Amazon Prime To The Rescue (Again)
I have the good (and bad) fortune to live on a hilltop halfway between Los Angeles and San Francisco. It’s a great place to live if you like to mindlessly stare out at vineyards and oak-studded hills. It’s a lousy place to live if the Light Magenta cartridge on your Epson 3800 runs dry on a Saturday morning when you are printing for a client. I know from past experience that the nearest replacement cartridge is exactly 132 miles to the south at Samy’s Camera in Santa Barbara.
Let’s see. I don’t have to deliver the prints until Monday afternoon… At $4.65/gallon for gas, the round trip down to Samy’s would cost almost $80 bucks in fuel and waste the better part of my day. My other option, fingers crossed, is that Amazon has one in stock and can still get it out the door. I check online and see that it’s in stock and I have 50 minutes to get it ordered. Here’s the part I love the most… Amazon’s shipping charge for getting it out the door on Saturday and to my studio on Monday morning is $3.99. Just $3.99?
That’s not a typo. It’s not supposed to be $39.90 (which I probably also would have paid to avoid the drive to Santa Barbara). For about the cost of a grande latte, I can get Amazon to deliver almost anything they have in stock to me overnight. If I can be a bit more patient, Amazon doesn’t charge me anything for 2-day delivery. What my secret? Amazon Prime.
For a $79 annual fee, Amazon Prime provides unlimited free 2-day shipping. An upgrade to overnight delivery is just $3.99 per item. I’ve found that Amazon’s prices are very competitive on all kinds of photo gear and printing supplies – especially when shipping charges are figured in.
You can get a free, 30-day trial to Amazon Prime by clicking here. [Be forewarned, just like that mom who puts a kitten in your child's arms and says "Take it home for the weekend... if you don't like it, you can bring it back on Monday", once you get used to free, 2-day delivery, you'll be an Amazon Prime customer forever.]
Two Keys To Happiness With Amazon Prime
The first key to happiness with Amazon Prime is making sure that the item is in stock and sold by Amazon. Once you’re an Amazon Prime member and logged in to Amazon, you’ll see the Prime logo in the items that are eligible for Prime shipping. In the photo below, the first item is Amazon’s listing for the Epson 3800. The second listing is for the same printer from a third-party vendor. [While the third-party price is lower, I put one in my shopping cart and learned that I'll have to pay $50 for ground shipping that will take a week to get it here. Having an expensive, heavy printer bounce across the country for a week in a truck to save $23.99 is no bargain when my Amazon Prime will get it to me tomorrow for $3.99 in shipping or the day after for free.]
The second key to happiness with Amazon Prime, if you need it tomorrow, is check to see that there’s still time to get it shipped today. In the photo below, you’ll see the tiny green type that says I have “7 hours and 15 minutes” to order the Epson 3800 for delivery tomorrow. The only time Amazon didn’t get an overnight shipment out the door for me was when the clock said they had 8 minutes. So, will they be able to ship my Light Magenta cartridge within 50 minutes on a Saturday morning?
Update – Monday morning 11:15: Great! The Fedex guy is at the door with my Light Magenta cartridge. So, I’m back in business. Amazon Prime comes to the rescue (again).
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so is it not economical to keep a full set of spare cartriges around the office? Its not a comment that you accidently ran out, but is it more economical to just buy em as u need em. The cost the ink for the 3800 is the one thing that stops me from scraping my trusty 2200 and move on up to the bigs.
Love yer blog thanks.
At $53 per cartridge, it ties up $530 to keep a full set of cartridges on hand. I do keep blacks (photo and matte) in reserve as those are the most used. Another reason to not keep ink on hand is that it may be months between changing a specific color. I think not keeping it around leads to “fresher” ink — but that’s just a guess on my part.
If you calculate the cost per ml of ink, I think you’ll find the 3800 to be a good value. At the time I purchased mine (about 18 months ago), the price difference between the 2800 and the 3800 was more than made up by the extra volume of ink that comes with the 3800. It’s my understanding that while the 3800 cartridge costs three times as much as a 2800 cartridge, it hold five time the volume of ink. The same relationship is true if you compare the 3800 to the 48xx and 78xx series. The bigger the printer, the lower the cost per ml of ink.
Thanks Syl
I’ll put the 3800 on my wish list now.