Where do you buy your music from?

Amazon don't guarantee it for release date if you don't select One Day Delivery and you also have to be careful that it actually says One Day and not 'Expedited' because that means you absolutely won't get something on release date/next day (regardless of pre-order). 

I've got Prime right now, which I got more for Amazon Video than the free one day delivery deal, but I have made use of that on a few things. I got caught out once by not seeing the difference between One Day Delivery and Expedited delivery, on something I needed quickly too, though.

I've posted my issues with ordering the Panopticon Kentucky reissue with them somewhere on this forum already which has been their biggest screw-up with anything I bought since taking Prime for a year. They didn't promise One Day Delivery on that but they did promise that I'd have it by June 5th. Their date, June 2nd was actually an incorrect release date so I wasn't too bothered when, as expected, June 4th rolled around and it wasn't dispatched, but they they didn't ship it on or around the real release date either. I cancelled after contacting them and they outright told me they couldn't get it.

It's now in stock and has been for at least a week or more, though they've since greatly inflated their price into what I deem the unacceptable area for a new, single disc CD album. 

I've re-ordered it elsewhere (paying less than Amazon originally charged but more than Amazon sellers are now listing it for) but I still don't have it. I'll have been waiting two weeks tomorrow. 

It's often worth hanging on with Amazon until the release date before ordering as the other sellers often beat them on price, even paying for delivery by quite a bit. With vinyl I only tend to pre-order at Amazon if it's no more than £15 as I wouldn't expect it to be going much cheaper than that anyway.

The Decapitated album turned up today which is only a day after release date and much better than their original estimate of Tuesday so I'm happy. 

My priorities when ordering music are...

1. Price - Amazon rarely the cheapest these days.

2. Packaging - Amazon usually good on that.

3. Delivery speed - Amazon getting slower and slower.

So Amazon need to get a grip if they want to me to keep buying music from them.

Yeah the average new metal album price has really crept towards the £15 mark fast in the last couple of years and that's just for CDs. I often find it's cheaper to pay for the postage on a seller's price.

Being on Prime I've mostly been OK, but there have been a few items that they couldn't deliver on Prime speed for me.

I think this is because more and more people are going onto Prime though: they are contractually obligated to provide those orders fast, so anyone who is still holding out on Prime is getting later and later stuff. I wish I could say I believe that is all it is though: I'm willing to bet that a part of it is their way of trying to push you to Prime by delaying your order. The trouble here is most sellers seem to be in the US or Europe now which means you'll still probably get something direct from Amazon first.

I'm a Prime customer mostly for the Prime Video feature because it's not that much more to buy the full yearly Prime subscription that includes the free and fast delivery than it is to just have the videos for a monthly fee. 

The only trouble with Prime video is that it's not, yet, a patch on Netflix, especially in terms of adding new content. I follow a few of their original/exclusive shows such as Vikings, The Grand Tour and Lucifer and I've watched a few films. They've recently added Arrival which is still a fairly recent film that I intend to check out soon.

I would add a 4th point about Amazon:

4. Their selection of titles

I find that Amazon often doesn't actually keep the titles I want to buy, or if they do list them they have a release date set after the official release date for the UK (which also stops sellers from listing that title) and often don't get any stock for titles they offer up for pre-order until well after the event. This is what happened to me with the Panopticon Kentucky reissue. Before than it was the last Mare Cognitum album, which I pre-ordered the day they made it available (had been checking every day). 

I'm currently wanting to get a pre-order in for the new Anubis Gate, which is out in under two weeks, yet still isn't available to pre-order from Amazon. 

Netflix is definitely better than Prime for video. When the time comes to renew whether we do or not really depends on how much everyone else in the house is watching on Prime, because I haven't touched their video section since I finished catching up with Vikings. 

I purchased a CD yesterday, direct from them (not a fulfilled by Amazon listing), in New condition.

It arrived just now and is very clearly a used CD. No shrink wrap and the case is quite heavily scuffed, which is usually a sign of handling over a long period of time in my experience. I'm testing the disc now, and so long as its fine I'll keep for the low price it cost, but needless to say I'm pretty disgusted by this. I've had this kind of crap from 3rd parties before (more often with books) but never Amazon themselves.