I like some aspects of the new system, including sharing payment methods, and so on. For a typical marriage-like situation, it is wonderful not having to log over to my wife's account to gain other prime benefits (shipping was shared, but things like prime video were not). Now both of our accounts are flagged prime for all purposes as far as I can tell.
That being said, when my kids are older, it would have been nice if we could grant them this stuff also, and as far as I can tell that is not the case. Only the two adults get the prime, while the kids get just the shared digital library.
What's interesting is that Amazon has been doing nice things in the kids department like the "Amazon Allowance."[0] Effectively a parent can give a kid some money, and they can use it on Amazon however they wish. So not being able to grant the kids prime on their account effectively means that a lot of the allowance will wind up going to avoidable postage charges (particularly on smaller orders of sub-$25, which I'd imagine are things an allowance might be utilised on).
I almost don't wonder if Amazon shouldn't change prime in the following way:
- Prime postage is now tied to a physical address (not Amazon Account), regardless of sender (e.g. gifts are now prime eligible).
- The prime account holder gets a certain number of prime "credits" they can use to send prime packages to other physical addresses, like friends and relatives.
Effectively this means if you pay $100/year your address is now Prime flagged. So no matter who sends the item, it gets prime postage. So all household members, or people sending you gifts.
Such a change would be controversial, but it would solve the "household problem" since now whoever lives there gets the prime no matter what their relationship to the account holder or similar.
I really hope they don't go to something like this. I realize I'm not the common use case but I am often ordering things to be delivered to my home, office, inlaws house, etc depending on where I'm going to be on its arrival date and where I need to actually use the item.
Eg in the last couple weeks:
We needed wanted programmable thermostats at the family vacation house, had those sent there so I wouldn't forget them.
Wanted some new pens at the office, had a few packs of Pilot G-2s sent to office.
Needed a new scale for the kitchen since my 10 year old one stopped working, delivered to home.
Kid was staying with grandma for a couple of nights and needed some more diapers, had those sent to her house.
Not all that uncommon for a week or two for me.
If prime locked down to a single address I would seriously consider dropping it and I've been a member and big fan of it pretty much since it launched.
Shipping to multiple addresses is probably pretty common. I frequently send gifts to relatives using my prime account. I'd hate to lose free shipping for those items.
As sibling says, gifts wouldn't be a problem with a "credits" type system, but for someone like me who could ship things to myself at 3+ addresses in a week it would be a no-go unless theres enough credits account for that, which would pretty much make it useless for its purpose of preventing sharing.
Did you see my "prime credits" concept? That would allow you to send those gifts, or if they had a prime themselves you wouldn't need to consume even credits.
I tend to ship mostly to the office, since I live in an apartment, delivery to the door is unreliable and picking up at the office with limited hours is a pain...
YMMV, but agreed that multiple location options is really nice... also, makes sending gifts easier, when it goes where it needs to. I don't use the media stuff much, but I order a lot on amazon, via prime.
This. I spent a couple of weeks working from my mom's house in Oklahoma after she got out of the hospital, and being able to use Prime to order an office chair and a folding table (to use as a proper desk) to be delivered out in the boonies was a godsend.
> Prime postage is now tied to a physical address (not Amazon Account), regardless of sender
This isn't going to go over well. If you think the original Amazon Household was abused, this would be a lot worse. I live in NYC in a small building (no doorman), so I get everything delivered to my office, as do most of my coworkers. If 49/50 of the people working on my floor dropped Prime because we get it from just one person, Amazon won't be happy.
That being said, when my kids are older, it would have been nice if we could grant them this stuff also, and as far as I can tell that is not the case. Only the two adults get the prime, while the kids get just the shared digital library.
What's interesting is that Amazon has been doing nice things in the kids department like the "Amazon Allowance."[0] Effectively a parent can give a kid some money, and they can use it on Amazon however they wish. So not being able to grant the kids prime on their account effectively means that a lot of the allowance will wind up going to avoidable postage charges (particularly on smaller orders of sub-$25, which I'd imagine are things an allowance might be utilised on).
I almost don't wonder if Amazon shouldn't change prime in the following way:
- Prime postage is now tied to a physical address (not Amazon Account), regardless of sender (e.g. gifts are now prime eligible).
- The prime account holder gets a certain number of prime "credits" they can use to send prime packages to other physical addresses, like friends and relatives.
Effectively this means if you pay $100/year your address is now Prime flagged. So no matter who sends the item, it gets prime postage. So all household members, or people sending you gifts.
Such a change would be controversial, but it would solve the "household problem" since now whoever lives there gets the prime no matter what their relationship to the account holder or similar.
[0] http://www.amazon.com/b?ie=UTF8&node=11453461011