I admit that I recently became an Amazon Prime Member. A family member talked me into it after extolling the wonderful ease of wanting something, ordering it right on your phone, and getting free 2 day shipping (rather than worrying about exorbitant shipping charges or meeting a $35 minimum for free standard shipping.
I was happy for the first few months, ordering things and enjoying fast shipping. I used the Instant Video feature to check out new series that Amazon was launching to compete with Netflix. Amazon and I were okay with our relationship. And then they announced Prime Day.
Amazon Prime Day was being hyped as “Bigger than Black Friday” with deals all day that would be unbelievable! I couldn’t believe my luck! I was already a Prime member so I was all “primed” for the big day. Social media hype was everywhere. Amazon was all about “Happy Prime Day” and I was ready for the deals… and the fast, free shipping.
The big day arrived and when I awoke, I quickly opened my tablet to see what was on sale and… What a load of junk. It was like a garage sale of generic merchandise that hadn’t sold on the last Black Friday sale. Before you comment and tell me about your great deal, let me explain. About one in fifty items was decent or maybe even great. Those sold out in seconds with “wait list” promises. I was on a wait list that promised notifications for me if the item I wanted became available. I didn’t get a notification, but checked back and there was some kind of confusing message that I had left to put the item in my cart because my number came up. But it wasn’t in my cart and I couldn’t put it there because I had no button. I randomly clicked on the message and was rewarded with the little never-ending circle of dashes with a message about checking the status. It checked the status for five hours. Obviously, I didn’t get the item, nor did I ever get my promised notification of my wait listed status.
I wasn’t alone. Twitter was largely disappointed with the sale socks and other leftover clearance rack fodder. Did Amazon make a lot of sales? Yep. But there was a lot of bad publicity. And name-calling. But hey, if they mention your name, it’s all good, right? Free publicity.
The bottom line is that this whole fiasco was really a front to lure more customers into investing $99 in a Prime membership so they could partake of the amazingly exclusive sale. Whether they attained that particular goal is unknown. If I was on the fence on Prime Day and I followed the social media blitz, I’d fall off the fence… and not on Amazon’s side. Who needs to pay for a membership to buy cheap microfiber towels and a long shoe horn? Will I keep Prime? Since Prime Day wasn’t a factor when I opted in, I’m still in the evaluation stage. I’m giving it a year and deciding at renewal. I hope that doesn’t coincide with the next Prime Day.