Oh, heads up, you're in for a treat. Amazon will try to tack on a Prime subscription on every order you try to make from now on. They do this with a permanent full-page interstitial (not a pop-up) for ex-Prime users before the order confirmation page whose big green 'continue' button automatically one-click charges your account for a full year of Prime. You have to read down and click the tiny 'no, I don't want these benefits' blue text link in 8px font size to file your order without Prime.
I no longer shop from Amazon. The more we accept these kind of indignities, the more they will be forced on us. Let them starve, that's the most powerful message one can send.
Edit / More data points:
- One more trick up their sleeve: they will default to two-day paid shipping even when you have free shipping available, just so that you'll feel the pain (i.e. the 'worth') of Prime every time you have to pay attention in the last page, and check the right 'free shipping' radio box for every shipment in your order.
- For me, the last thing that broke the camel's back was that they were specifically sending shipments to arrive on the last day of the shipment window. As a real example, I ordered a display on Jan 7 to arrive between Jan 14 and Jan 18. They shipped it Jan 17. This is what made me notice this, and it made me look at my past orders. Turns out, they have been doing this consistently, for a while.
The purpose of a shipping window is to allow for some slack in the case shipment gets delayed, it is for shipment. If they shipped it a few days before the window, that would be fine. If they shipped it right at the beginning of the window, that would still (arguably) be fine. If you ship in a way that is aiming for as late as possible delivery, that's pretty obvious what you're trying to do.
If you're not a Prime customer, your orders might arrive as late as they can make it. They are likely doing this on purpose.
Pro-tip: Sometimes you can get lucrative deals on Prime during checkout if you don't have prime.
For example, I've gotten multiple 1 month free trials, and also the '1 week for 1.99' which you can immediately cancel after placing your order for a $1 refund (if you immediately cancel, not at end of the week).
I don't shop at Amazon often, but I've gotten many (read: > 10) Prime shipments over the last year, probably paying a grand total of $3 or so.
If I don't have any good Prime offers upon checkout, I'll go to Ebay, find the product, soft by lowest price, and it's usually the same price, or within a dollar or so, and ships a LOT faster than Amazon.com's standard shipping (usually ends up coming from Amazon anyways proxied by the Ebay seller with Prime).
I've gone through the Amazon cancellation pages many times. They always keep tweaking it and expanding the process.
I quit shopping at Amazon completely. Counterfeits are mixed in with legit. If I want cheap shit, I hit eBay or Ali. And if I want legit I go to the store or order from local box stores and pick up.
I think it works even without deals. Just subscribe to Prime, order stuff, cancel subscription. This way you pay only some cents (they charge proportionally to the subscription time) instead of 3€ for the shipment.
I've received this interstitial and it's one of the darkest dark patterns I've ever seen. It would fit right in with an adware, pharmacy, or porn site's checkout flow.
All of these activate a recurring subscription fee. You can see the fee go from barely mentioned (2013) to as little disclosure as possible (2016, 2017). The 2016 version is so intentionally deceptive that it inspired a discussion among friends whether, if we were asked to implement something like this by an employer or client, we'd quit instead of doing it. The easy consensus was yes, both because it's beneath our ethics and because it destroys long-term value for the employer.
I'd love to hear how this came to be within Amazon, let alone how it got approved, kept, and made worse. Somewhere inside Amazon, there's a two-pizza team of developers implementing this value destruction.
Amazon restarted my prime subscription without my consent. I definitely cancelled it and left it canceled for months. I think they auto renewed it when I bought something? No idea. Very dishonest
It doesn't get much better if you're a prime customer. I don't think I've ever received an item I ordered with 1-day shipping. It seems their only mode is 2-day.
For a while, I was getting things shipped in days, though it was always order day 1, at least 24 hours elapse, then "your order has shipped" and I would get it the next day.
Now it's more like prime shipping means at least 3 business days. My last order was on Wednesday but I was told it would be here Monday unless I wanted to pay extra.
I'm getting rid of old computers, phones, and routers on eBay. Dealing with that is therapeutic but it makes it really tempting to cancel Amazon Prime just to raise barriers to accumulating stuff.
I no longer shop from Amazon. The more we accept these kind of indignities, the more they will be forced on us. Let them starve, that's the most powerful message one can send.
Edit / More data points:
- One more trick up their sleeve: they will default to two-day paid shipping even when you have free shipping available, just so that you'll feel the pain (i.e. the 'worth') of Prime every time you have to pay attention in the last page, and check the right 'free shipping' radio box for every shipment in your order.
- For me, the last thing that broke the camel's back was that they were specifically sending shipments to arrive on the last day of the shipment window. As a real example, I ordered a display on Jan 7 to arrive between Jan 14 and Jan 18. They shipped it Jan 17. This is what made me notice this, and it made me look at my past orders. Turns out, they have been doing this consistently, for a while.
The purpose of a shipping window is to allow for some slack in the case shipment gets delayed, it is for shipment. If they shipped it a few days before the window, that would be fine. If they shipped it right at the beginning of the window, that would still (arguably) be fine. If you ship in a way that is aiming for as late as possible delivery, that's pretty obvious what you're trying to do.
If you're not a Prime customer, your orders might arrive as late as they can make it. They are likely doing this on purpose.