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20 February 2006

score Amazon just hooked me up with a free trial of Amazon prime, for two months. I have no idea why, but when I ordered a book they offered it too me. I also fiddled with the shipping options, originally putting 'next day' and then switching it to '2 day' and then I got the offer. And they are shipping my book next day for just $3.99.

I guess their algorithms said I would make them more money if I signed up for it. Weird.

post by: delmoi at: 19:02 | 14 comments

Same thing happened to me a few weeks ago.

It's great, but I sure hope I remember to cancel it when the trial period is up.

posted by tangerine 20 February | 19:04

How much does it cost, anyway? $40/mo? I normaly just order regular, super-saver unless I'm getting a lot of books.

posted by delmoi 20 February | 19:06

$79 a year. For some people that's probably a very good deal, but I don't usually pay for shipping anyway - just cluster my purchases and have them shipped slowly for nothing.

Amazon Prime got some bad press early on, so maybe they're trying to seed a little goodwill.

posted by tangerine 20 February | 19:12

It's about $80 a year, delmoi. My free trial expires in April and like you, tangerine, I really hope I remember to opt out. (Although they promised to send me an e-mail and all the cancel info is right there on the "manage subscriptions" page."

It sucks that it won't let you search for things that are only eligible for free shipping, though.

posted by jrossi4r 20 February | 19:12

i did it too, but my trial's expiring next week so i cancelled....be sure to mark the box "do not automatically enroll me at the end of the trial period" (or something like that)

posted by amberglow 20 February | 19:29

they sent me a warning email, so that was nice.

posted by amberglow 20 February | 19:30

I love Amazon Prime, but then I order from Amazon 3-4 times a month so it's totally worth it to me. I wonder if they will try to charge me more when my year is up...

posted by mike9322 20 February | 19:46

Yeah, just to follow on what amberglow wrote, there's a link in your "Your Account" page called "Manage your Amazon Prime Membership" and that's where you can turn off the automatic upgrade option.

As for me, I've only got something like 4 or 5 days left, and I have to say that I've really liked this service -- I'm still not sure if it's subjectively worth $80 a year to me, but with the amount I've saved on books, plus the free shipping, the service would have "paid" for itself already over the last 4 months.

posted by .kobayashi. 20 February | 20:44

My (paid) Amazon Prime subscription has saved me money. It has also enabled much impulse shopping, but this has also encouraged more reading and listening. So, it's been good over all.

posted by mullacc 20 February | 20:51

I signed up for it as a trial, and they charged me the $79 without warning. I sent an e-mail of complaint and they removed the charge promptly. But I was quite unhappy that I went from the trail period to the automatic enrollment without giving permission. I originally signed up in December, if that info is worth anything.

posted by Miko 20 February | 21:29

Out of curiosity, what do you use Amazon for and how much? You don't need to be at all specific. I think I've bought four things from there since the site launched, and only because I couldn't get them in some way that supported local retailers.

posted by Eideteker 20 February | 22:04

I'm sporadic with them, so it's not worth it. Lately i've been using it for the mecha books, and for used books that bookstores tend not to have.

posted by amberglow 20 February | 22:47

oh, and a great serrated bread knife. : >

posted by amberglow 20 February | 22:47

Out of curiosity, what do you use Amazon for and how much? You don't need to be at all specific.

Well, mostly books. But whenver I need $RANDOM_THING which I think i might not be able to find localy, I look for it first on amazon.

Here is a subset of the stuff I've got off amazon, minus some embarassing.

_{An Introduction to Support Vector Machines and Other Kernel-based Learning Methods

by Nello Cristianini, John Shawe-Taylor

Tokyo Underworld : The Fast Times and Hard Life of an American Gangster in Japan (Vintage Departures)

by Robert Whiting

The Diamond Age : Or, a Young Lady's Illustrated Primer (Bantam Spectra Book)

by Neal Stephenson

The Satanic Verses : A Novel (Bestselling Backlist)

by Salman Rushdie

Beginning XSLT

by Jeni Tennison

The Problems of Philosophy

by Bertrand Russell,

A History of Western Philosophy

by Bertrand Russell

The Empiricists : Locke: Concerning Human Understanding....

by John Locke, et al.

Postmodernism: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions)

by Christopher Butler

Idoru

by William Gibson

The Rise and Fall of British Empire

by Lawrence James

Pattern Recognition

by William Gibson

Count Zero

by William Gibson

Speed Tribes : Days and Night's with Japan's Next Generation

by Karl Taro Greenfeld

Molecular Biology of the Cell, Fourth Edition Molecular Biology of the Cell, Fourth Edition

by Bruce Alberts, et al.

Tokyo: A Certain Style

by Kyoichi Tsuzuki

Machine Learning

by Tom M. Mitchell

Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach (2nd Edition)

by Stuart J. Russell, Peter Norvig

Gravity's Rainbow (Penguin Twentieth-Century Classics)

by Thomas Pynchon

Mona Lisa Overdrive (Bantam Spectra Book)

by William Gibson

Standard Deviations : Growing Up and Coming Down in the New Asia

by Karl Taro Greenfeld

Molecular Biology of the Cell: A Problems Approach

by JOHN WILSON

Order by Accident: The Origins and Consequences of Conformity in Contemporary Japan

by Alan S. Miller, Satoshi Kanazawa

Wrong About Japan : A Father's Journey with His Son

by Peter Carey

The Name of the Rose: including Postscript to the Name of the Rose

by Umberto Eco

Ugly Americans : The True Story of the Ivy League Cowboys Who Raided the Asian Markets for Millions

by Ben Mezrich

The Theory of Poker

by David Sklansky

Schismatrix Plus

by Bruce Sterling}

These are not ordered by date. I think they are ordered by when I rated them, which is what this list is based on (books I've rated)

posted by delmoi 21 February | 00:31

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