TerryMcK Posted July 24, 2016 Report Share Posted July 24, 2016 I am guilty of this as an internet shopper (is there any other way?) You find a tool or product you simply must have and add it to your shopping cart. You hit checkout to find there is a £4.95 (or equivalent in your currency) shipping charge because you are below the £100 (or whatever) breakpoint that makes you qualify for free shipping. Hmm... You go back to see if there is anything else that you "need". You find something and add it to the cart. Still not enough. You go back a few more times and soon that cart is way over the breakpoint. You hit checkout and you have free shipping. Awesome. You've just spent 10 times the value of the original thing you went for.... but at least you got free shipping. Amazon Prime is far better as you get streamed video and next day "free" delivery. As long as you forget the annual Prime fee. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tpt life Posted July 24, 2016 Report Share Posted July 24, 2016 The thing with prime is that the membership comes with so much. Yes, you may pay a slight increase in the product to pay for that free shipping, but so many things can come to your door without a personal fuel expense or maintenance need. If you like the prime video streaming, just know that music streaming and limited device storage of that music is also very nice. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chestnut Posted July 24, 2016 Report Share Posted July 24, 2016 The one thing that i considered the best benefit to the prime membership was not having to ever go to walmart again EVER! I don't know if you have a store like walmart over there but I'm sure you have to deal with traffic and crowds just like we do here. Avoiding that is the best benefit. Other huge benefit is being able to shop intelligently with user reviews and the internet. Final benefit is the selection is huge i can get the brands and stuff i want instead of having to compromise. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pkinneb Posted July 24, 2016 Report Share Posted July 24, 2016 probably 75% of what I buy is from the Internet and primarily Amazon. $99 a year is nothing to me when I figure out just the gas savings if I had to go to the store everytime I needed something. Having said that I live in the country so almost everything is at least 20 miles away one way Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted July 24, 2016 Report Share Posted July 24, 2016 I guess I am lucky because there are no Walmarts convenient to me, so I never need to go there. I don't think I have been in a Walmart in the last 4 years. I fall into the same trap of order extra stuff for free shipping. I also fall into the trap of paying $5 for same day/next day delivery even though prime shipping is free. I have noticed a few new trends on amazon that are annoying: 1) for many items, they only give you the option of prime shipping and it is a 3+ day delivery. They are not providing any alternatives. I don't know if they are optimizing space at the fulfillment centers, but 6 months ago I could get almost anything on amazon within a day or two. 2) It has always been this way (I think), but they don't let you choose the shipper. I try to avoid USPS whenever possible because they seem to lose more packages and are more likely to miss their promised delivery date At my vacation condo, USPS can't get past our security gate (UPS has the code, for some reason USPS doesn't). I'd pay extra for UPS shipping even if USPS was free. A trip to the post office is worse than a trip to Walmart, IMO. 3) More and more stuff is getting delivered by Amazon's own delivery vans. I don't have a problem with this per se, it is very convenient. But I also don't like all the white vans trolling my neighborhood at 8pm on a friday night. I wonder if the drivers are vetted at all. UPS/Fedex at least have standards. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wtnhighlander Posted July 24, 2016 Report Share Posted July 24, 2016 The one thing that i considered the best benefit to the prime membership was not having to ever go to walmart again EVER! True, that! http://www.peopleofwalmart.com Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tom King Posted July 24, 2016 Report Share Posted July 24, 2016 I'm about equal in purchases between Amazon and Buy it Now on ebay. Free shipping is almost mandatory. I took a picture of our burn pile of boxes for the week yesterday. There are small boxes inside some of the larger boxes. I can't remember going in a retail store for maybe a year or two, not including the grocery store. I never add things to an order to make a minimum. My Wife probably does though. We have recycling pickup, but it has to fit inside a 3 cu.ft. box. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tom Crawford Posted July 24, 2016 Report Share Posted July 24, 2016 If you can't recycle the cardboard use it to grow worms for your vegetable garden. Better than burning it and adding more Carbon Dioxide to the global warming problem. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cliff Posted July 24, 2016 Report Share Posted July 24, 2016 I do between 135-200 orders per year on amazon. Pretty much everything from socks to cases of Monster. If I find something cheaper elsewhere, but it's within $10 or so bucks, I use amazon. A lot of my computer parts that I'm buying right now were like that. I will only buy from new egg or amazon for such things. I signed up for prime on day 1, and consider it the best investment ever. In my old place (pre-wife) I had a room set aside for boxes, until my parents noticed and we spent about 10 hours breaking them down. So yeah I love me some free shipping but more than that, it's that amazon ALWAYS gets me the package in 2 days or less. And when they don't, they'll refund part of my order. New Egg is also amazing, I ordered a new 28" monitor from them 2 weeks ago and they got the thing here in 30 business hours. Shipping was minimal. In fact it may have been free as well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
h3nry Posted July 24, 2016 Report Share Posted July 24, 2016 I only buy online if I can't figure out where to buy locally. That usually means international shipping (and a sacrifice your first-born if you want speedy delivery). The hardware for my dressing table arrived from the US in three weeks which was pretty good, mail sometimes takes up to three months to arrive here - and shipping was still ~40% of the total cost. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tom King Posted July 24, 2016 Report Share Posted July 24, 2016 1 hour ago, Tom Crawford said: If you can't recycle the cardboard use it to grow worms for your vegetable garden. Better than burning it and adding more Carbon Dioxide to the global warming problem. I knew someone would say that. I'm a believer in global warming, and do understand the problem with CO2. I can't figure out if it's actually worse to burn that little bit of wood, or run the tractor long enough to stir it into the compost pile. We have some number of tons of horse manure composting all the time. I could turn it often, and it will compost faster, but I just leave it in a pile for a year or more, and only stir it one time. It takes longer, but less diesel fuel, and as you might be able to see with the squash plants in the background, it works just as well. We live a little over a mile off the main road here. I'm sure the diesel recycle truck doesn't get over 4 or 5 miles per gallon, so I expect them just coming back in here to get it would probably be close to, or worse than, the same carbon footprint. That doesn't even count the hydraulic fluid that always seems to be leaking from the truck. I've weighed the different options, and I don't think this is any worse, and most likely not as bad, as most other options. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wtnhighlander Posted July 24, 2016 Report Share Posted July 24, 2016 Cliff, that photo looks like a roach infestation waiting to happen. I hope you don't keep those boxes around long! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chestnut Posted July 24, 2016 Report Share Posted July 24, 2016 Composting them releases CO2 as well, i think i saw a number stated some where that it was 50% less then burning. Compost piles that enter anaerobic conditions release methane. I don't know which is worse i do know that plants use CO2 but i don't think that they process methane. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wtnhighlander Posted July 24, 2016 Report Share Posted July 24, 2016 You could always 'repurpose', instead. https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/shortcuts/2012/apr/20/cardboard-buildings-future Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jplemons Posted July 24, 2016 Report Share Posted July 24, 2016 First choice is local, which works for Festool but not much else. We don't really have a decent woodworking store where I live, despite having nearly 1 million people in the area -- go figure. Online, my first choice is Amazon because I'm a Prime member but I always compare pricing. Rocker and Woodcraft charge an awful lot for shipping, so I will add more to my cart to qualify for free shipping deals. And the shipping takes forever when you're used to Amazon. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rapid Roger Posted July 24, 2016 Report Share Posted July 24, 2016 When I was in business, I would get any where from one to five cardboard boxes a day from UPS. I would break down the smaller ones and cut up the larger ones to fit into one of the largest boxes. About every month or two, I would load the full boxes into the truck and take them to the recyclers. Yes, there is the temporary storage problem but, I felt better about that than sending them to the dump or burning them. And we always had boxes for gifts or people moving houses also. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cliff Posted July 24, 2016 Report Share Posted July 24, 2016 5 hours ago, wtnhighlander said: Cliff, that photo looks like a roach infestation waiting to happen. I hope you don't keep those boxes around long! That was about 6 months worth, so that is all the longer they were there. That was 5 years ago or more too. I don't live there anymore, but it's 3 blocks away and no roach reports yet. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ryan Grondin Posted August 6, 2016 Report Share Posted August 6, 2016 all the fricken time.... lol Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.