Jul 162006
Amazon: Icky Slippage Business Model
Amazon: Icky Slippage Business Model
I never signed up for Amazon Prime, Amazon’s “pay a bunch up front then get free fast shipping all the time” deal, mostly because I usually buy more than $25 worth of books at a time, so shipping is free anyway. But today, they hit me on the checkout with a free three-month trial of Prime, so I clicked yes – what the heck?
My bad for thinking they were just being nice to me as a VERY GOOD CUSTOMER. The confirmation email they sent had buried in the fine print that my subscription would auto-renew after three months for the usual $80 if I didn’t proactively opt-out on their web site.
That’s a business model based on slippage or breakage like so many others out there (they assume I’ll just forget about it and let the charges go through). I don’t have a problem with that model, but WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT TO YOUR OWN LONG-TERM CUSTOMER? Ick.
I agree that this is a strategy that I hate to have used on myself also.
The problem is that it evidently works as so many companies wouldn’t use it.
Over time though, I think it causes the types of responses from people that eventually push them to leave the company and not come back.
I did that with a company that used that strategy with me that I have spent a lot of money on over a seven-year period. I won’t do business with them again!
Embrace the free, Matt! If I remember right, you can go to the site and cancel the auto-renew right away. We’re on our second free trial, and it’s just cool to not even give a second thought to picking up an item.
Eric is right – I also got the randomly-rolled 3-month free trial.
Knowing I’m the forgetful type, I went into the control panel and un-checked the renewall right away.
Three month trial was great – got some good shipping deals and it let me do more “impulse shopping” on Amazon, which is I’m sure what they’re after, and the thing ended no harm done.
It’s slippage, sure, but it’s at least done in a pretty nice way