Amazon Prime in the UK

November 12th, 2007 - 01:49 | 1 comment

I’ve just seen that Amazon have launched their Prime service in the UK. With this system you pay £49 for a year’s (first-class) postage, so every subsequent order is just the item cost. Clever.

Minimum delivery on books, for example, is £2.75, so in twelve months you’d have to be making eighteen orders for it to be economical, assuming you didn’t use the free ’super saver’ delivery. It does save the hassle of grouping orders for cheapest postage, though, and when combined with the one-click system it’d be great for busy people. Is it worth it for me personally? Probably not - Gmail reckons I’ve only ordered seven times from them since last November. But it wouldn’t take much more, and I can see the average family hitting eighteen without too much difficulty.

It must be great for Amazon, though: who’s going to use any other store if you’ve paid nearly fifty quid for a year’s deliveries? Amazon’s usually the cheapest anyway, excluding delivery, and given the speed and simplicity of their website it’d be incredibly easy to end up using them for everything.

Can’t think independent bookshops are too impressed, mind.

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One Response to “Amazon Prime in the UK”

1 Nicola Birch Dec 2nd, 2008 at 1:26 pm

Well as I ordered a book and neede the guaranteed next day delivery back in October my postage would have been about £9 for the items requested so I thought I would take up the FREE 30 Day amazon trial.

Thought I was fantastic all items arrived next day so used it a couple of times during october and was so impressed thought I would stay subscribed.

BAD MISTAKE first order since paying the £49 was in November and it took 4 days for my items to arrive and I had to go and pick them up myself from Royal Mail office. after chasing my stuff via e mail with amazon the sent an e mail saying to wait upto 5 working days before chasing parcel!

Again I ordered last Thursday for guaranteed deliver before 1 on Saturday. needless to sat I am sat here on Tuesday wondering where my stuff is and after half an hour on the phone to Amazon still none the wiser. They even expected my to chase up Royal Mail myself. After eventually getting to talk to someone with half a brain at Amazon got told they couldn’t even re dispatch as they had sold out of my Items.

I think they are totally mis selling this service . DO NOT FALL INTO THEIR EVIL TRAP !!!!

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