Allured by the promises of belonging to Amazon Prime, I just signed up for my free trial.

They tell you:
Free Two-Day Shipping
Free borrowing from their Kindle Library
Free Streaming of Videos

The last item is the least important because I don’t think we have a computer beefy enough to be able to stream effectively.

But I do borrow eBooks from the library, so the free Kindle loan was tempting.

At the moment, I’m really into the Discworld books by Terry Pratchett. I could see that there are lots and lots of these books in Kindle format. So I assumed I would be able to borrow them.

The first thing I discovered about Amazon Prime is that only certain titles are available in the Kindle Lending Library. NONE of the books I wanted are in there except for titles I can borrow through my regular library’s digital catalog anyway.

But free two-day shipping is great, right?

Not!

First of all, only some items have the Prime logo, which means they are available. And normally they cost more than the same item that is not eligible.

Here’s an example. I went shopping for a hood to house a UVB bulb for a turtle.

When I found the item I wanted, I clicked on the count of New items:

Which brings up this nice little comparison:

The first thing to notice is the price. The one that is eligibile for Prime (#2 in the list), which means free two-day shipping, costs more than the first one in the list, including shipping.

So much for free shipping!

But two-day shipping is better than regular, right?

Again, NOT!

Look closely. The Prime product takes 2 – 4 weeks before they even ship it!! The other one ships in 1 – 2 business days.

So according to this, I’ll get my product almost a month later if I get the one eligible for Amazon Prime. Gee, good thing they’re going to ship it to me in two days after a month.

What a sham!

The sad part is that I got my trial because I really need something right away, so I thought it would get here in two days.

I think I’m going to have to order a second one the regular way and cancel the one I ordered through Amazon Prime.

I can’t drop this thing quickly enough!

Update: Ok, I did a search for a hood to match the bulb. This time the one eligible for Prime would ship right away. The price was the same as another one plus shipping, so it looks like I really was getting free two-day shipping. Well, two-day shipping for the price of regular shipping.

I guess the moral is that it really is on a product-by-product basis. If you think you’re going to get anything you order from Amazon in two days, you won’t.