As of today, there is no longer free delivery on Amazon items under £20, as opposed to £10 previously (with the exception of books).
They really want you to buy Prime instead at £79 per year; we have that on a work account and I would say about 30% of next day deliveries are no such thing.
I was pretty put off when they introduced the £10 limit in 2013 and have used them much less since. This move will probably reduce my usage more.
You can usually find the same item, new, from eBay at significantly less, as they still do free or 50p delivery or whatever.
Will it affect you?
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Perhaps. I already use Amazon less since my Prime expired - I would have renewed at the old price but as I did not want and cannot use the video streaming I will not pay £79.
I have some subscription orders that I will probably cancel if they have delivery on now. I'd better check.
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Looking at my purchase history, I bought most items over £20 but there were good number of items which were between £10 and £20 [nothing below £10].
For sub £10 items, I used Ebay when Amazon introduced min £10 spend.
Looks like now I have to use Ebay for all sub £20 items.
Not a good decision. I feel £79 is too much for a prime.
Many market sellers offer free delivery at same price, so worth checking when ordering from Amazon.
Last edited by: movilogo on Fri 1 May 15 at 18:24
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I don't buy too much stuff from them. Not enough to pay £80 a year. Very very little i order i need the next day so not an issue.
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Likewise about needing it next day. But now the super saver delivery is not free on orders less than £20. Most of our orders are under £20.
On the odd occasion I wanted something the next day... I've taken them up on the offer for free Prime for 30 days :-) More fool them. I've spent plenty at Amazon over the years and will continue to do so.
Last edited by: rtj70 on Fri 1 May 15 at 18:40
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I had intended, as Manatee has done, to cancel in response to the price hike and addition of unwanted films etc. Unfortunately I forgot and it auto renewed. I remain though a fairly intensive user and next day delivery by default to several addresses is useful. Particularly so when The Lad suddenly decides he needs a Uni text when tight up against a deadline. He also uses the films occasionally.
The regular failure to meet next day is a massive irritation though. With one exception it's occurred because they've sent it by Royal Mail first class. Not even Royal Mail think first class is next day and if you select delivery at checkout it's a seperate and less costly option to next day. The alacrity with which a month's extension to my account is offered when I complain suggests they have a scripted response.
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When I was buying an exercise bike in February, the seller had their own website as well as being on the Amazon one. Saved £30 by going direct. Last actual Amazon order was one DVD so I'll have to look around and price up the whole deal again.
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I don't use Amazon often, and nothing is ever that urgent, so its simple enough to consolidate orders so they come to more than £20. They inevitably come as separate packages anyway.
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I thought £10 was bad, put me off buying the odd book but £20 is OTT.
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if it puts people off, they will cut it.
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Must admit I don't really care about how much is price of item and how much is delivery. For me it is simply how much to have this item in my house?
Whether that is £1+£19 or £19+£1.
And by and large my experience would be that the total payable to Amazon is better than most stuff, other than occasionally ebay, and a whole lot less hassle than most.
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>> Must admit I don't really care about how much is price of item and how
>> much is delivery. For me it is simply how much to have this item in
>> my house?
>>
>> Whether that is £1+£19 or £19+£1.
In similar vein, it's obviously better to have free delivery than to pay for it...but it isn't free to go to the shops either. A forty mile round trip to MK for me is at least £6 in fuel, plus a couple of hours when I can't do anything else. So £5 delivery, if the price is right, is not a deterrent unless there's a better deal elsewhere.
Even a trip into Aylesbury is £3 fuel. Having stuff brought to the house for the price of a pint or not much more is still a bargain,
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>>Even a trip into Aylesbury is £3 fuel
Can't you use your bus pass?
;>)
If you choose to live in the back of beyond and your only bus is ever other bank holiday, then that's your choice.
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No bus pass BT...I'd have to send the boss.
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It's very easy to fall into the habit of thinking Amazon and Ebay are the cheapest both for goods and P&P combined.
I was looking for a particular model of metal detector on Thursday afternoon and checked both but before ordering I looked at the manufacturers website and checked where the dealers were in the UK.
I finally settled for a dealer in West Sussex who was £22 cheaper than either Amazon or Ebay and offered free delivery.
I placed the order at 4pm on Thursday paying via Paypal and it was delivered by DPD at 14.30 on Friday afternoon.
Excellent service.
Pat
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Joan Allen, Pat? Remember legging it down there with excitement some 25 years ago and picking up my Fisher Scientific from them, good little place back then.
It broke after about five years and I never got back into it, as there had been so much bad publicity about detecting by then it was really hard to find anywhere anyway.
Still, my £400 detector came up trumps. I found a thimble and a sixpence.
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No, it was Detecnicks at Fontwell. I did look at Joan Allen but the price wasn't competitive.
Pat
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>>Still, my £400 detector came up trumps. I found a thimble and a sixpence.
I bought a Minelab Sovereign from Joan Allen bout 18 years ago or so. Found 7 bronze Roman coins on a cairn in Cornwall, we we're all over-the-moon with the find. I spent days searching a site in mid-Cornwall where a civil war battle took place - found naf all.
Did Gunwalloe Cove in West Cornwall and found some spondulics. Y'all got to really put the time and the research into said hobby, and it can really get hold of you too, like a lot of hobbies. I still have the Minelab knocking about somewhere and I often think about that Saxon hoard, buried next to an oak tree, just waiting for me to get my finger out!
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Many DVDs are available from play.com at keen prices, and post free SFAIK
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>>It's very easy to fall into the habit of thinking Amazon and Ebay are the cheapest both for goods and P&P combined.
>>
For certain items I have found John Lewis the cheapest.
Similarly Tesco was the most expensive by £200 for a TV.
A few years ago, to my surprise, I found that Wilco was cheapest for a petrol lawnmower.
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We have been buying quite a lot through Amazon, occasionally paying a little more for the privilege, because we have found their service to be first class. However, while we were not bothered about delivery charges on items below £10, we may now look at ebay and other sellers before paying for deliveries on items costing less than £20.
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I used to buy a lot of 'stuff' on Amazon, now I don't buy anything from them, using eBay instead mostly
I also use pricespy.co.uk/ to find the best deals on larger items, such as the Beyerdynamic DT 770 Pro headphones I'm after.
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If you are ready for the long term wait on something from Amazon you can use uk.camelcamelcamel.com/ to monitor the price. More importantly it will send you an email if it drops below the threshold you set. You can see a graph on the price history of an item.
For instance I use the Britas P1000 water filters, one every three months, and the price has fluctuated between £22.50 and £45. They are usually about £40 so my threshold is set at £33. Last ones I got were at £30 ish.
I'll also buy some new Koss Portapro headphones once the price drops low enough - they are currently £27 but have been as high as £32 and as low as £15 - I have a trigger set for £20.
So going forwards I'll save smaller stuff till the water filters hit the right price (or something else).
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There's also a browser plugin called Invisible Hand, which as you are looking at a product will pop up and tell you if it's cheaper elsewhere on the web, without you having to trawl about.
Also an app apparently, but not tried that.
www.getinvisiblehand.com
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I buy printer ink from a company called Moreinks, usually from Amazon. If you go direct they are dearer or were the last time. However I called them direct and they rectified that position. I also did not want their prepared packages as my use did not suit their supply structure. I requested a certain package of refills. They obliged. However they did cock up a little by sending some to suit my printer and some for another closely numbered type, but which would not work in my machine. I pointed this out to them some months later and they rectified it without query. Thoroughly recommended.
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Not the app, but have used the plugin Martin. Works quite well, although sometimes you're not sure it does anything as its invisible. But then it surprises you suddenly when you've forgotten you ever had it and tells you you'd be better off buying elsewhere by a tenner or whatever.
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Amazon delivery charges - Manatee
