I mention Amazon Prime in my posts from time to time, and was a very early member of this special program from Amazon. I got a question about it this week: "So just what is Amazon Prime, and why do you like it so much?"
Free Two-Day shipping (and cheap Overnight shipping when you really need it)
Amazon Prime is a program that allows you to pay an annual membership fee to get unlimited free Two-Day Shipping on millions of eligible items. It's easy to tell which items are elegible by looking for the recognizable "Prime" logo, which you can see in the search results example here which I just grabbed as I watch the Olympics this fine Saturday evening:
I order things this way all the time, and you don't have to worry about the normal rules of "Super Saver Shipping" - you get things in 2 business days automatically. When I'm in a particular hurry (sometimes I need to get things asap so I can receive them before a trip, for example) I can pay an extra $3.99 to upgrade to Overnight Shipping - that is way cool.
By the way - with the high price of gas, I have found myself buying more things through Amazon Prime than ever - it saves driving all over the place looking for what I want. And I know I'll get what I ordered a couple of days, which is usually fast enough.
Pass it around
There are a couple of ways you can share this special shipping benefit with other people:
- Anything "Prime" item qualifies - whether you ship it to yourself or someone else. I have used this to great benefit during the last two Christmas seasons. It gives me quite a few extra shopping days with no extra fees for expedited shipping.
- You can share your benefits with up to 4 other people living in your household.
It's a great value - and you can try it for free
Amazon Prime costs $79 per year (averaging to a bit more than 6 bucks a month), and I know it saves me much more than that every year. Not sure if it's for you? Give it a try - they'll let you take a test drive for 30 days - just click here if you want to take an Amazon Prime free trial.