Ready or not, the 2013 holiday shopping season started, which means you should be already checking for sales, deals and discounts. You don’t have to shop Christmas gifts to get advantage of some real deal, right? Amazon offers a special service, Amazon Prime
What exactly is Amazon Prime?
This is a paid membership which allows customers to use various services at Amazon. The annual fee of $79 might sound high at first, but in fact, once paid, it grants you with free two-day shipping of your orders. In addition, Amazon Prime members can watch more than 40,000 movies and TV shows for free via the website video streaming service, Instant Video. And all Kindle owners can enjoy borrowing over 350, 000 book titles for free.
Free shipping
The subscription to Amazon Prime has its many advantages, but the biggest for every regular shopper, is the free shipping. Do you remember how you must always calculate the entire sum of your purchase – the cost of the item plus the cost of the delivery to whatever you are located, and plus any additional taxes and fees that your country wants you to pay. Sometimes, you can pay more for the delivery than for the actual thing you are buying! However, the Prime membership will save you a lot of money and disappointments. Everything you order from Amazon will be shipped for free and within two days only!
Why is it so important?
Well, when it comes to holiday shopping, no matter off- or online, we all look for bargains and deals. The whole point of the holiday shopping season for us, customers, is not simply spending money on gifts, food, and decoration. The point is to get our family and friends nice things to delight them without spending too much money. Every year, during Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales, people spend millions of dollars. Of course, it’s always great to buy a new phone or a dress at half price on Black Friday, but if you add the delivery cost to the total sum, you will be disappointed. Basically, your discount will be “eaten up” by the shipping to your town or country.
During seasonal sales or holiday sale events like Black Friday or the more popular in Internet Cyber Monday, the best chance to get real savings is to find free shipping for your order. Unfortunately, online retailers offer delivery for free only for a limited amount of goods. Moreover, there are many other conditions. For instance, the “free shipping” tag on many websites means you will receive your purchase within two weeks or even more.
That’s why Amazon Prime is a service worth paying for. You pay once, and then forget about shipping costs and enjoy your shopping online experience all year round.
Extras
The best thing about the Prime subscription is that the free shipping is applicable to millions of items on the store. Whether you are buying gifts for the kids and the family, clothes for yourself, beauty products or software, you will receive them for free. Of course, you will need festive food, cooking supplies as well as decorations for your home and the Christmas tree – you will have them shipped for free. Another great benefit of the membership is that the store won’t require any minimum size of your order. In addition, you can share your Prime membership with family members or colleagues. And you know how everybody starts looking for bargains online before Christmas – well you can give them one.
With Amazon Prime getting the best shopping deals online just got easier. And if you wonder whether it is indeed so good, well, try to free. Amazon offers a 30-day free trial in case you are still not sure what to do.
My strategy for shopping on “Greedy Thursday” and “Black Friday” has worked for three years now.