Guess I'm an odd duck as I no longer see the value in Amazon Prime and will cancel when membership is up. I have tried to use it quite a bit this past year but my supposed 2 day delivery is only good on certain items which are often higher priced. I have ordered several items which were marked as made in USA but when arrived are labeled as made in China. And several that were obvious counterfeits of what they were supposed to be. It is like having a magic Genie though - I must admit - with the world of goods at your fingertips.Amazon Prime membership
Speaking of the world at your fingertips - I heard the Sears close to me is shutting down. Not surprising - not many people shop there. It's now weird thinking about millions of 3 inch thick catalogs mailed out several times a year, every year. And it actually being profitable.
Sears tried to rebrand years ago ("the softer side of Sears") but I don't think that was successful. Sears was never close to my top ten places to go clothes shopping. The only time I ever bought clothes there was when I brought my kids in for a photo shoot and I urgently needed a sweater for my son to wear in the picture.
Now it just seems very outdated as a brand. But I still like their appliances.
"Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it--every, every minute?" Emily Webb, Our Town
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Not just the paper waste, but I was thinking about all those clip out order forms from catalogs and magazines. The processing labor savings has to be very large and I'd just guess the whole burdensome process might have served to reduce consumption. There was a certain pleasure of anticipation in receiving orders. I've never felt the need for the immediacy of Amazon Prime and usually keep a wishlist until I get enough for free shipping.
Personally I don't shop to interact with people*. I invite a friend out for coffee or lunch if I want interaction. About the only bricks and mortar shopping I do anymore is food. We have safeway, a fruit and vegetable store and a great butcher all within a block of home so I doubt I"ll start amazon priming my groceries unless they make the pricing very enticing.
*I make an exception to this for the hot bear that works at the butcher shop... Unfortunately there are probably ten people who work at the butcher's so more often than not someone else assists me.
As a former wage-slave at the Wholefoods Deli, I am not really sure how I feel about the acquisition. I still have several friends that still work there, yet I don't know what they have told the employees. While I was there for four years, I could sense a big shift, yet didn't really know what it entailed, other than we all knew sales were down. It actually is a good company to work for, they paid their workers a decent wage for retail, full-time employees got health insurance and it has a pretty good vacation policy, but it is brutal, mind-numbing work and we were pertpeually short-staffed and finding quality employees was really, really hard.
I'm thinking I got out at the right time...
never had a paid prime membership, but at times when I needed something fast (as opposed to my usual choice of slow shipping) have took on a trial prime membership, just cancel it before I was due to pay - something they expect people to do a lot, I'm sure.Guess I'm an odd duck as I no longer see the value in Amazon Prime and will cancel when membership is up
Trees don't grow on money
oh yea was thinking about you today (thinking about the Whole Foods buyout) and thinking it's smart you got out. They're probably going to do layoffs, but who knows (as it won't be great for the customer experience if they do, no fun to shop somewhere understaffed, so it hardly seems a good move to do layoffs as far as keeping customers, but they might.).I'm thinking I got out at the right time...
Trees don't grow on money
It is a very different transaction when the purchase is financed by cash instead of debt. Companies that create huge amounts of debt buying other companies are most often the ones that later hit the news with their financial difficulties and slashed employees. This could be a very interesting situation.
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