I haven't had this experience at all. Prime ships in two days almost always. Same day prime does was it says. I've had refunds without having to ship back products, and when I did have to ship back a product (shoes) I got the refund right away and free return shipping like they advertised. I'm also in a major US metro area.
Prices don't seem too bad. My latest purchase was head and shoulders. Looked up the price at Walmart and it was 10 cents more expensive than Amazon. This is my experience for most home goods. For anything not home goods, they're certainly cheaper than any in-person store that I can think of.
I'm not sure which of our experiences is the outlier. One thing that might be different is that almost all my purchases are Prime shipping items.
Prices don't seem too bad. My latest purchase was head and shoulders. Looked up the price at Walmart and it was 10 cents more expensive than Amazon. This is my experience for most home goods. For anything not home goods, they're certainly cheaper than any in-person store that I can think of.
I'm not sure which of our experiences is the outlier. One thing that might be different is that almost all my purchases are Prime shipping items.