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davislane1
You really underestimate what one person's purchasing power can do. Sure if you put only the amount you gave them vs their total of course it's going to sound like pigeon feed. What you're missing is that your individual purchases effect stock, which affects supply and demand. Amazon might decide to markup or markdown based on their stock. When you purchase something you not only decrease their stock but you also increase the demand. The little "Only x Left" next to something is to get people to buy the last few and can easily be spurred by individual purchasers.
I know all about supply and demand. And let me tell you, one customer not doing business with you, is meaningless. "I'm done with Amazon" means nothing to anyone other than the person reciting the affirmation.
There's also word of mouth. If less and less people are talking about Amazon that translates directly to less sales.
You aren't seeing the full issue here. Nobody cares if there's a bunch of naysayers talking bad about Amazon. That's because the naysayers are in a very small minority. The market they are targeting is going to rave on about how great the Prime service is and how much faster it is than non-Prime. Then, when the naysayers confirm that the standard service isn't as great as Prime, you will have made the sale for them.
There's also the problem of the naysayers having zero credibility. Look at all the people here saying Amazon won't let you buy things without a Prime subscription. It's a lie. How do you think that squares with Amazon's pitch when the negative word of mouth isn't even reliable?
"But, Davis, it's $100 a year and it doesn't offer me value!"
Again, bobody cares. "You" are not the market. "I" am not the market. The market is the millions of other people who see the value equation differently.
I used to purchase almost everything from Amazon when I had the 1/2 off student membership. That expired so I canceled prime. Now, due to the high free shipping requirement I very very rarely do business with amazon. The 2 times I have done buisness with them have been horrid as well. Each order took 2 weeks just to get to me. That's worse than every other website and I can even get imported goods faster than that. In addition free users still have to pay the prime premium. That is, items that are on offer from Amazon are more expensive that other online stores to compensate for the cost of 2-day shipping. This is funny because many Ebay top sellers offer 2-day as the base shipping at no additional cost and they won't wait 2 weeks to ship your product out like Amazon will. Did I forget to mention that they don't charge a prime premium either?
Completely anecdotal. I order non-Prime once or twice a month. Ship time on the invoices is usually 5-7 days. The average over the past year has been about 4, with one package arriving next day (admittedly, an outlier because the wearhouse it shipped from is only a few hours from my home).
This is how Amazon sells Prime: For less than $10 a month, you will get FREE 2-day shipping on all Prime Elegible items listed on the Amazon Marketplace. That's an average annual cost savings of over $500 on shipping alone! But it gets even better. With Amazon Prime, you get FREE on-demand access to thousands of streaming television shows, movies, music, and FREE same-day shipping in applicable areas.
It's literally cheaper than Spotify. The sales pitch writes itself.
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