Pimping the Amazon for free.

Because that’s how I roll, yo.

Amazon kicks a relatively large amount of ass. Most of the nontrivial stuff I buy comes from them. Online shopping is supremely convenient for me: No lines, no dumb people, no whining kids, no traffic, no wasting gas, no putting myself in a dangerous situation just to buy things (automobile accidents kill millions every year), etc. So I have to wait a few days to get my stuff — I’m perfectly okay with that given all the pros.

Recently I’ve been thinking about getting Amazon Prime. The premise is simple — you pay $79 per year in order to get free two-day shipping on every order. Every single one. And if you want to get your stuff in one day instead of two, you pay a mere $4 extra. For someone like me who (still) buys CDs and often only one or two at a time, this could potentially save me a lot of money. And then I also get them in my hands in two days instead of six. In either case Amazon is much more convenient; Best Buy and Circuit City have failed to have what I was looking for so many times it’s beyond laughable.

Another reason I like Amazon is because they have tons of third-party merchants selling through them, and more often than not the prices are lower. I recently bought my mom the entire DVD set of Le Femme Nikita because it’s one of her favorite shows of forever apparently. The list price is a whopping $410, and even though Amazon only wants $277 for it, that’s still a steep price. Through a third-party merchant I was able to get the set for a mere $110 — brand new too. That’s kind of ridiculously awesome!

When I went to check out Amazon told me “You Save: $299.” I laughed out loud.

Prime, however, doesn’t work for third-party merchants, so even if you’ve paid the $79, the option to use Prime isn’t there. Thus, Prime is not very useful on its own or for dedicated third-party users. It’s only when you’re a frequent Amazon shopper does it stand out. I wasn’t aware of just how much until I gave it a little thought.

Here’s an example. Below are four CDs I want (I’m on an emo-ish, post-hardcore kick right now, though the past few I’ve bought have fallen into the melodic black and technical death metal catagories). In the second column is the Amazon price and in the third you’ll find a third-party merchant price plus $5.19 for expedited shipping via USPS. I could go non-expedited for $2.98, but then I’m only guaranteed to get my wares within two weeks, so it’s hardly worth not paying the extra $2.21.

In total I’m looking at $53.93 from Amazon Prime and $56.10 from third-party merchants. Notice how the base third-party prices are very good on their own, but when you throw in shipping for every single item, it suddenly doesn’t seem like such a good idea. That’s $20.76 in shipping costs alone — so much shipping, in fact, that the end total turns out to be higher. And then we don’t get the convenience of two-day shipping.

Amazon Prime is definitely a good idea if you frequently buy small items online, especially when you can pool together and have multiple people buying through one account for all the benefits. The $79 fee will pay for itself in no time at all, and after that it should save you quite a bit. The above example probably isn’t the best to demonstrate this, mainly because CDs are almost guaranteed to cost much less via the merchants, but it’s relevant so I went with it anyway.

Update! I found out today that Amazon allows you to add up to four “family members” to a Prime account. The idea, of course, is that people within a family/household can share the benefits without having to buy via a single person, but since there aren’t any substantial checks on person-to-person relationships, you can essentially tell Amazon your buddy is actually your “unmarried partner” or child. A child with his own credit card and address. All they ask for verification is to know each others’ birthdays. Pretty damned awesome if you ask me.