Last Friday, I ordered a small bag of Scotts lawn fertilizer through Amazon Prime. Weighed 12.5 pounds, to cover 5000 square feet.
When I ordered, it gave a delivery time of a week. OK, so they're sending it slow. No problem, it does weigh quite a bit, for what it costs ($17). A week is fine.
What showed up on my doorstep this morning, via UPS Next Day Air? A bag of Scotts fertilizer.
UPS's list shipping cost for that was $83.64. I do realize that Amazon isn't paying UPS's list prices for anything, but WOW. Especially so, when I had been warned that it could be a week for it to arrive.
I remember when I was there the internal price we can pay for is almost half or cheaper than the retail rate. Any large business would have corner cases that they lose money on for large number of transactions. I remember ordering a camber kit for my Mazda 5 and they send a replacement after a lost order, arriving next day air for about 50 lb from across the continent, for $36 worth of cast iron metal. That retail shipping would likely be $150.