Let me just take a minute here to say that I am making displeased eyebrows in Amazon’s general direction over some of their recent changes. First it was that you had to wait for your Subscribe & Save orders, even if you had Prime. Then it was all sorts of Prime-eligible items going to “add-on” status, which loosely translates to “Yeah, we decided not to honor the free shipping on this unless you buy more stuff.” Next came the S&S discount dropping to only 5%, unless you buy at least five S&S items. Then it was this grouping-together of Subscribe & Save items, so anything I order today won’t be here for 5 weeks because all of the stuff I ordered last month is shipping this week (finally). Amazon is rapidly becoming a lot less convenient/cheap than it used to be, is my point.
All of that aside, I do still use it for bulk purchases and savings on grocery items I know we’ll eat. (And yes, most of this is stuff you could buy at a similar price at Costco. I do not have a local Costco.) Today’s find: Great prices on Kashi cereals and snacks—items are at least 20% off, and then you save another 5% with Subscribe & Save (if you can wait to get your stuff…), or an additional 20% if you hit the 5-items mark. While I do a lot of baking, I like their cereal bars for grab-n-go snacks that the kids love.
Plus, I just ordered two different flavors, so now I’m 2/5 of the way to that 20% off on my Subscribe & Save shipment for May. Darn you, Amazon.
The changes do kind of suck, but at least the “add-on” limit is $25. My favorite on line quilt shop offers free shipping on orders over $50. So when the 3 1/2 yards of backing fabric I need is on sale for $3.56 a yard, I need to fill the order.
Once upon a time, I used to say “I can always use sewing machine needles”.
Not any more…
the one thing i don’t understand is: since they delay the subscribe & save shipment, do they ship it out at the price you subscribed at, or do they use whatever the price is on the day they ship it?
i am worried because i have stuff in my shipment for april that has a higher “current price” — which is the only price listed anywhere in my subscribe & save page — than the price i “bought” the stuff at.
this is what i found in their faq: “You’ll be charged for each order only when the item is shipped. The amount charged each time will reflect the price of the item on the day the order is processed less the Subscribe & Save discount, plus any applicable sales tax.”
i just can’t figure out if “the order is processed” means the day you subscribe or the day it’s shipped, since that’s when they charge you for the order.
(also three of my five april subscribe & save items are out of stock, so i have no idea what will happen with those. i really hate these changes. i mean, i am change-averse so i try to keep perspective, but i think these changes would be irritating even if you’re a go-with-the-flow kind of person.)
It’s the price on the day you bought it, Karen. 🙂
The only thing that gets changed later is the percentage off if you hit the 5-items threshold. So whatever you’re agreeing to pay on order day is the most you could end up paying. Make sense?
oh, thank goodness. i wasn’t sure how to budget for it if it would just be whatever the price was on the 16th of each month. it’s like their pre-order thing then. thanks for helping clear up the new un-intuitive system for me! 🙂
oof, that was really long. sorry! i apparently have a lot of FEELINGS about the s&s program. 😛
Karen, please post here what happens with the out of stock items! I am wondering, too, if some of the items are out of stock, do we still get 20% off? Surely everything should ship, since in effect we have “pre-ordered” our items. This whole thing IS really annoying. For 5% off it’s really not worth waiting for my goods. For 20% off…
sure! my date is the 16th so it’s still a while off, and most of my out-of-stock items are items that i’ve seen go in and out of stock fairly often, so who knows what will happen? it’s an Amazon Mystery!
Thanks so much for posting this. I had S&S stuff under both my name and my husband. They are now all combined and dated in-sync for delivery. Phew!
Sorry, guys. I’m probably the reason they are going to add-on items. I had foot surgery, I live in NYC, we don’t have a car… so yes, many orders of small things.