Amazon Student

pete

pete

Brassica Oleracea
Staff member
Administrator
Final one I'll post about today.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/student/signup/info

If you have a valid email address that ends in .edu, you can sign up for free. This gives you:

* $3 MP3 credit
* Free Amazon 2-day shipping for 6 months

The latter is exceptionally nice because I've been able to find some really nice used CDs on Amazon for cheap, but the shipping is generally more than I've paid for the CD.

The fine print (emphasis mine):

After you graduate or at the end of your fourth year of Amazon Student $39 Prime benefits, whichever comes first, your subscription will automatically upgrade on its anniversary date into a full paid subscription for Amazon Prime at $79 a year. Your Student Prime benefits can't be shared with another account, but if you continue with a paid membership you'll receive access to thousands of Prime instant videos, and a Kindle book to borrow for free each month from the Kindle Owners' Lending Library. Benefits are subject to restrictions, such as geographic limitations, as stated in our Amazon Prime Help pages. If you don't wish to continue with paid Prime benefits you can set them to not automatically upgrade at any time during the free period.
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It's only a couple of posts ....

FWIW, I made a little push to get someone to sponsor saxpics.com a long while ago. Hey, several thousand unique visitors per month. No one bothered. Hey, I'm a big-time Yamaha lover and they've never even sent me a student clarinet to review.
 
Kev, I work at Amazon now, after 20 years at Microsoft. My small part of the Amazon world is Webstore where my team provides the seller facing docs and videos. Pete finds stuff for many people in our little community based on our interests; it's like having your own research assistant. No, really... :)

BTW, he and others pointed out stuff about Microsoft I didn't know when I was on the Visual Studio and Dynamics CRM teams there too. I luvs these guys!
 
Awwwwww.

Check's in the mail, right, Jim?

I can say that I've used Amazon for years -- only one thing got screwed up and they fixed it fast -- and I like the Prime idea. I'd use it more for the Kindle lending library, but the comment I made about CDs is rather spot on: my most recent album I bought, used, a two CD set, was $3. New was $22, IIRC. I also know that the majority of folks here are sax players, which generally means "jazz" and almost always "old school." That's right up Amazon's alley.

'Course, you know by checking the "What are you listening to ...?" thread that my taste in music is rather eclectic. Amazon has some stuff I'd want, but it doesn't have all the stuff I want. Get me some Peter Schickele CDs that I haven't heard and I'll be interested.

I used to be a member at a place called RetailMeNot, which is kinda like an online coupon place, and if I find good deals there, I'll post 'em here, too. I don't play favorites with online-dealers. Unless I get kickbacks.
 
Gandalfe said:
Kev, I work at Amazon now, after 20 years at Microsoft. My small part of the Amazon world is Webstore where my team provides the seller facing docs and videos. Pete finds stuff for many people in our little community based on our interests; it's like having your own research assistant. No, really... :)

BTW, he and others pointed out stuff about Microsoft I didn't know when I was on the Visual Studio and Dynamics CRM teams there too. I luvs these guys!
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I've been using Amazon pretty much since they started. Always been really impressed - they were to first guys to do it right in their area. Just like Ebay. I still like using them. Customer support is excellent. And they're still a long way ahead of most of the opposition.

Suggestions for improvement:

1 - Product details are generally poorly located and comparing 2 or more products/offers is less than good. Part of it is general clutter - there's too much on the main product page.
2 - Product details are often poor - for music (CDs, sheet) full lists of tracks should always be there - it often isn't, even if you click the technical details when you find them (would be easier if a tabbed layout was used!).
3 - If I'm not logged in, it treats me as if I'm logged in. Then when I want a 1 click I have to log in - AND then redo the 1 click.... Just prompt me for the password please.
 
Thanks for the feedback. Amazon is really serious about putting the customer first. It's part of every business plan and the first item on the leadership principles. We usually get it right, but there's always room for improvement.

It's sometimes hard to tell who's selling stuff on Amazon. It isn't always us. So other than writing the specs for a product listing, changes being made all the time, we really can't do it for them.
 
kevgermany said:
...
2 - Product details are often poor - for music (CDs, sheet) full lists of tracks should always be there - it often isn't, even if you click the technical details when you find them (would be easier if a tabbed layout was used!).
...
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Yes, and, for jazz at least, the personnel would be very nice to have. It may be different with other genres but when I buy a jazz album I want to know everyone who's playiing on it.
 
My biggest complaint with Amazon is that if I'm looking for the item with the best rating, I'll get results for an item that only one person rated 5-stars. That's generally a worse product than a product that 950 people have rated 4-stars. However, I don't necessarily want to go with "most popular." Example: it says Kenny G is most popular for soprano sax. That's great, but he's not necessarily better than John Coltrane.

I'm sorry. We seem to now have a "let's beat on Gandalfe because he works for Amazon" thread :p.
 
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