Just signed up for Amazon Prime. $79 for a year of unlimited 2-day shipping. Overnight is only $3.99 extra. Already placed 7 or 8 orders in the few weeks since signing up.
Let's do the math. $80 divided by 8 orders is $10 per order for 2-day shipping. And that number drops with every order. Placed 20 orders with Amazon last year; that would've been $4 per order. For 2-day shipping? Unheard of. FedEx 2-day runs about $12 for a 1 lb. box. Crazy good deal for me.
But how is Amazon pulling this off?
Here's what's changed. Before Prime, the $25 minimum for free shipping forced me to bundle items. Now? Just hit "1 Click" and it ships instantly. Been getting $6 items and $12 items sent in totally separate 2-day shipments. At FedEx rates that's $12 in shipping for a $6 item. Amazon's gotta be getting some massive volume discount. Or they've worked out some deal with FedEx I can't figure out.
Or maybe they just didn't plan on customers like me.