[elihu]

I once bought a band saw from Amazon with free shipping. (I didn't have Prime, it was just regular free shipping.) I could have bought it locally, but I didn't have a convenient way to get it home.

In my case, free shipping didn't turn out all that great; it was damaged when it got to me. Fortunately I was able to get free replacement parts from the company.

I suspect Amazon probably lost money on that deal since they had to hire specialty movers, but who knows?