to those of us paying for prime. I used to love Amazon and was happy to pay for a prime account. Now, I feel as though I have been cheated. I was sold one plan and they changed the plan after payment for the year. Note, no mention of “add-on” in any of the prime information or the terms and conditions.
Amazon took my $79 and now is adding a “feature” which says that some of those items I buy regularly no longer qualify for the free shipping I originally agreed to. I love the way the provider can make changes to an agreement but I cannot. Maybe we can both make changes??? Hey Amazon, I want to change my Prime account to free over-night shipping for everything. Let me check…nope, it didn’t work.
Amazing it has been out so long and I just ran into it for the first time when I tried to order some vitamins (at $20 — it wouldn’t let me check out! I thought I was doing something wrong). I canceled my Prime auto-renew and hope they will rescind this policy or I will be forced to cancel altogether. I will even pay more to go elsewhere at this point I’m so ticked off.
Late to the party here, but like “AC” above, I just now became aware of this “Add on” item business. I am a Prime member but do not order a ton of stuff. But as I was searching for some things I need today, I was noticing this “Add on item” tag pop up everywhere.
One item I wanted was now listed as an Add on. I looked back at my order history, and I’d purchased that item BY ITSELF as recently as mid-November 2012 (months after the program was introduced) and it shipped for free. So it looks like Amazon is converting more and more items that you could order by themselves before to Add ons.
I set my Prime member to not auto-renew. It just renewed a month ago, so I have 11 more months to decide if the program is still worth it. I’m leaning towards “No” right now.
http://exm.nr/12E0WOK food article and good idea. writing can’t hurt.
Yes, this is obviously a cost control function. Amazon must be rolling this out slowly, testing the waters. I do not like it, and will be canceling Prime.
It’s just a matter of time before Amazon will begin limiting the upper range of items costing or weighing too much. Eg. Items over $250 and/or weighing more than 20 pounds will only be eligible for 1/2 price ground shipping.