Amazon gives non-Prime members free shipping at $35 or more of eligible items. Instead of simply letting users get the product with free shipping, they’ve added a discount that prices it exactly one cent below the $35 limit, while only subsidizing the price with $3.38, which is about half of what they’ll then charge you for shipping.

    • rational_lib@lemmy.worldEnglish
      0·
      3 months ago

      What’s the alternative? The other places I can order a big box of cheap stuff from (Walmart, Target) are run by even worse people and have even worse service.

      I once ordered porcelain plates from target and they arrived with no packaging. I don’t mean insufficient packaging, I mean four plates just thrown in a giant box with absolutely nothing else. Somehow 3 were not broken.

      Right now I want 1) creatine and 2) cheap t-shirts and I don’t wanna pay for shipping them separately. I can’t find any place where I can get both at a reasonable price besides one of the above. I’m actually considering a costco membership but I’m only going to ever order online from them so I doubt it’s worth their stupid membership.

      • BigBenis@lemmy.worldEnglish
        01·
        3 months ago

        Generally, I believe the convenience of cheap shit delivered to your door comes at the invisible cost of exploitative labor practices and/or excessive consumerism by the means of low quality crap that will need to be replaced regularly or through “buy more and save” deals. If you want to avoid supporting that, you’re probably going to have to spend a few extra bucks buying from a smaller business or buying secondhand.

        Convenience isn’t free and if we want to reduce our dependence on harmful institutions we’re going to have to make some sacrifices.