Amazon Prime
Amazon.com offers a service called Amazon Prime
Unlimited shipping for $79 a year seems like a steal to me. But, I guess it is like anything else, a few people will ship way more than $79 in a year and get more than their money’s worth, but the large majority will not – and many will never use it.
If you still think Amazon is just a bookstore, you may want to check again. From textbooks to clothing and from groceries to fitness equipment they sell quite a bit. I even bought my wife’s engagement ring from Amazon. So, needless to say, it shouldn’t be a problem finding things to buy, but rather remembering to look there for things that I normally buy at brick and mortar stores.
I am just trying it out, so I will let you know how it goes – good or bad. The one catch I have found is that the free shipping does NOT apply to items sold by Amazon merchants. Everything I have bought so far has gotten the free shipping, but it is good to know that it doesn’t apply to everything.
I would love to hear thoughts from others who have been using the service…
{ 9 comments… read them below or add one }
I love amazon prime. I’ve been a subscriber for about a year and a half now and use it all the time. One recommendation: use a tool like http://www.iprimr.com which shows ONLY those items that are eligible for Amazon Prime free shipping.
I’ve used this for years and I love it. Absolutely love it! Life changing really.
Okay, I got a little carried away, but it is great. Yes, you are ‘limited’ to products sold by Amazon, but I’ve never really found that to be a real constraint.
You really start to see the power of Amazon Prime when you order big, heavy things or groceries.
And you can get 1 day shipping for about $4. Brilliant!
I was at Amazon yesterday and saw this. My only hesitation is that I worried that it might encourage spending. For someone who is a regular user at Amazon, it sounds like a good deal though. BTW, for anyone out there who enjoys Scrabble, they have a Super Scrabble game now w/a board almost twice the size and 200 tiles instead of 100. In addition to triple word spaces, the Super Scrabble game has quadruple! Can’t wait to get it. (That’s what I was ordering at Amazon – the deluxe version). This is available through another merchant so wouldn’t have qualified for the shipping.
@dillon
Thanks for sharing, that looks like a good tool…
@Sandy
Personally, free shipping isn’t enough to encourage me to spend on something I wasn’t going to buy, but I am sure there are people out there who would use it as an excuse to buy more… If so, as the Bible says, make no provision for the flesh…
Amazon Prime is only worth it if you plan to buy everything from Amazon. I’ve found that prices are very competitive but I usually can get slightly better deals on eBay. Definitely not as reliable and trustworthy as Amazon however!
We love our AP. Though for the first time in a while we didn’t get our packages at the promised time. They can’t control every step of the way as much as they’d like to.
It’s almost a year now since I’ve been a member.. And I can say its a good experience for me. I think it doesn’t really encourage spending since you get free 2-day shipping on any Prime products, whatever the price is. Its better than filling your cart until it gets to $25 just to get a free regular shipping.
Here’s another good Amazon Prime item search website: http://www.amazanian.com
GuaranteedPrime.com is another great site for searching Amazon for Prime Eligible items.