So a couple of weeks ago after seeing how many times I had to pay for shipping when buying from Amazon and waiting a week to get most items I succumbed to their pitch to join Amazon Prime. What finally made me cave was when I found a favorite salsa that I could no longer find in the store only was available to Prime members at $1.50 less than I had been paying in the store. This is not the first time I had to find an item in Amazon that I could no longer find in the stores. They make you buy a quantity but you almost always pay less per item than the cost in the stores.
In the past I was never sure that the amount of shipping cost would equal the $99 annual cost of Prime. Amazon is so smart in their pitch to Prime members because I first think of shopping on Amazon before I purchase anything now. I have made 3 purchases the past week on items that totaled less than $30. I have even thought of buying my paper products online but see that you have to fill a box on these items so they will still be things I buy at Costco or BJ's.
What I didn't realize when I joined was how convenient it is get your items in 2 days or less. One item came the next day and I had ordered it on a Sunday. This will get even more convenient when Amazon offers one or two hour delivery in Columbia. They already have this in some Baltimore zip codes near their distribution center.
Finally the selection offered by Amazon is so much greater than any retail store could ever offer. One of the items that I purchased recently had 21 choices on Amazon and Dicks Sports had a choice of 2. The item I purchased from Amazon was better and cheaper than the choices at Dicks.
P.S.
I am not sure why on some items I have to pay sales tax and others I don't. I know that since Amazon opened the distribution center in Maryland they have to collect sales tax from Maryland purchasers but they items were from out of state merchants.
P.S. 1
So Amazon has received a lot of negative press this week about a story in the New York Times about how they don't treat their employees very well. Guess that is why they are moving to the robots shown in this link.
Whether sales tax is required depends on the seller. If you buy from Amazon itself, it's taxed because of the MD distribution center. If you buy from another seller that does not have a physical presence in MD - typically marked as "sold by SmallBiz and fulfilled by Amazon" then there's still no tax.
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