Items tagged with prime
The primary perk of Amazon's subscription Prime membership is free two-day shipping on millions of qualifying items, though there are now a host of other benefits—unlimited access to a catalog of movies, TV shows, and songs; unlimited photo storage; and so forth. Expedited shipping is still the hallmark feature, though, and Amazon has plans of shortening it even further. "We're currently working on evolving our Prime free two-day shipping program to be a free one-day shipping program," Amazon Chief Financial Officer Brian Olsavsky recently said during a first quarter earnings call. That seems like a difficult task. It's at least ambitious, though Olsavsky says Amazon can pull this off because...
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Amazon has announced a new perk for Prime customers that worry about potential package theft, due to random arrival times. The new feature is called Amazon Day, and while it sounds like some sort of special sale, it essentially gives customers the ability to choose the specific day of the week when packages should arrive. Amazon Day is an invite-only program for now, and it's not clear how exactly one gets an invite to participate. Customers invited to the service get to pick a specific day of the week for delivery of ordered items at checkout, and unless manually changed, that day will be when all of your orders arrive moving forward. Shoppers will be able to select a different...
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Amazon has proven that shoppers are interested in signing up for Prime memberships that save them on shipping charges in a big way. So far, most benefits of Prime have been in the virtual world with shipping discounts and streaming video, but that has changed with new Whole Foods discounts for members. Whole Foods, owned by Amazon, has now debuted a loyalty program that offers Prime members special discounts in the store. The Prime discounts include 10% off sale items and weekly specials that rotate. An example of one of those weekly rotating specials recently was $10 off per pound of wild-caught halibut steaks. The catch is that right now the Prime member discounts are reportedly only available...
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Amazon may have had an 'Aha!' moment, and that could be bad news for FedEx and UPS, the two delivery services the online retailer leans on to ship packages to customers in a timely manner—within two days on many items, for Prime members. In what could be a damaging blow (another one) to both shipping companies, Amazon has begun testing its own delivery service for items that qualify for free two-day shipping, on so-called last-mile routes. This does not mean that Amazon would cut FedEx and UPS loose entirely, though it would push the world's largest online retailer deeper into the same category—shipping services. This is something Amazon kicked off two years ago in India and has been slowly trying...
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Being an Amazon Prime member has a bunch of perks, not the least of which is free two-day shipping on millions of qualifying items. However, it's become much more than a free-shipping program over the years. Members get unlimited streaming access to select movies and TV shows (Prime Video), ad-free access to more than a million songs (Prime Music), and a whole lot more. On top of all, Amazon today yet another perk called Prime Reading. Prime Reading is a great addition for bookworms. With Prime Reading, Prime members can enjoy unlimited reading from a rotating selection of books, magazines, comics, and more. And like the many other benefits to the Prime membership program, there's no additional...
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Drones aren't the only thing taking flight with Amazon's Prime branding plastered on the side. The world's largest online retailer now has its first ever branded cargo plane, a Boeing 767-300 that's operated by Amazon's air cargo provider Atlas Air. Amazon unveiled the aircraft during Seafair's Air Show in its hometown of Seattle. The airplane is named Amazon One. It's one of 40 that Amazon committed to leasing through air cargo partners Atlas Air and ATSG. As of right now there are 11 dedicated airplanes taking flight for Amazon with more to roll out over time. "Creating an air transportation network is expanding our capacity to ensure great delivery speeds for our Prime members for years to...
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Amazon believes its library of online movies and TV shows is rich enough that it can challenge Netflix for streaming supremacy and so it now offers Prime Video as a standalone service. This is a first for Prime Video, which prior to today was strictly a supplemental perk of being an Amazon Prime member. A subscription to just Prime Video runs $8.99 per month. Netflix's most popular streaming plan runs $7.99 per month and allows for streaming on up to two devices at the same time, though the price is jumping to $9.99 next month. When it does, Amazon's Prime Video service will be a dollar cheaper, plus it includes 4K Ultra HD video content. That's not included on Netflix's "Standard" $9.99 plan—you...
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Based on personal experience, Amazon Prime is pretty awesome. It's loaded with perks that go above and beyond the free two-day shipping that's offered on millions of items, though that's still the main benefit. I'm a also a Sprint subscriber, and if you're one too, you can subscribe to Amazon Prime through an add-on plan that runs $10.99 per month. Seems like a strange partnership, doesn't it? I'll admit there's a certain convenience to consolidating two separate payments (mobile phone and Amazon Prime) into a single monthly bill. There's also the benefit of spreading out your Amazon Prime membership fee into monthly chunks, and that seems to be the angle Sprint is pitching, along with how well...
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Remember when being a Prime member at Amazon simply meant free two-day shipping on qualified items? That perk in and of itself made the Prime membership worth it, but rather than stop there, Amazon has continually added more reasons to consider joining, the latest of which is a 20 percent discount on new games.This is a pretty big deal for gamers. Exclusive to Prime members, Amazon will shave 20 percent off new physical video game purchases during the pre-order phase and extending through two weeks after the title's release. Already have a game on pre-order? Fret not, Amazon's doing its Prime members a solid by automatically extending the discount to all of their existing pre-orders. That's deserving...
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Imagine you've just finished doing your business in the bathroom only to find an empty roll of toilet paper. It's at that point an unsettling fact dons on you -- you forgot to pick up another package of rolls when you were at the store. Uh oh, spaghetti-o! This unfortunate situation can be avoided with Amazon's Dash Button program, which incidentally is now open to all Prime Members.If this is the first you're hearing of Amazon Dash, it's a way for you to reorder select products through Amazon with the press of a button. The labeled button is a Wi-Fi connected device that, once you configure and connect to your wireless network, will automatically place an order for the product it's tied to whenever...
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In another sign that the online competition between Amazon and Walmart is heating up, Walmart took Amazon to task on its blog today for its upcoming sale. Amazon has been heavily promoting what it calls Prime Day (July 15th), which will feature loads of sales available only to Amazon Prime members. In a tongue-in-cheek spoof of Amazon’s Prime Day ad, Walmart points out that it doesn’t charge customers a fee for access to its prices. But Walmart is going a step further by launching what it calls “atomic deals” this week. “We’ve heard some retailers are charging $100 to get access to a sale,” Walmart president and CEO Fernando Madeira wrote in a blog post today. “But the idea of...
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Black Friday is the busiest shopping day of the year, and while that's not likely to change, Amazon is going to give it a run for the money on Wednesday, July 15, the eve of its 20th anniversary. Dubbed "Prime Day," Amazon promises to offer more deals than Black Friday, though you have to be a Prime member in the U.S., U.K., Spain, Japan, Ital, Germany, France, Canada, or Austria to participate. The global shopping event is valid to both new and existing Prime members. Those who are signed up with Prime will see enticing deals kick off at midnight, with new deals appearing as often as every ten minutes. There will be thousands of "Lightning deals" plus seven popular Deals of the Day, all...
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Adding to the pile of awesome already heaped onto Amazon Prime memberships, the e-tailer this week introduced Prime Photos, which is yet another tantalizing benefit for Prime subscribers. In this case, Prime Photos provides free unlimited photo storage in Amazon Cloud Drive, so the only restrictions you have to worry about are those imposed by your ISP. "This time of year in particular, families are capturing thousands of photos of holiday parties, family gatherings and opening presents," said Greg Greeley, Vice President Amazon Prime. "With free unlimited photo storage, we’re providing one more reason for members to use Prime every day. Prime has always allowed members to conveniently...
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Amazon pulled off a bit of a coup last month when it an inked a three-year deal with HBO worth $300 million to stream older HBO programming on Prime Instant Video. The deal marked the first time HBO has ever agreed to let another company stream its shows, and that will remain the case for the next three years as part of the exclusive agreement. Today, Amazon rolled out the first wave of HBO programming. The list of HBO content is broken up into categories. Classic series added to Prime Instant Video include The Sopranos, The Wire, Deadwood, Rome, and Six Feet Under. More recent series include Eastbound & Down, Enlightened, and Flight of the Conchords. Select seasons of current series...
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