I Tried to Quit Amazon but No Luck
When I learned that the annual fee for Amazon Prime would rise from $ 99 to $ 119 last year, I wondered if I could live without the service.
The $ 20 increase I’ll run into when my account is auto-renewed doesn’t really matter. But seeing that this number was over $ 100, I doubted myself. Did I really need to get packages with everything I wanted in just two days? Was it worth paying the annual fee?
I cannot fully realize that I am contemplating life without what I call “All Uncle Jeff’s Shop.” I was inspired by Adam Clarke Estes, now my Gizmodo colleague, who expressed his doubts about Prime in the summer of 2018. He noticed that the convenience of Prime and other attributes of Amazon made him a bit dependent on the ever-expanding company. And he didn’t like it.
I analyzed my own Amazon Prime shopping habits and found that while I spent less than the “average” Prime member, spent $ 1,400 a year , I still spent over $ 1,000 on the site. This is what my activities looked like in the last year of my Prime membership (which I wrote more about in The Penny Hoarder , my last role):
September 2017 – August 2018
- Total Spent: $ 1058.28
- Total orders: 57
- The most common categories are: health and beauty, books and household goods.
- Orders over $ 25: 22.8%
My activity surprised me. Seventy-seven percent of my orders fell short of the usual $ 25 free shipping threshold on the site, which meant I made a lot of small orders as soon as I thought of something I needed instead of waiting until I could. place a larger order. Almost 30% of my orders contained only one item.
I decided that I needed to stop doing this. When my Prime membership expired in November 2018, I promised to try other options, both online and in person, to meet my shopping needs. Of course, I would visit Amazon when I needed convenience or a wide variety of products. But this will not be my first stop.
Except that my plan backfired. This totally backfired.
I haven’t tracked my Amazon spending in real time for the past year without it. When I finally dived into my post-prime orders, I was shocked. Look:
November 17, 2018 – November 16, 2019
- Total Spent: $ 1085.27
- Total orders: 31
- The most common categories are home and gifts.
- Orders over $ 25: 54.8%
Without Prime, I spent even more on Amazon. In hindsight, my two most common subject categories make sense. I had moved to a new location and did not want to spend too much time looking for items that I need to move or my new home, such as additional storage space in the kitchen. And since I live far from my family, I have ordered many gifts to send home for Christmas and birthdays.
The only important aspect of my Amazon purchases that has changed is the size of my orders. I used to average just over one order per week with Prime, but without it I dropped the frequency to about once every two weeks. But I loaded my cart to take advantage of the free shipping offered by Amazon for non-Prime orders over $ 25. Amazon packages came in less frequently, but their value was higher.
Aside from the sheer embarrassment of how much I still rely on Amazon for virtually all tangible goods, I’ve gained new wisdom in my online shopping habits. Let me share this with you.
If you’re going to quit Amazon, do it cold turkey
You can’t just “order a little less on Amazon.” If you are going to get out of this ecommerce giant, you have to go all the way. All year I was the first in line to bypass the rules that I set for myself. I told you to buy Prime for just a month if you expect a lot of shopping. When I became eligible for a free trial of Prime in late November, I got it (although besides “Christmas Shopping !!!”
Whether you want to boycott the company because of its work practices, or you want to adapt your consumption habits to poor old Mother Earth, you must do it completely. Amazon cannot be abandoned.
Get Ready for Reliable Ecommerce Alternatives
When I decided to ditch Amazon, I decided to focus my large online spending on Walmart, Target, and Chewy. I thought this gave me enough power to quickly compare purchases without getting bogged down with too many options.
The only one stuck was Chewy, where I spent about $ 500 in my free period on automatic pet supplies and found how much I pamper my cats.
If you are going to opt out of Amazon, first figure out where you will order groceries, if delivered, where will you pick up those regular home essentials, and if you are comfortable paying any other membership fees that can get those items quickly delivered to your doors.
Once you have a plan, you will not allow yourself to return to the site that you swore to your friends, perhaps a little smugly that you left.
Check inventory levels before going to the store
Previously, you would go to the store looking for a certain item, and if it was out of stock, you would go back to your car and head to the next likely store to carry that item. Rinse and repeat as needed until you get what you need (or something close enough) and half of your Saturday is spent.
You don’t need this anymore. Many retailers show you if an item is in stock at your nearest store when you browse the product listing online. (Some only show this information in their app.) Or, you can select an item, pay online, and pick it up at a nearby store — usually the same day or 24 hours after placing your order.
If your store is out of stock, you will know before you leave home, which will save you the time and hassle that made you shop online in the first place. (If you have had bad experiences in the past where store stock levels did not match what is listed online, check again. Systems keep improving.)
Remember you can only do so much
Any new habit takes time to develop, and it is easy to make mistakes: you become lazy, desperate, or even forgetful. But that doesn’t mean you can’t pick up the phone and try again.
The most important thing is that you make the best buying decisions based on your budget. Virtually every retailer in the world is faced with a work challenge, security threat, or practices that you disagree with. Knowing that this can lead you to the question “What is the use?” a way of thinking leading to the achievement of zero goals. But if you focus on what matters most, which is your own goals and values, you’ll have a better chance of sticking to your choices.
As for me, I’ll try to say goodbye to Amazon again tomorrow.