Amazon Launches Free Same-Day Delivery for Prime Members in Toronto and Vancouver
By Simon Hung
September 27, 2016Last week, Amazon.ca quietly raised their free shipping threshold to $35.00. The contentious change affected those who aren’t subscribed to Amazon Prime the most and was largely seen as a strategy to increase Amazon Prime subscribers, as members receive free two-day shipping regardless of order size. Even so, only 2% of over 3000 users who voted in our poll said that they would subscribe to Amazon Prime as a result of the change.
Today, Amazon has made Prime a little more enticing for those in Toronto and Vancouver, as the company has introduced free same-day delivery for Prime members on orders over $25.00 in those two cities.
At launch, about one million products in Toronto and 700,000 products in Vancouver are eligible for free same-day delivery, including cell phone accessories, diapers and more. Orders placed before noon will be delivered by 9:00 PM the same day while orders placed after the noon cutoff will ship the next day. Same-day delivery is available seven days a week, including weekends.
Alexandre Gagnon, country manager for Amazon.ca, stated that the launch of Prime same-day delivery and the increased free shipping threshold for non-members are unrelated, but the timing of the events doesn’t seem like a fluke coincidence. Back in April, Amazon expanded their Amazon Logistics delivery service to Canada and has invested heavily in delivery assets to lay the groundwork for same-day delivery.
With the holiday season around the corner, free same-day delivery might be enough for some shoppers to subscribe to Amazon Prime for the convenience alone, but the service still doesn’t include some of the perks as the American equivalent, including instant video streaming and unlimited music streaming.
An Amazon Prime subscription costs $79.00 per year or $39.00 per year for eligible students. Free trials of the service are also available for those who have never used it. Click here to learn more about Prime delivery benefits and to see if your area is eligible for free same-day delivery.
Is free same-day delivery enough to get you to subscribe to Prime? Where do you want Amazon to expand this service next? Vote in our poll and leave a comment to let us know what you think!
Showing 39 Most Recent Comments
View allUnfortunately it's actually quicker to just same day ship some things from Amazon than it is to call around to every store that potentially might have it and explain to them what I need.
Even with a part number in hand I get a bunch of confused retailers.
It does, but the problem is that the postal codes I know don't correspond to Walmarts that are physically close to me at the moment.
It's fine if I was at home but in this case I was across town and there's no less than like 8 Walmarts between me and home.
There's no way to "see more" stores or anything. It just returns the closest 4 stores regardless of stock level.
Most stores still don't have an online stock checker and staff are less than useless in telling me if an item is in stock.
I called around once to every single Superstore in GVRD looking for Jalapenos. No one knew what they were. Or they were out of stock. Or they didn't understand English.
Even those stores that do have stock checkers, some to most times they're terrible.
I need a couple things from Walmart (because they are cheaper than Amazon for the item I want) and I can't search by city name.
I have to go look up by postal code which I don't know because the closest Walmart isn't in an area that I know.
Even if I did know the postal code, the stock checker is a pass/fail condition. I have no idea how many are in stock.
There's quite a few items that are eligible.
Or rather available in Vancouver. I haven't really looked into the program to see if there's limits.
But assuming any item that's fulfilled is eligible there's a shocking number of things that are available to be shipped same day.
Out of the hundreds of items I buy there every year I'd say easily half if not more are eligible for same day shipping.
This doesn't seem like many, but keep in mind those are items that I'm actually buying.
There's tens of thousands of other things that are available for sale that I'm not buying.
Also, because I live in an apartment I was fed up of Canada Post just leaving a note in my mailbox saying I had to pick it up at the post office because they've missed me. This completely infuriates me because oversized packages automatically get delivered to the post office so I am having to travel to my local shoppers drug mart to pick it up thus delaying the item further by an extra day. So what I do now is have it delivered to the post office and it arrives first thing in the morning and I have all day to pick it up not worrying if the post man will come after 6pm or so.
I let him check everything over and when he realized I did nothing wrong he did apologize (I'll give him credit for that) but...still...doesn't make me fond of going back.
But I will be placing another Amazon order in the next week or two.
I think I would find it too annoying to create a new amazon account every month not even considering I share my account with a couple of my friends.
Plus they messed up shipping dates enough that I paid off my $40 student rate last year. (got a free wall charger and a few 10% discounts)
Just the other day I spent an hour at Lowes trying to track down an item only to realize that it wasn't on the floor.
Finally found a person to help (which took a bunch of time) and learned that it's not supposed to be on the floor due to theft.
So they had to go find a ladder (more time) and find the stupid item (even more time).
Then had to go wait in a large lineup because for some reason automated checkouts are the norm now instead of real checkouts.
To those saying it's scummy, don't exaggerate. I haven't scammed anyone or done anything illegal. That is called a loophole. I haven't hidden that fact from Amazon even when chatting about order problems. And if I was ordering a LOT-LOT from amazon, always under the free shipping threshold (which I don't), I would pay for Prime.
Ron.
Those complaining about Amazon prime must be the ones that line up in -40C weather overnight to save 20$ on open box items.
Amazon.com offers Prime Video standalone option for $8.99 monthly.
http://variety.com/2016/digital/news/am ... 201755340/
Pay for only the months that you want.
Not sure that's because my address or something. I not gonna pay $79 for prime account anymore.
Are you creating/registering a new account each time or do you just change the email address in your existing account?
address@gmail.com
address+prime@gmail.com
address+prime2@gmail.com
Been enjoying Free prime forever....
Speed delivery costs Amazon more money to pay to the carrier. Amazon can pay me the difference (between 1-2 day delivery and regular delivery), I have no problem to wait for 7 days.
Also:
Just having an educational email address is enough. My UWaterloo email address got me a student prime membership.
FREE Same-Day Delivery
FREE delivery before bedtime tonight with Prime
Available in Toronto and Vancouver
Get fast delivery on hundreds of thousands of eligible items
$25 minimum order size; order in the morning for fastest delivery*
Learn more
*Orders placed after the daily cutoff (typically noon) arrive the next day.
https://www.amazon.ca/b/ref=dex_sd_pr_p ... ime_member
- an Ottawa west side resident
Thanx op
But seriously, it makes me sad that it's not offered here. Would live to see the upcoming drone drops. I for one welcome out propellered overlords.
ps I usually get next day delivery on FREE shipping from amazon.ca (unless it ships from Vancouver...odd items only like that). Doubt I ever get prime at $80/y