Amazon gives non-Prime members free shipping at $35 or more of eligible items. Instead of simply letting users get the product with free shipping, they’ve added a discount that prices it exactly one cent below the $35 limit, while only subsidizing the price with $3.38, which is about half of what they’ll then charge you for shipping.
Order something really fucking heavy extra and refund it.
Why would you order from amazon instead of directly from ifixit?
As another user replied to you earlier, yeah, it’s substantially more expensive after shipping. Nearly 50% more, in fact, but in this specific instance I wasn’t actually planning on buying this specific bit set, the price and subsequent notice of the discount just caught my eye when it was in Amazon’s list of product recommendations.
Oh that makes sense, fair enough. I didnt know amazon did this but I stopped using them a while ago so haven’t kept up.
I think its becoming more and more common knowledge that amazon isn’t cheap anymore.
The same thing is $50 there with shipping.
Yeah but then ifixit gets the money instead, and amazon gets nothing. I want to pay ifixit for their stuff, not amazon. Amazon didnt do anything to deserve money from that purchase.
There are a lot of vendors who only sell through amazon though. That seems more like they are explicitly saying they prefer the amazon shop but I could be interpreting that wrong.
Most likely because they don’t wanna deal with shipping stuff
Because you already have an account set up with amazon.
Because you’ve used amazon before and feel comfortable with them.
I mean those are legitimate answers, but people around these parts don’t take kindly to primers
They gave me free prime. I was a god for 30 days. But ya.
Its just not a business I would recommend giving your money too, but its your choice.
temu/aliexpress - same product and you are skipping jeff bezos pockets
Or just avoid buying from megacorpos directly.
good luck for niche items
Or even common ones that aren’t the biggest sellers.
It’s getting increasingly hard to find things locally, and frequently I’m left ordering things online after going to 3 different stores in town trying to find something specific. More than once it’s been a replacement or a refill of something I bought locally a few years ago.
It’s not a matter of “oh well Menards has the screws the right size but they’re Phillips drive.” It’s “this size is only available online, if you order from us it’ll take 6 days or more. Might still be Phillips idk.” And Amazon can get me what I need tomorrow.
Sometimes the local prices are insane too.
I needed a new infrared thermometer the other day; cheapest one I could find locally that wasn’t a kids medical forehead thermometer with a tiny temperature range: $56 before tax.
Amazon shipped one for $25 incl tax+shipping.
I’m broke af atm. That makes a huge difference. I feel dirty even opening the app/site; but that price difference is absurd.
I am confused by this thread, do you only have Amazon and eBay in US?
weird place to cast shade
It’s not shade. Consume from a more ethical company.
Like…?
One that doesn’t fund Nazis?
Eating ass is the only ethical consumption under capitalism
Wrong. It’s also morally correct to eat the rich. 🥰
People didn’t know this? I mean Amazon is evil shit. But companies have been doing stuff like this for 30 years…
I’d just never seen this specific flavor of bullshittery from them before. Encouraging sellers to keep prices below the shipping limit is one thing, but adding discounts artificially no matter what the actual seller prices their product at is a whole new level of making things worse for everyone involved.
Sellers have a lower likelihood of a non-Prime member buying their item, users don’t get free shipping.
They likely have an algo running to do this just like how they offer random coupons to entice you to buy items in your cart, and all the other tricks around shipping manipulation.
its a strategy, theyre not even being deceitful here, just pricing to their interests. theres so much evil stuff they do, but this example isn’t properly evil.
No, this is just an example of a lesser evil that we’ve grown accustomed to.
Easy fix, don’t buy from Amazon.
I try to when I can, but I tend to have major difficulties doing so.
I tried Ebay, they restricted my account and said the only way for me to get it un-restricted was to buy a product from a limited set of brand-new partner suppliers (e.g. Logitech, HP, etc) that were all over $100, and nothing I actually needed.
I tried buying some chargers from Anker and they also restricted me and said they wouldn’t let me make a purchase because my email seemed suspicious (I don’t use Gmail), so I had to go back to Amazon and buy it there instead for practically the same price, even though it would have actually been cheaper on Anker’s own website since they had a discount code that would have worked for my order.
I bought something on Target because I’d been given a Target gift card, Target cancelled my order 3 times and made me contact customer service to remove an invisible hold on my account.
I frequently try checking third-party sites for the same products, and the prices are way higher (e.g. A product I plan on purchasing is $80 on the manufacturer’s site, and $58 on Amazon, with the price frequently dropping to $38) because Amazon literally mandates that the cheapest price must be on Amazon. Often times, these price differences are so drastic that I could end up paying double for the same product.
I also tend to get Amazon gift cards from relatives even though they already know I dislike using Amazon when I don’t have to, so it’s often somewhat unavoidable.
Don’t get me wrong, those are just the worst instances so far. I’ve bought quite a few items from elsewhere before without issues, it’s just that I tend to have the occasional issue that makes it practically impossible to buy elsewhere.
Believe me, I do my best to not have to spend money on Amazon, but it’s either so drastically more expensive that it’s simply not reasonable to buy elsewhere, or for various reasons I mentioned before, I’m not even capable of placing an order in the first place.
What in the world are you doing to get restricted and cancelled at different sites?
Don’t ask me, I’ve been asking the same question myself 😅
The only things that had originally come to mind were my accounts on those stores being new (but who makes an account there then just lets it sit for like a week), me using virtual cards to avoid using the same payment info across different sites (but many other people do that with no issues), using my non-gmail email (but other people also do that with no issues), ad & JS canvas blocking (but as needanke mentioned earlier, they don’t seem to have problems), or possibly just something with my address itself making its way onto some shared-around list of addresses not to ship to for some reason, but none of these explanations really seem to make sense.
I’m genuinely just as stumped as you are.
I’ll put my bet that your computer is throwing false flags with payment/fraud detection. It could be the VPN and JavaScript blocking things.
iFixit has their own store.
I know, I only took this specific screenshot because it happened to show up as a recommendation within Amazon’s interface and I noticed the price and discount seemed odd. I intend to try buying it (or at least, a similar set made by iFixit) on their own site when I end up actually needing it.
What’s the alternative? The other places I can order a big box of cheap stuff from (Walmart, Target) are run by even worse people and have even worse service.
I once ordered porcelain plates from target and they arrived with no packaging. I don’t mean insufficient packaging, I mean four plates just thrown in a giant box with absolutely nothing else. Somehow 3 were not broken.
Right now I want 1) creatine and 2) cheap t-shirts and I don’t wanna pay for shipping them separately. I can’t find any place where I can get both at a reasonable price besides one of the above. I’m actually considering a costco membership but I’m only going to ever order online from them so I doubt it’s worth their stupid membership.
Either buy more expensive shirts or stop buying creatine if you want to stop ripping them
Go into debt on those t-shirts if you have to
This comment should be higher lol
Well, in the case of the OP, the alternative is the manufacturer: https://www.ifixit.com/Tools
Shop for shit on amazon then buy it from the manufacturers website.
I recently discovered dupe.com , which works quite well by giving it an Amazon link and finding it on potentially cheaper, definitely non-Bezos websites.
Generally, I believe the convenience of cheap shit delivered to your door comes at the invisible cost of exploitative labor practices and/or excessive consumerism by the means of low quality crap that will need to be replaced regularly or through “buy more and save” deals. If you want to avoid supporting that, you’re probably going to have to spend a few extra bucks buying from a smaller business or buying secondhand.
Convenience isn’t free and if we want to reduce our dependence on harmful institutions we’re going to have to make some sacrifices.
Walmart and Target aren’t run by worse people. I’ve never heard of Target or even Walmart employees being forced to piss in bottles or a robot will fire them.
They said, they are still bad people, as retail capitalists, but are you ready to have that conversation?
Retail capitalists are fine, but Amazon, Walmart, and Target all did the maga loyalty thing after Trump’s win. I don’t need to buy from someone who shares my politics or even doesn’t disagree with me, I just need them to not be outright oligarchs using my money to support dictators.
Good luck finding that unicorn.
there is no ethical consumption under capitalism
So you literally never buy from Amazon?
You must live in a very major city.
there are a lot of companies that sell things direct to consumer, using the exact same shipping infrastructure that amazon would otherwise be using, if it doesnt already.
If you live rurally, go campaign for funding the USPS more, trump fucked that one, you can thank him for that.
“If you don’t have access to even remotely consistent alternatives than just go solve the USPS for us” are you for real?
thats the thing though, at that point the USPS is already going to be a problem, in literally every form of online order you make.
Amazon even uses USPS in some places from what i can remember, they mostly use their in house shit when it’s financially competitive.
And yes, the USPS is fundamental infrastructure, it is critically important to the functionality of the US as a whole. It’s the sole reason mail based communication even works. Without the USPS the federal government and most state governments lose a lot of power.
I don’t disagree with any of this but I also dont get the relevance. Amazon is what we have access to. That and Walmart.
yeah, if you’re buying from a single retailer. There are a lot of places that sell products online, and they’re all very accessible. The only thing stopping you from using them is literally your own laziness.
Physical retailers is more of a limit, since there are only ever so many. But that’s part of the utility of something like the postal system.
who are these amazing ethical retailers with a wide selection of available products that can be delivered virtually anywhere in the US in less than a week at a reasonable price?
It’s not lazy. You just have no perspective. Cutting Amazon and Walmart and such out of your life is a privilege. You are privileged. Millions of Americans are not.
Let’s take a look at the products on your desk and on your person. Let’s really parse your alleged ethical consumption. Tell me: what phone and computer do you use?
It’s literally not even hard, but yes you have to put some effort into it, and of course it isn’t convenient. You’ll probably save money, though - Amazon hasn’t had the best prices on 95% of items for many years now.
If you aren’t OK with being slightly inconvenienced, you can always keep supporting Nazis 🤷♂️
“Not convenient”? Have you any idea what it’s like to live in the US rural south? It’s Walmart, Amazon, or just fucking die.
Or any other online store? I have seen very few that won’t ship via USPS and USPS delivers everywhere.
For twice the price, triple the wait time, and if you juggle like 40 accounts sure.
Have you ever lived off minimum wage in a poor region?
USPS charges a not insignificant amount for shipping heavy items to Alaska (excluding media mail that frequently takes months and few retailers ever use). If physical stores sold anything at a reasreasonable price (aside from off season fishing /hunting /cold equipment) fewer people would use Amazon.
Stop using Amazon
Start using Amazon, but in an elaborate drop shipping scam where you sell a $.25 item for $38 and have Amazon pay you $3.99 to ship it to yourself as a proxy.
Nahh their workers still get exploited (even more than the average laborer)
I’ve switched to eBay. The delivery time is often the same and the returns are ok too
A few years ago I mused that we might see the day when eBay becomes a more trustworthy platform to purchase on than Amazon. I’m not sure when exactly the streams crossed but I think we are past it now
That happened years ago. Better search and more trustworthy sellers since products aren’t co-mingled. No way is some seller with years of positive reviews going to send you broken junk and not try to make it right.
I agree.
Amazon is difficult to find what you want if you are searching for a specific brand or item. It shows you many options.
To me it seems like Amazon wants to sell you something as long as the make a sale. Whether it is what you actually wanted is a distant second.
I’ve found that a lot of stuff listed on Amazon is about the price of shipping higher than it is on eBay I guess to account for the free Prime shipping. If you don’t have Prime, there really isn’t much reason to not use eBay since you’d be getting doubly screwed without the free shipping on Amazon.
Just gotta avoid Amazon drop shippers. Thousands of feedback + free expedited shipping + free returns = maybe a drop shipper.
No, avoid alllll of amazon
Correct but eBay is full of shippers who drop ship from Amazon. You don’t want to go on eBay to accidentally end up ordering from Amazon.
And Amazon is full or drop shippers from AliExpress and Temu.
Oh sorry I may have misunderstood!
It’s too convenient. Order something Sunday night, I’ll definitely have it by Tuesday afternoon if not earlier. I always wait until I have enough items I need over $50 before I place an order anyway.
You used to be able to buy digital Amazon gift cards for a dollar. You would use the credit on your next purchase anyway. But they’ve raised the minimum to $5.
That set is normally 39.95 off iFixit’s site.
They knocked off $3.38 i’d just go add a pack of duracels 2032’s and get them for almost nothing, free shipping.
TBF, I usually have something sitting in my cart that I didn’t feel like ordering yet anyway.
So they’re getting you to buy more than you wanted or pull the trigger on something you were waiting on. Sounds like this is still a win for Amazon.
Saved me $4, I’m fine with it.
We need another amazon to beat the existing amazon up, retail sales are just bloated and dead.
OR, how about we start getting mom and pop shops to do local ecommerse with delivery.
I dont think you understand how “Amazon” exists as we know it.
Amazon, the store. the store that sells stuff at “unbeatable” prices and has convenient fast shipping options. exists because Amazon, the corporation, makes most of its money through platforms that are NOT the store.
for example the AWS division, which handles web hosting, Makes money hand over fist compared to the store. so they can afford to sell stuff at either a loss, or breaking even. (and they’re still somehow making money off the ordeal. dont ask me where)
Its hard to make a competitor to Amazon because you’d need a surrogate company constantly feeding it money to stay afloat. Amazon the store, is a facade of a larger corporation
Amazon, the store. the store that sells stuff at “unbeatable” prices and has convenient fast shipping options. exists because Amazon, the corporation, makes most of its money through platforms that are NOT the store.
They were also famously unprofitable for a very long time, longer than most businesses would consider reasonable. They were founded in 1994 and it took until 2003 to make a profit. They were investing a lot of money back into the business.
Exactly. A systemic issue with capitalistic markets is that they inherently select for short term thinking.
Does it make sense to destroy 90% of your profitability 5 years from now for a 20% bump in profit this quarter? Well, yes, it does, because that’s 20% more profit to expand and take over the market.
Even if a business were to try to make good long term decisions, it would immediately be crushed and pushed out of the market by all of its competitors willing to make those shortsighted decisions for immediate profits.
Except in the case of Amazon, thanks to AWS they were able to make good long-term decisions with their e-commerce platform by making short term decisions with AWS.
AWS didn’t exist until after Amazon became profitable. They were already making good long-term decisions before AWS.
I’m not sure that’s entirely true.
Most of their money comes from retail, either the site, subscriptions, or the seller services they provide. AWS, while massive, isn’t what’s keeping them afloat.
You’re entirely correct though that competition with Amazon is difficult because of those additional sources of revenue. Having additional stable sources of income gives them the ability to accept lower margins in retail with less risk.
The way they make money selling things with no profit or at a loss is to ensure that someone else is always paying the difference. “Free shipping” with a paid subscription means that rather than providing shipping for a loss, they just need to do it for less than the subscription. Turns out “guy with a van” can deliver a lot of packages for quite cheap. So many that he’ll be out delivering from 3am to 9pm, and for $5 they’ll drop your package off first and call it overnight.
In some cases they can get the seller to pay for shipping as a promotional incentive, since Amazons conditioned people to look for free shipping as a precondition to considering a product.Only give away for free what you got someone else to pay for.
Revenue is not profit.
Yes, but revenue pays for things like salaries, advertising, etc.
It helps with cash flow sure, but if it’s not profit you’re going into debt to pay that.
How have you ‘saved’ money that you spent, exactly?
I need a $40 screwdriver and 12v battery
They reduce the price of the screwdriver kit $4 to make it not free shipping on it’s own
I buy them both for $40.
I would have to buy them anyway, I spent $40 instead of $45 and still got “free shipping”
If they bundled the item with a pack of batteries in a retail store and sold it for 39.99, would you still consider it cheaper?
not the person you responded to but, would depend if that’s the only thing I’m getting, gas costs money, I defo wouldn’t concider that small of a discount saving money since it will cost me about 6 or 7$ in gas getting there and back
Can’t say I find this surprising, especially not coming from a #GAMAM. (Formerly #GAFAM)
In my day it was FAANG
That is a far more funny acronym. Especially for a Frenchy like me, since my peoples often say of the ones controlling such big corporations, “they have fangs so long, they scratch the floor”. (Well… “They scratch the parquet”, to be exact. But who care if the floor is made of wood or not at that point.)
wouldn’t it be AAMAM because Alphabet?
I say we keep the word we know
Except all of Alphabet entreprises have a name starting by Google. (Or at least strongly evocating it, in the case of Gmail.)
We can’t say the same about Meta. Instagram isn’t called “Facebook Gallery”, and Threads isn’t called “Facebook Short Messages”. (And Oculus didn’t become “Facebook VR”, just Meta.)
No, those are Google products, Alphabet is Google’s parent company and also holds many other companies like Waze and Doubleclick.
Except the team behind Waze was merged with the one behind Google Maps, they just keep the two apps separated (for now) to prevent any backlash. Same with Doubleclick and Google Adds. (In fact, I’ve got the impression Doubleclick became nothing more than an alias for Google Adds. And for quite some time, I might add.)
I’ve actually added very low cost items to my cart, made sure free returns from Amazon only, and returned it. Two can play that game Amazon!
When I did this (I actually ended up not needing the item), they refunded the item minus the shipping cost, so…
If you return ‘too many’ items they may suspend or even ban your account. I’m not sure what the threshold is.
You could buy something cheap like soap But don’t they do free shipping if total order is above the limit ?
There are ebooks listed for exactly 1 cent.
I am going to publish a bunch of 1c, 2c and 5c ebooks now 🙏
In a battle against the honorless you are a warrior of great wisdom.
just order the same from temu/aliexpress - skip Jeff Bezos pockets
I don’t want to deal with their abysmal costumer service, and I’m not giving my address and phone number to some Chinese data center if I can help it.
Your local oligarch will do more damage to you than remote Chinese person can ever do
Remote in what sense? I’m in China.
So use taobao or small or whatever u guys have in China. Why touch amazon
I use amazon to buy ebooks, and order stuff to my parents or friends back home if they are coming over, when there’s something I can’t get locally.
Taobao is the same garbage as Aliexpress, Temu would be Pinduoduo (which is so riddled with poor knockoffs that locals avoid it and crack jokes about the stupid foreigners thinking it’s hot shit).
The only somewhat trusted platform is JD.com (jindong) or official brand shops on Taobao. Tmall belongs to Taobao, that’s just their own shop (as opposed to third party sellers), but there’s no guarantee you actually buy authentic products either.
Just by something costing .01
Like what?
Half cent piece
Digital items, but Amazon intentionally makes them impossible to find. There’s a ton of e-books and Audiobooks that are $0.01 - $0.05, but Amazon intentionally buries them under the “free with Kindle subscription” crap, so that people can’t milk this without really putting in the effort
I don’t know if this will still work, but ages ago, I contacted their support about being one cent under free shipping and they made sure shipping was free for me. Try asking, but I can’t promise the same results.
They’ve passed the point of caring. Originally they would bend over backwards to help you, local(ish) call centers, going out of their way to make you happy.
Now things are much more hit or miss, sometimes you’re just told “tough shit”.
