Lost in the Amazon....

I got a $50 Amazon card as a stocking stuffer this year, and I redeemed it into my Prime account.

I usually like to wait until I'm tempted by some sort of widget that I would not normally buy for myself.
My first (of 10) Wyze cam.....A Raspberry Pi.....some wireless headphones...and Audible credits are all things I have gotten in the past.
This year I was briefly tempted by a coffee maker, or a smoothie blender, each for work - but I'm still debating.
Sooner or later there will be some little something that I want but am not sure that I want to jack $50 out of my discretionary fund or try to get a funding authorization for from my beloved CFO.
However (comma!) I've been an Amazon customer for over 20 years and have developed a lot of muscle memory for click and ship.

You may want to consider the gift of the card itself as the gift and order any staple product that you would normally get down at a big box store or locally Wally.
Refrigerator water filter.
HVAC Filters.
Supplements and/or Vitamins
Oil/filters.

Anything that you might buy semi-regularly that would save you a one-of trip to a store.

Let us know what you get!

 

The brick and mortar deathstar got it's start with books and then music.....

You could always splurge on something like that as an homage to Bezos' empire...

 

LOL Be warned, it is already passed "the age of point and click commerce" . It is already into the age of voice control commerce. Just speaking "Alexa, order a toilet plunger" to your Echo devise will do fine.

 

nothing wrong with a $50 bill in a card. Who foisted this on you, an employer?

That said, I'm a bit of an Amazon addict. Finally signed up for Amazon Prime, for $80 CDN per year IIRC, which gets you:

1. More free shipping, with less mininums, and so on.
2. Faster shipping, some things about 12~18 hours, lol.
3. Full access to Prime Video video streaming (movies, series, documentaries). You need high-speed internet and something like an Apple TV.

When shopping on Amazon, my strategy is to just put things in the shopping cart as I think of them, and if it's not urgent, let them sit. Come back to it later, you might want to delete items, or move them to the "save for later" category.

Definitely read the reviews. You can also post questions; sellers will usually respond. Or customers, and often the latter are more savvy.

Sometimes the sellers are hopeless. Case in point: I was looking for 1/2" and/or 5/8" fuel line. Item for a sale shows a picture of a spool of hose, described as "fuel line". No diameter given. No length given.

 

You know, I received a hard copy "Yellow Book" in our mailbox not too long ago. Not that I use it, but it is still being published and distributed for free. At least for my area.

 

I started the 30 day trial subscription for Prime around the time Netflix was giving me a complete run-around, and I'd just discontinued it. Like a hermit crab moving to a new shell, lol.

Also, our son had just got us a new-and-improved Apple TV, and the Netflix interface on the new box was maddening.

 

Yeah, save yourself, don't look back...

Maybe I'm a new breed of luddite? I have an iPhone 5 (over 5 years old, it's puny dimensions mocked by my children), and I refuse to talk to it.

Well, except when making a phone call. You can still do that??

Hopeless...

 

Hah, when they started us on ink, it was nibbed pens, with little bottle of ink (they fit in the hole, upper right corner of the desks), and an envelope-sized swath of blotter paper. They were scritchy, messy. Being a lefty, I had to adopt a curled hand posture, to avoid plowing through the wet ink. Lots of fun...

That went on for maybe a month, and then they switched us over to these new-fangled ballpoint pens.

 

Internet packets are more earth friendly.....even if you're not averse to plucking a feather out of a large bird and scribbling on animal skins with walnut juice......

@ Amazon Prime.

Yeah.
The Snatchers got me a while back. One of the better things about Prime (and Netflix, I s'pose) for me is that you can download shows to your phone and watch offline.
This is especially handy when I'm in a waiting room or if I want to wait in the car while my dear wife physically shops in one of those quaint 20th Century style buildings where they actually sell physical stuff.....sometimes allowing one to barter for items with little green slips of paper from, like, the 19th century.

Currently I have a PBS Civil War series and the latest season of The Expanse and a Documentary on Consolidated's B-36 to compliment my 2 Disney+ downloads, and dozens of audiobooks. Currently I'm listening to Ambrose's Wild Blue and A Land Remembered by Smith.

If one of my beloved granddaughters is with me and I want to keep her entertained?
I have a season of Peppa Pig on my phone...

If you're looking for the nefarious mind-control vector...it's probably Peppa.
One of my grandbabies is starting to sound like a very proper little English girl.




Netflicks?
Who has time?

 

Try explaining how to get directions on a paper map! Or distances between two points. Hey, at least a paper map won't tell you to make a right turn onto a bicycle path...

 

That's what I tell some of the Jetson-set when they insist that L5 autopilot is juuuuust around the corner.

Robbie the Robot can't read - or even fold a paper map........yet.

 

Like@15 for walnut juice. It's my kind of topic.

 

I can think of two good uses (if you don't want to buy anything on Amazon):

1. Search the list of other gift cards on Amazon and buy one of those. For example, I'd buy a Netflix gift card and then apply it to my account. Easy 3-4 months of Netflix prepaid.

2. If you have a friend or family member with an upcoming birthday, regift that Amazon gift card.

 

My dislikes for Amazon are increasing. Topping that list are having to navigate through that Prime minefield every time (not a Prime member) and enough resellers on the site that it looks like eBay. One positive note, great ship times now that we have a fulfillment center (mega-warehouse) within 10 miles of the house. Soon the drones will be landing on my driveway.

No easy way to navigate reviews. If the product has been around for a while you can probably disregard negative posts older than a year. I also bristle at the DO NOT BUY warnings but often heed them after some more research. I usually wait and watch those items for a while, see what changes. Most of the other websites I visit for commerce have taken to allowing manufacturers of their products to respond to customer posts, which I think is a good idea.

There is still enough brick and mortar around my neighborhood to attract the bulk (>80%) of my purchases. I hope that never goes away.