55 Percent Of Online Shoppers Start Their Product Searches On Amazon (recode.net) 141
Another year, another data point showing Amazon has surpassed Google as the default search engine for shopping, a report on Recode reads. Fifty-five percent of people in the U.S. now start their online shopping trips on Amazon.com, according to results from a 2,000-person survey commissioned by the e-commerce startup BloomReach. That stat marks a 25 percent increase from the same survey last year, when 44 percent of online shoppers said they turned to Amazon first. From the report: Over the same time, the percentage of shoppers who start product searches on search engines like Google dropped from 34 percent to 28 percent. The number of online shoppers who check out a retailer's website (other than Amazon) first also shrunk, from 21 percent to 16 percent.
Everything under the sun at Amazon (Score:2)
Want 7-seg LED displays? Some other kinds of chips? Breadboards? Test instruments? I mean obscure things that most soccer moms don't order -- Amazon has it.
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Or you can order through Jameco.
http://www.jameco.com/ [jameco.com]
If you spend $25+ on your order, you get free shipment on your next order.
http://www.jameco.com/Jameco/Content/free-shipping-club-electronic-components.html [jameco.com]
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Well to the point Amazon means you are not having to hunt and peck specialty stores. Even if you will save a few bucks.
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Well to the point Amazon means you are not having to hunt and peck specialty stores.
Amazon doesn't provide a link to the datasheet. If you're designing a circuit and don't know which component you need, datasheets are quite valuable.
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Amazon's descriptions are almost always deficient. Worse, they prevent you from improving them. I recently posted a review of a SMT transistor book. I included datasheet links for every part in the book. Amazon deleted all of the links, replacing them with [...]. Their search is also terrible, especially for electronic components. They don't have anything close to the parametric searchs available on mouser or digi-key.
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*cough*
Digikey
Next day shipping for most items for $8.
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$8 shipping on a $9 part. Hurray.
No thanks.
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$8 shipping on a $9 part. Hurray.
I usually order a minimum of ten to get the volume discount. The first chip will inevitably go up in smoke as I test the limits of what it can do. Or I connect the V+ and GND pins backwards.
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UNFORTUNATELY Everything under the sun at Amazon (Score:3)
I still use search engines to look for retailers other than Amazon to buy stuff, because I like to give the little guy some business.
But nowadays it seems like Amazon is ALL there is for many products that I want. Either Amazon is driving many businesses out of business, or it is doing a great job completely dominating search engine results for several different search engines.
800lb Gorilla (Score:2)
Either Amazon is driving many businesses out of business, or it is doing a great job completely dominating search engine results for several different search engines.
It's a bit of both. Amazon is definitely the 800lb gorilla of ecommerce. Even companies like Walmart are having a hard time dealing with them. And to be honest Amazon has earned their place. Honestly I do most of my shopping there these days because there isn't anything else remotely as convenient in most cases. They have the best selection, usually reasonable prices, excellent customer service, and checkout is a breeze. With Prime their shipping costs are very reasonable as well. I seldom have to g
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Since others mentioned Jameco and Digikey, I'll also offer Mouser as a source for electronics bits.
There are punishingly few components on Amazon worth the price and shipping time. If I ever buy electronics there, it's always part of a larger order and thrown in for shits and giggles rather than something I specifically need.
=Smidge=
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Want 7-seg LED displays? Some other kinds of chips? Breadboards? Test instruments? I mean obscure things that most soccer moms don't order -- Amazon has it.
I find Amazon is frequently not the best source for any of those. I'm UK based and find RS pretty good for a lot of tech stuff. It's not as good as digikey or mouser for components (a smaller range, though sometimes they have sometheing the other's don't), and has free next day shipping on any size of order.
It also has the RS Pro brand which is basically
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Aliexpress has the best price: 5 for $2.71 + $0.12 shipping to US. They'll take a month to arrive. :-( https://www.aliexpress.com/item/Free-shipping-5PCS-LOT-MAX7219CNG-MAX7219-DIP-24/32633578636.html.
Adafruit has one for $9.95 + ~$7 shipping, but you'll get it in 3 to 5 days.
Amazon has several offerings, but none are prime. None seem to have delivery times even close to what Adafruit can offer.
Other 45% Use Google Which Provides Amazon Link (Score:2)
I usually don't go to Amazon first when shopping for items, but only because it is easier to type the product into Google and follow the Amazon link I find in the results, with is almost always Amazon if they offer the product. I wonder if that counts as going to Amazon first or not.
Good benchmark (Score:4, Insightful)
Amazon provides a good benchmark for prices, and has useful reviews. It's a reasonable place to start.
Could this be the end of Walmart? (Score:1)
Watch for a merger...
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It's all about the reviews. (Score:5, Insightful)
I check amazon first because they have more product reviews than anywhere else. For me, it's the reviews, not always the price or shipping rate, that get me to buy something.
Their reviews are being ruined by "pay for review" (Score:2)
I even complained to Bezos' personal email about this saying that this attacks Amazon's most valuable asset. They just don't care.
Everytime I see ""I received this product at a discount in exchange for my unbiased review" I die a little. Such a great service being ruined.
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Very true, many of the products are poisoned by these "unbiased" reviews.. :(
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I always just skip straight to the one-star reviews, and judge a product by how many people hate it and why, under the assumption that either their problems will be relevant to me or they won't, and if none of them are, then the product is probably fine.
Google shopping doesn't seem to show amazon (Score:2)
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Who pays to be listed? Jet.com. Who is Jet? Walmart.
Amazon may be an 800lb Gorilla. Walmart? They're just f'n evil, and the sooner they die in a fire the better.
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Within the last 5 years, Google Shopping changed the requirements to be listed. Number one requirement: Pay to be listed.
There's a reason that even Google search often points to the Amazon listing near the top of search results. The reviews on Amazon are better than anywhere else, if due to nothing besides sheer volume. It's hard to achieve quality reviews without quantity reviews, which is why Yelp is still relevant.
How important is Amazon as an aggregator of reviews? Many Amazon reviews specifically state that they bought the product elsewhere but still chose to post their review on Amazon. Why? Because that's where th
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This makes using it an inconvenience so I never use it
Yep, was http://froogle.com/ [froogle.com] Many years ago Google dumped shopping, yet the site remains.
Good basis for comparison (Score:1)
I usually hit Amazon early for two reasons
a) They often have product spec sheets that I can look up.
b) It gives me a basis for comparison.
However I've noticed that for a lot of stuff their pricing algo's lately are way out of whack, especially for older stuff. For example, a slightly older video card which is going for $100 on eBay or stores (where available) is listed on Amazon at $2500, presumably because they're harder to come by but there's still some demand. For $2500 I could build a whole rig includin
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Because Amazon is an approved supplier for some companies. eBay is not.
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No. I mean in corporate America there are approved lists where you can buy products. If I need a ethernet switch I have a list of 4 places to buy it. Amazon is one of those places to some corporations. Our group just bought a $100 5 port NetGear switch because that's how it works.
So when I *need* a replacement video card I can't run down to the store and grab the $100 and use my company credit card to buy it. They aren't an approved supplier. I could use my personal money and do the $100 card but no thanks.
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Not that others aren't a mess as well. I regularly see people caught up in eBay bids for used stuff that exceeds the price I could buy it new.
This. I rarely saved money on eBay, and when you consider the time sink to buy anything on eBay it just doesn't make sense to regularly shop there.
cookies? (Score:2)
Funny, I always shop elsewhere before hitting Amazon, even though I'm a Prime member and will (probably) get it from Amazon.
IIRC there was an issue some years ago about how Amazon would check your system for recent cookies from other shopping sites (like bn.com), offering better prices on the fly if it appeared you'd been shopping around. Dunno if it is still true, but really with internet shopping there's no good reason NOT to do some decent price-comparison if it's something of any great value.
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IIRC there was an issue some years ago about how Amazon would check your system for recent cookies from other shopping sites (like bn.com), offering better prices on the fly if it appeared you'd been shopping around.
Cookies don't work that way.
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They do when third-party cookies from ad networks get involved.
I always started at Radio Shack (Score:2)
If i'm looking for something. (Score:2)
I check amazon prime, ebay, amazon non prime and then google search. (and if i'm really desperate bing) in that order
and yes I mean google search google shopping has been worthless ever since they switched to promoted listings.
They have the best generic shopping search engine (Score:2)
Google Shopping used to be better, but about 1-2 years ago they redid the format of the search results page. Clicking on the name of the search result used to give you the list of all stores which sold the item. Now both it and th
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showrooming amazon. paybacks are a b. (Score:2)
Amazon or Newegg to see the product and reviews.
If I'm not in a hurry, aliexpress; otherwise A or N usually has the best price.
But I do agree with the other poster--Amazon has gotten very tricky in the past few years.
You have to dig to make sure you get the right price.
Also the default free shipping option seems to come and go.
I've gotten burned a couple times at checkout, then have to cancel the order.
If I catch it soon enough, start the checkout process again. as there's no "backup" as you are herded down
Wayfair and Overstock for some things (Score:2)
Apart from some furniture and decorations, Amazon has little competition for convenience, shipping, and customer service. Whenever something goes wrong, I'm always amazed how quickly and easily they fix it.
I do still use Wayfair and Overstock for some of above two categories, though. For whatever reason, Amazon still has much smaller selection there.
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Interesting coincidence (Score:2)
Amazon or Newegg for some computer parts (Score:2)
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Amazon is only free shipping if you're prime. (and if you're prime you're paying a whopping $100 a year in most cases).
Without prime, if you're not paying $50 in products pre tax, the shipping isn't free. I frequently buy from stores other than Amazon so that I can get free shipping, and frequently exclude taxes too.
Re:Well duh (Score:4, Insightful)
Prime is mostly a scam anyway. For the longest time, delivery times from Amazon for nearly everything was 2-3 days (in Europe), with some deliveries actually happening the next day. As soon as Prime came into play, the usual shipping time jumped to 5-10 days (with ZERO chance for it to be any lower than 6 days), but with prime of course you can get it in 2-3 days.
Prime vs non-Prime (Score:2)
Prime is mostly a scam anyway.
Hardly. Prime is a perfectly reasonable deal and given its popularity a lot of people (myself included) find it to be good value for money. Maybe it doesn't suit your needs but it doesn't remotely fit the definition of a scam for many of us.
For the longest time, delivery times from Amazon for nearly everything was 2-3 days (in Europe), with some deliveries actually happening the next day.
I cannot speak for Europe but in the US even non-Prime orders usually arrive in 2-4 business days. Probably about 15% of what I order through Amazon isn't eligible for Prime and most of that arrives considerably before the estimated delivery date. Mostly it just depe
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Not from my perspective. I got Prime for a year when I needed a bunch of stuff shipped quickly before a vacation, and was going to keep it because of Instant Video (knowing that the shipping benefit would rarely be a benefit for me), but dropped it because of their iOS app not allowing cellular streaming plus a significant price hike for the shipping service that I didn't really care about anyway, and replaced
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It has alienated me as a customer, I felt that they were attempting to manipulate me into re-priming so now I simply avoid doing business with them unless there is no alternative. Sometimes when I am forced to buy fr
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Prime is a "scam"? And yet you're only considering the cost of shipping vs shipping times. Prime also offers exclusive discounts (I purchased Overwatch Origins edition for almost the cost of the basic $40 set). Plus the books, movies, TV shows, and other media content available and content storage. It is a whole bundle of services, not just a shipping service.
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Prime is offering me something I either cannot use or isn't available in my country, or artificially lowers the quality of a service that I could "get back" by paying for Prime. So yes, I can't help but feel fleeced.
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Artificially broken?
The first book I ordered from Amazon was in my hands less than 24 hours after the order, although I'd picked lowest-cost shipping. Amazon took a loss on that order just to impress a new customer. I wouldn't be surprised to find that Amazon's two-day service wasn't really sustainable on a large scale.
In the meantime, my wife has Amazon Prime and I don't, and I don't notice any great delay in getting stuff compared to her.
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Also, sometimes the items are shipped more than 2 days AFTER the order is placed. What good is free 2-Day shipping when it takes them a week *BEFORE* they ship it?
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Because with Prime, they sometimes don't take a week before they ship it?
Just saying.
If Fry's had a more up-to-date selection of flash cards (instead of everything being five-year-old models) and hard drives (not enough HGST), I'd be buying a lot less from Amazon.
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Prime is mostly a scam anyway.
Not true.
I am yet to see a seller that can GUARANTEE actual arrival date. I have seen free shipping and I have seen fast shipping, but with anyone else you are GUESSING when the item will arrive. Could be very fast or could be later. Point is -- with other sellers you don't know when your item will arrive.
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Again, if delivery times are between 2 and 12 days, I would not complain. I'm not a Prime customer, I get pushed back to the end of the queue and my time comes when there's less stress. So I could hope to get lucky and order on a slow day, and get my stuff in 2 days because they get around to shipping it right away, or I could be unlucky and order during a stressful week when they don't get around to my order until the next week. That, I could understand.
What I cannot understand is how my stuff arrives with
Re:Well duh (Score:4, Interesting)
We're not talking to going to the back of the queue, which is what I could absolutely understand. If you're at the back of the queue, your stuff would arrive somewhere between 2 and 10 days. But that's not what happens. It arrives no earlier than 6 days after ordering. They deliberately delay the delivery.
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Before I had prime (which I only got a couple months ago), I never had a product stay in a queued state for more than 24 hours. Yes, prime is quicker where it's now shipped the day I ordered it. Before it was the next day. Maybe it's just you? Because I can't believe that my pre-prime days I was getting any sort of special treatment.
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Since when do you have prime and since when was it offered in your area?
Again, I used to get the Prime delivery times. Until they came up with Prime.
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It isn't a case of deliberately delaying it. It is a case of items shipped cross-country via air mail (2 day shipping) or ground. (5-7 day). Items have to be physically stored somewhere before they are shipped out. Unless it is a hot and common item (Amazon's Basics line, iPhones, things like that), odds are the items probably isn't going to be stocked in a local Amazon warehouse. If you got prime, it is free to ship it via air, if not, it ships ground. These terms are not used on check out to simplify the
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OK, then please explain how they could miraculously deliver in 2-3 days, and often the next day, before the invention of Prime, but now that there is Prime, normal deliveries take 6-7 days. From the same warehouse.
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I'm a Prime customer in the Seattle area and I almost always get stuff in 2 days, sometimes even the very next day.
For me it's been very rare when it takes longer than that (I can't actually remember when the last time it was longer than 2 days). YMMV of course, but that's my data point for whatever it's worth.
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Intentionally delaying shipments would be a terribly inefficient business practice, and I can't imagine that Amazon could offer competitive pricing if it used that approach.
To intentionally delay shipping means that you've got warehouse employees standing around doing nothing when they could be filling orders. You run the risk of getting backlogged later when a sale causes a sudden surge in volume. You've also got already-sold merchandise using up valuable shelf space in your warehouse instead of making r
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Replying to myself here: I suspect one of the reasons Amazon uses a multi-tiered approach to shipping is because it allows them to keep personnel costs lower. Instead of hiring enough people to handle high-volume days, they employ enough staff to handle the average volume and then use low-priority customers as a buffer to "catch up" when a surge occurs. High-priority customers always receive shipments on schedule, even during a surge, and the low-priority customers can't reasonably complain about the term
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It's coming from exactly the same warehouse all the time. We're also not talking about "sometimes" or "often" but of "always". It ALWAYS took 2-3 days and now it ALWAYS takes 6-7 days. From the same warehouse.
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You mean ordinary pleb customers get the slower shipping. They aren't exactly equivalent.
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IIRC you have to have a kindle to be able to read a free ebook. The kindle app does not qualify.
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IIRC you have to have a kindle to be able to read a free ebook. The kindle app does not qualify.
Sorry; your recollection is not correct, at least not at this flaming instant in time. Just "bought for free" one of this month's selections, downloaded it to my phone, and skimmed the first few pages with the Kindle app.
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We must be talking about different things. There are free ebooks on amazon but afaik that's not a prime benefit
the Kindle Owners' Lending Library which is a prime benefit does require you to have a kindle.
I see they now offer something called kindle first which has no such restriction that lets you pick from one of 6 books each month. That must be what you were talking about.
I was thinking of the kindle owners lending library sorry I was not more clear.
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Yes, Kindle First is the program. Free for Prime members; discounted for non-Prime, Kindle First subscribers.
No such thing as free shipping (Score:5, Insightful)
Amazon is only free shipping if you're prime. (and if you're prime you're paying a whopping $100 a year in most cases).
Whether or not the Prime fees are a good deal depends on how much you shop on Amazon. Last year I ordered 155 packages from Amazon which were delivered via Prime. That means my per-parcel shipping cost was $0.65 each. That's barely more than a first class stamp. That is a good price by any reasonable measure.
There really is no such thing as "free" shipping. Either the shipping is rolled into the cost of the product you are buying or you pay for it separately but either way you are still paying for the shipping.
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What he said, I got prime originally for The Grand Tour and a little bit of shopping I did on Amazon.
Since I got it I did find I start hitting Amazon first but I still look elsewhere as Amazon is not necessarily the cheapest location
Most convienent but not always cheapest (Score:2)
Since I got it I did find I start hitting Amazon first but I still look elsewhere as Amazon is not necessarily the cheapest location
Amazon is not always the cheapest but they usually are the most convenient in my experience. Generally their prices are competitive but if you need rock bottom pricing you can usually do better if you are willing to put in the time. For much of what I buy Amazon's prices are good enough that it isn't worth the extra time to save just a little extra. I'm fully aware that I'm paying for this convenience and generally I'm ok with that.
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Amazon is not always the cheapest but they usually are the most convenient in my experience.
Which if you value your time means that unless you are buying something worth at least hundreds of dollars, its almost never worth shopping around. I shop around when buying a TV or high end video card, but never for an under $100 item.
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I probably get 30 to 40 packages a year- Amazon probably accounts for about half of them (but then I get them free WITHOUT prime- I just don't buy from Amazon unless I have $50 worth to buy).
I will say though, I do prefer buying from Amazon if costs (including shipping) aren't much different. Amazon really does get "honoring the customer". They're not hard to work with if things go wrong.
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Whether or not the Prime fees are a good deal depends on how much you shop on Amazon.
Bingo. I find that in the long run I end up saving quite a bit on shipping, way more than the cost of the membership.
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There really is no such thing as "free" shipping. Either the shipping is rolled into the cost of the product you are buying or you pay for it separately but either way you are still paying for the shipping.
In the bad old days shipping tended to be a profit center for the retailer, billed with a fat markup. Now, as part of the product price, retailers don't mark it up and the profit stays where it belongs, with the shipping company.
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In my experience, the difference is usually because fulfillment by Amazon costs money, and the cheaper price came from a third-party seller that does fulfillment themselves. I've never seen a cheaper price for non-Prime than Prime on products that are actually sold by Amazon.
Convenience isn't free (Score:2)
I've noticed that a lot of "Prime Eligible" items are priced higher than the exact same item from a different merchant that is not eligible. So you're paying a subscription and paying more for the item still.
You're paying for the convenience of being able to get it in 2 days. You can get cheaper prices than Amazon offers in a lot of cases. The question is how much is it worth to you to spend the time looking? Sometimes it's worth it. Sometimes not so much. Generally I'll take a good price with excellent convenience over a great price with lots of hassle any day unless we are talking about an amount of money large enough that the number involves a comma.
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Yeah, for a whole 10 bucks a month you get a streaming video service, streaming audio service, free ebooks and free shipping on about 80% of all the products. That's outrageous!!!!
Instead I should shovel 10 out to NetFlix, 8 to Hulu, 10 to Spotify and just pay for the rest of the services/products on an as needed basis. What a great idea!
I can understand you getting your panties in a bunch (paying a "whopping" $100 a year) if you do no streaming, don't care for the ebooks and only order from Amazon 4 times
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Prime or minimum $25 spend. In most cases that's not too hard.
I don't bother with prime because it only applies to Amazon-provided stuff, and often they either don't have what I want or their prices suck compared to their third-parties.
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Prime or minimum $25 spend. In most cases that's not too hard.
The $25 minimum applies only to books. Anything else is $49 minimum.
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Must be country-specific, or they've changed it in the last week. Here (Canada) it's lress. I was going to say $25, but it looks like the bastards just cranked it up to $35 since I last ordered anything a few weeks ago.
Of course the item prices in Canada all seem to be near-double that of the US in many cases too (even accounting for exchange).
Re: Well duh (Score:2)
The sale price on most retail sites is usually more expensive than the price on Amazon. I usually do a quick search for prices prior to each purchase even if I ultimately buy from Amazon. I rarely will use a site that doesn't use one of the major pay services(paypal, google, Amazon) for fear of releasing CC info to yet another irresponsible retailer.
Reviews (Score:2)
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Such as Alibaba? TMart? Aliexpress?
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(And NO, you cannot buy a movie today, no matter what Amazon calls it. Their "purchase" option is just a long term rental until Amazon, or the actual copyright owner decides to withdraw your ownership from you. Like in one case of a Disney movie some time back where "owners" of that movie had it taken away because Disney had some other exclusive streaming offer they were making to others.)
All that said, ten years ago it would have seemed unthi
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You mean like on a Bluray? They do carry those. I don't "buy" streaming content. You never own that.
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Until the encryption key used for that blu-ray disk hits the blacklist and renders the disk entirely useless on all new (or firmware updated) blu-ray players!
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The encryption key for all Blu-Ray discs is already well known. There's not a blacklist for discs. There's a blacklist for player keys that can make your player useless for all new discs until you update the firmware to get a new key, but AFAIK, there's no blacklist for discs. There's no rational reason for such a thing to exist.
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You should be well aware, that the movie industry is opposed to that, and make sure this isn't allowed in their license.
It is supposably to stop illegal sharing of the data. But I think it is more to keep the honest honest approach. Having a file you obtained legally sitting on your PC ready to be copied and shared with your friend who would share it with their friend...
While currently the person would actually have to go to the darknet to get the pirated version.
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So what about other countries in the world? I know US thinks "we're #1" but since when are they the barometer against which all the worlds spending is compared? Is all online shopping in the world done in the United States? I hardly think so... I'd be interested to know if that 55% is the same in Canada, or China. I'd wager no.
TFS clearly states that the cited statistic is for the US. Here's an idea: why don't you do some research and submit your own article about the statistics in Canada or China or the world?