Launched in 2005, Amazon Prime is a membership service that enables subscribers to get the most out of shopping on Amazon. For a flat annual fee, Prime members get free two-day shipping within the continental United States for all eligible purchases made on Amazon.
While the initial subscription fee of $79 a year was raised to $99 in March of 2014, the number of perks that come with being an Amazon Prime member has also increased substantially in the decade or so since the service was launched.
What began as a means to get faster shipping on online purchases now entitles members to enjoy a host of other benefits including music and content streaming and the ability to check out books from the Kindle library. In the past, Prime membership was ideal mainly for users who did a lot of online shopping. But today, with all the added perks the service offers, there are many benefits to subscribing to Amazon Prime, even for users who only make a few online purchases every year.
For users who shop online a lot, the savings on shipping rates alone make Amazon Prime worth the $99 annual subscription rate. However, a subscription to Prime offers a host of other nice features for subscribers including:
Prime also offers subscribers access to content from networks like MTV, Nickelodeon and Comedy Central, which may not be available on Netflix or Hulu. Certain Amazon devices, like the Amazon Fire Phone, entitle users to 12 free months of the service.
Amazon Prime is a subscription service and thus costs money, in this case $99 a year. If you’re someone who doesn’t shop online a lot, this may or may not be worth the extra expense.
Also, many users already subscribe to a music streaming service like Spotify, in which case they may have no use for Amazon’s music streaming service. The same goes for Netflix or Hulu subscribers, who may find they have no use for Amazon’s Instant Video access. The same could also be said for users who don’t read e-books or prefer to purchase them from Apple or Barnes & Noble.
Obviously, if you’re someone who shops online a lot, subscribing to Amazon Prime is a no-brainer, as the service will pay for itself over the course of a year in the shipping fees you’ll be spared. And if you own a Kindle and read more than one book a month, Prime could actually help you save money. Many users subscribe to Prime for the free shipping and find they enjoy the videos, music and other content even more often than they utilize the shipping benefits.
Although Amazon won’t reveal just how many Prime subscribers there are in total, the service has grown exponentially in popularity in the U.S. and abroad, with the Consumer Intelligence Research Partners estimating there are over 40 million American subscribers alone.
As Amazon continues to expand its offering of services and shoppers continue to migrate away from brick and mortar stores towards online shopping outlets, subscribing to Amazon Prime is likely to become a more appealing option for many shoppers.
