My friend, I have to say that your description of your experience is incongruent with my own and diametrically opposite to the published rules for sellers to list their products under the Prime logo.
Sellers can’t just willy-nilly put a product up on the site and use that logo unless they sign up for the whole program, which includes 2-day delivery, no-questions-asked returns, and free return shipping for Prime members.
I live in a town with rural mail delivery where the cows outnumber people. You can’t get much more rural than that. So the notion of Prime delivery being for city folk is just not true. I get my shipments within 1-2 days.
It sounds like you may think you’re purchasing from a Prime seller, when you are not. This is a common mistake for inexperience buyers. Sellers must adhere to the rules in order to brandish the Prime logo on their ad. You stated it took weeks. The only case I’ve seen that happen is with off-site sellers, usually the same people you will see on eBay or AliExpress. In those cases, it may take a couple of weeks, but they can’t use the Prime logo on their ads and they have to tell you that it will take that long at checkout. One of the things that is a telltale sign is to look real quick at the shipping line, if it’s not zero then you have a non-Prime seller in your cart. That’s my red flag to look for someone who is selling the same product but is a Prime seller.
Even if it’s on Amazon, you have to still have to take measures like you would on any open online marketplace.
Here’s an example of what I mean. This one listing for men’s slacks and shorts, not all of them are Prime. You have to watch out.
Some buying tricks
I use three tricks to make sure I don’t click on the wrong seller. First, I have two userscripts for my browser that flag the country of origin. In the above example you will not the “CN” and reddish highlight. This indicates the country of origin is China. Helpful when wanting to avoid counterfeit.
The second is to check the “All Prime” box.
The third trick I use is a userscript plugin that red flags you when you’re about to go out of the Amazon marketplace. I buy a lot of electronic parts on Amazon and you really have to be careful with Chines Counterfeit products.
And last but not least, there is no minimum. I have purchased $3 items, gotten them the next day, decided I didn’t like them, and sent them back, all on Amazon’s dime. Granted, I don’t do that often if it’s under $10 because it’s not worth it, but if I feel the seller misrepresented the product, as a matter of principle and protest, I’ll send it back. Try that with B&H. Additionally, if you purchase a spool of filament that turns out to be garbage, as a Prime member you can return it at no extra cost to you.
And to show you that these observations are not based on occasional usage, here’s what my 2023 looked like. My wife has her own account, so this is just my stuff. Much of it cannot be purchased in a brick-and-mortar store like electronic components. Try buying fewer than $100 worth of resistors from a Mouser or Digikey and see how long it takes to get to you and how much shipping costs.
I should also point out that of all the filaments I purchase, for those I purchase the very first time that don’t work out, I’ve never kept them. I’s say roughly 10% of my first time spool purchases go back.
This represents my last six months purchases. Unfortunately, I can’t easily search how many of these were refunded but I’d have to say it was probably close to 7 or 8 spools.
