I support buying at local businesses like Annie Laurie’s Antiques, but I like the convenience of online shopping at Amazon rather than schlepping all over town going to Big Box stores. A year or so ago, Kid Matt let me piggyback on his Amazon Prime account so I could get free two-day shipping on most items I ordered. (More about that later.)
Advantages of Prime
- Free two-day shipping on millions of items with no minimum order size
- Unlimited instant streaming of 41,000 movies and TV episodes. (This turned out to be a surprise benefit for me. I turned into a binge watcher for TV series that I hadn’t bothered to watch when they were first shown. I found myself watching shows on my iPad sitting at the dining room table instead of the TV.)
- Borrow one of over 350,000 Kindle titles a month for free.
- Invite as many as four household members to share your free two-day shipping benefit
Special Amazon Prime promotion
From December 26, 2013, through January 10, 2014, you can sign up for a free 30-day trial of Amazon Prime. After the trial, a membership costs $79 a year. You can cancel anytime in that 30-day period, so if you want to order a bunch of stuff and gorge yourself on 41,000 movies or TV shows, then bail, that’s OK.
This link will take you there
Why am I excited about this? I get a bounty of $10 for everyone who signs up for the trial, even if you decide it’s not for you after 1 day, a week or on the 30th day.
I will warn you that after my trial, I found I got $79 a year worth of benefits and kept my membership. (I see it’s set to renew on December 30 of this year.)
Of course, it helps me if you do your Amazon shopping through that big Click Here button at the top left of the page. Thanks to you folks who did your holiday shopping through the Big Button.
Amazon has amazing customer service. Above and beyond even what I’d expect from even a local business.
I ordered $183.88 worth of computer parts I critically needed for the office. Since I am an Amazon Prime member, I paid just an additional $4 to get overnight delivery.
FedEx screwed me and decided not to delivery my parts overnight. I had to make a 90-minute round trip to pick them up at the FedEx depot.
I called Amazon to complain about FedEx. I expected Amazon to apologize and refund the $4 extra I spent for overnight delivery. That was the minimum I was looking to receive. If they wanted to make me really happy and makeup for their partner’s screw-up, they’d toss a $25 credit on my account to cover my 90-minute drive.
Nope, not good enough said JeffC with Amazon. Amazon refunded the entire $183.88. I got to keep the merchandise and they refunded me the entire amount of the order. I tried to argue with JeffC that he was being overly generous but he said Amazon’s goal is 100% customer satisfaction. I said refunding the shipping and a $25 credit would be plenty. He said I’d see the refund on my AmEx in 24-48 hours. (Try getting that kind of service and a refund from BestBuy or another big box store.)
So, while it may seem like I’m a big shill for Amazon, just looking to line my own pockets, I really just think Amazon is better than anything else out there. They generally have the lowest prices. Most people don’t pay a state sales tax when ordering from Amazon (which saves me 6% in Florida). They have everything I could ever want. Finally, with Amazon Prime, two day shipping is free and next-day delivery is just $4 (plus all the free television and movies you can stream).
Try Amazon Prime for a month. Order stuff through Amazon you’d ordinarily have to set off across the frozen tundra and visit a mall to purchase. If Amazon isn’t better – less expensive and easier – let me know.
Cheers,
Matt