Am I the only one who doesn't like this?

Link: Amazon.com: Amazon Prime Sign Up.

Am I the only one who is riled by Amazon's new "Prime shipping" sign up? For only $79 they will charge me less to ship overnight. (3.99 per book, no minimum)

I don't know about you, but if I want a book that badly, I'll go to Barnes and Noble or Borders and buy it with my Corporate discount card. I am usually content to wait til I have $25 worth of books I want to buy, and get the free shipping.

But I bet they do away with that now.

Seth Godin, on his blog, talks about this being smart, because of course if you have paid $79 to Amazon for Prime shipping, you are less likely to go and buy books at Overstock or ebay or even your local bookstore because now you are invested in buying them from Amazon. Smart business maybe. But it ticks me off.

Comments

[Jimmy Palmer]

Donna,

I followed your trackback from Seth's site. I have to admit that I do not understand your ire with this offer from Amazon. I live in a rural area and the closest large bookstore to me is over 2 hours away. The local bookstores are fine if I want only what is on the NY Times Top Ten but forget finding anything really useful such as technical books or textbooks.
I have very often used the free shipping from Amazon and think it is a great thing. However, finding 4 free hours of time to drive to/from a store is not easy. Being able to order an item on Sunday and have it delivered on Tuesday is easy.