Amazon Prime
Money Saving
I've just been discussing Amazon with Johnny on one of his deals. There are of course a lot of deals on here that rely on having an Amazon Prime membership. I know I've touched on this before but intrigued about whether everybody using Amazon Prime is actually getting the most out of it.
You pay £7.99 a month but assuming you don't use the video, do you save enough money to cancel out that monthly fee? Also, do you think you would buy less if you didn't have Prime and with that in mind, is Prime actually increasing your spending? Maybe you don't even know it's happening or don't want to admit it!
I for example had a Prime trial at some point last year and suddenly bought loads of stuff on there, half of which I know was not needed. Without a doubt, it was because I knew it would be at my front door the next day.
I think it's a little bit like going into Aldi for some milk and coming out with milk, a cordless drill and a pair of steel toe capped boots. My opinion is they've created a shopping experience that encourages spending but have somehow convinced people to pay a fee for it. If you have an addictive personality, I think it's worse.
What do you reckon?
I use prime not just for free delivery whice is added bouns. But for video and the other benifits. Plus amazon is always our first go site when searching for something.
I pay £3.99 for mine and I love it for next day delivery on most items plus the prime tv wher yiu can get great films and shows.
chelseaturpin If you're getting the same out of it as Netflix and people pay 7.99 for that or whatever it costs these days and it's not drawing you in to spend money on 'stuff' just because it's there, I suppose you're winning! That's why I asked really. I just wondered if people were beating the system as such.
I don't use Prime - I hate paying for anything that never ends. I would rather select to pay postage or not on each item individually as again I hate paying postage so usually opt for free p&p. Having said that I do believe that Amazon don't care about their non-prime customers (anymore) all they want is continuous payers for the reasons you state above - over-buying just to use up the fee etc.
I've had Prime Student for the last 3 years, so only pay £39 a year atm.
Defo worth it my opinion, especially considering that most of the time I can get next day delivery.
Another good thing is that as I live in Wales, I can get around the minimum pricing for alcohol because orders are shipped from England.
I don't use Prime Video that much, but there's some good stuff on there including a load of Ken Loach films, Picard, Sneaky Pete etc. There's also odd stuff like STD public information films which are quite interesting if you want to have a look into the past and see how things have changed.
It's a thumbs up from me 
MsLamboLova12 Yeah, just get a Totum/NUS card and upload it to them. That should give you half price Prime. I think that it's for 4 years.
I think getting Prime currently has been useful but I’ve noticed that the prices for Prime delivery are higher than if you don’t use Prime as an option for delivery (in some cases) which is annoying! I have been using video mainly and binged on several shows but there could be a point where once ive seen them all or all the good ones.. would it be covering my monthly fee.
I do like to find a bargain and I’ve noticed the Pantry bargains are not as great as supermarket ones.
I think I’ll end up doing what you did and buy things i don’t need.. bu let’s see as I’ve just started!
We have prime. We use it everyday for our sons cartoons and it is handy to know that if we need something Amazon is there. Our son needed a new water bottle, I looked at Tesco first as I was getting a click and collect the next day but they didn't have the one we wanted so I got it from Amazon. Plus I get Amazon vouchers from doing surveys so I am able to order stuff we need and get it the next day. It hasn't made me buy more though, I only ever buy stuff that I need so even though I get the Amazon vouchers, I will save them up and will use them to get Christmas presents for our son.
Love prime,I have the free music app which I use for running,plus it links all the CDs/albums I have purchased from amazon,plus the reading feature is a great bonus.I have got my watchlist ready,a few more exciting shows have been added like Homecoming,I do have the Starzplay channel for 99p a month atm,as i had to watch MrMercedes 
i read a lot,so if there's a related release,I have to watch it.So all in all I think I make the most of prime,(plus deliveries) x
I paid for Prime for a while then realised I wasn’t buying enough just to save on the postage. I occasionally ask my son to order things on his account so save the postage fee but he’s thinking same as me “is it worth it?”.
Pjran The beauty of it is being able to cancel immediately if you realise it is unneeded. One thing some people may not know is if you go into another month and cancel a week in, they still refund that month. That is certainly the case if you forget to cancel a free trial so worth checking if it works with a rolling paid membership too.
It's good to see a mixture of use cases on here and it sounds like most of you who do have it genuinely save money. I suppose to a certain extent you're not going to know if it's actually making you spend more because that's the genius of it! To beat Amazon at their game with Prime, you have to have the will power to not use Amazon as your first stop for everything before checking the price elsewhere and not buy stuff, just because you can. If you can do that, you're winning but that's retail in a nutshell isn't it?!
I'm in the same camp as tumblespots anyway, not wanting to pay for something that never ends. It's a good way to put it. If I did have Prime though, I'd do a quick calculation of how much I've spent each month compared to how much I would have spent without it. For me when I had it, my bank account suffered terribly. That's just me though. 
Dennab i made a mistake buying off eBay first instead of checking my daughter was after lego friends set and couldn’t find anywhere. She came across on eBay so I said we get now before sell out. It turned up next day in a amazon prime box so checks price cheaper on amazon. Contacted eBay seller after a few messages exchanged I had refund of difference. Then my review sad check amazon against this seller to make others aware. Yes some people do this as a second job extra money etc but when charging 10 more is a little wrong.
Ann1984 Retailers will charge whatever they can get away with, including Amazon on a regular basis. I've had bargains on eBay, Amazon, high street shops and other websites. It pays to shop around and with Google these days it only takes 30 seconds. That's how I find better prices than loads of deals posted on here. Look at that FitBit for instance.
I have student Prime so it isn't as expensive for me. I do like the convenience of getting items promptly and generally find them competitively priced.
Don't forget you can share your Prime membership with someone else also, I have been sharing my membership with my brother who lives about 20 miles away and we both pay half each and both benefit from Prime. Overall in a year I find it better value than paying individual postage each time I want to order something.
Mango4 It'd certainly help. It's just made me realise how many products have free delivery without Prime because I know my Mum orders from there and never pays for delivery. I don't and neither does my other half. If I see a product that would cost extra for delivery, it's on eBay with free delivery 90% of the time (or somewhere else). It depends what you buy though.
Dennab Your right many products still have free delivery if you spend over £20, but delivery times are slower, same with eBay often free delivery but usually takes about a week to get to you whereas Amazon in many instances can be next day. The big attraction for me with Amazon real thou is it almost certainly has everything I want , their prices are usually highly competitive , customer service is normally good and returns are easy if you buy from Amazon , so really it's a complete package ,oh and of course you get the Amazon video thrown in as well.
I had it for a while, around Christmas I find that it's worth it because I'll be buying quite a few things on there. But overall, I don't feel that it's worth having constantly. I've also made use of Prime Video and sometimes got it just for that but personally I don't keep it going and only have it when I think I need it or will make use out of it.
I managed two episodes of The Grand Tour I think and that was it!
I've just had a quick count up of my Amazon orders. Since early April in seven weeks I've had 42 items delivered with Amazon Prime. The main clusters are: Gardening products, Sports & Cycling, DIY & Car, Computer stuff, Household bulk buy products like loo paper, fabric conditioner, hand wash & laundry capsules, Craft Materials for my wife, Health & Beauty items, Gifts for relatives and friends (delivered direct to them). And a few odds and sods like a hair clipper, breadmix, bandanas for face masks, and a Karcher Window Vac.
Some things were delivered together, some weren't. The only item I haven't used yet is the Window Vac, and the only item I bought that I don't really need (but am getting a lot of pleasure from) is a hardback book.
If I maintain things at the same rate, it would equate to 300 items delivered a year for the subscription fee of £95.88 (12 x £7.99). That's about 30p an item. You could then say that on top of that all the other Prime benefits are totally free.
I reckon I'm getting more than my money's worth on the unlimited fast delivery element alone, that's before taking into account all the other Prime benefits.
A few things to bear in mind are:
- Many Amazon orders over £20 are usually delivered free whether you have Prime or not, albeit economy delivery may take a few days, and not fast next day delivery like you generally get with Prime.
- When you have Prime you can order things for 50p, 99p, £2.99, £6, £15 or whatever, and not even have to think about delivery costs anymore
- For me having things delivered means not getting the car out, not paying for petrol, not paying for parking, and not having to queue or social distance in the shops. And because I go shopping less often, I buy a bit less coffee and cake and lunch in the high street (prior to lockdown at least) which saves me another small fortune.
- At the moment, shopping less often (and also spending less actual time in the shops) mixing less with other people buying stuff, and by choosing to have more things delivered, could also save my life. Now that would be a good return on my investment!
- With a Prime Account I do now order more from Amazon as it is so convenient. My order volume is definitely increasing as I switch from buying at other retailers to Amazon whenever it's cheaper to do so. Having a Prime Account certainly makes me stop, think, and compare, before purchasing elsewhere. Prior to lockdown I often took photos of items in high street shops, only to order them cheaper from Amazon later. And once you learn how convenient it is, you do get more and more of the heavy and bulky items delivered 'free' by Amazon, rather than lugging them around from the supermarket or shops yourself and paying extra for the privilege!
- Of course with Prime it's not just Amazon itself you can order from, there's well over 300,000 other sellers using the Amazon Platform as their 'shop window' to sell their own goods too. What that really means is that you don't have to waste silly amounts of time going from shop to shop to shop (on the high street) looking to save 50p - there's plenty of shops on Amazon competing with each other (and with Amazon) to offer the lowest price.
- Almost nine in ten (86%) Brits are Amazon shoppers. This time last year Amazon Prime UK membership was around the 15 million mark. Younger consumers are the biggest fans of Amazon Prime, with 63% of 16-24s and 52% of 25-34s having access to Amazon Prime. (Source: Mintel). But I reckon Amazon will have added several million more Prime subscribers to that figure in the last couple of months. Certainly the number of Prime Subscribers is growing exponentially - anyone would think they'd spotted a good deal or something!
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