Amazon held a one-day sale Wednesday that was billed to be bigger than Black Friday. It was not.
On Prime Day, the online behemoth offered a smattering of deals to customers who had purchased its $79 annual Prime membership, a service which gives members free two-day shipping on most items, plus cloud storage for photos and other documents.
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Similar to one-day events like Black Friday and Cyber Monday, curiosity got the best of me and so I checked out Amazon’s so-called Christmas in July event.
What I found was a reminder of why I avoid shopping for electronics and other gadgets in the first place.
Checked out Amazon Prime Day and it’s a lot like Black Friday. Lots of okay deals on crap I don’t need.
— Robb Engen (@RobbEngen) July 15, 2015
Fuelling our obsession with buying ‘stuff’
Back in college I had a strange obsession with buying movies, books, and CDs. I don’t know whether I was trying to impress the ladies with my Tarantino collection or what, but this type of impulse buying caused me to waste thousands of dollars from age 18-24.
Hey, it was expensive to switch over a movie collection from VHS to DVD to Blu-Ray. Damn you, technology!
Related: Why it’s hard to avoid buying stuff
But today we can access all kinds of movies and TV series’ on demand using cheap services like Netflix or even free services at our local library. I realized there was no need to own an expensive collection that I’d only watch (or read) once.
So when I saw that Amazon was selling the latest blockbuster movie on Blu-Ray for just $5.99 – 20-year old me would’ve said, “you can’t afford NOT to buy that,” while today I couldn’t care less about saving money on crap I don’t need.
Amazon Prime day was a huge fail – its customers were disappointed with deals that resembled more of a garage sale style dumping of inventory. So in a way it was exactly like Black Friday.
Why I subscribe to Amazon Prime
You might find it odd that someone who wants to avoid consumerism and stop buying crap would have an Amazon Prime membership in the first place.
It comes down to saving money on shipping.
We often hold book giveaways on Boomer & Echo, for example, and it actually costs me less to buy a book on Amazon and have it shipped directly to the winner for free than it does to get a free copy of a book from the publisher and then mail it to the winner through Canada Post.
Related: Addition by subscription subtraction
We’ll also buy Christmas and birthday presents for friends and relatives through Amazon and have the gifts shipped directly to the recipient in order to save on postage.
The savings more than pay for the annual subscription and that’s the reason why we’re Amazon Prime members – not for some bogus online sale fail.
