Amazon is my first stop for price comparison and online shopping.  Our children know ‘the box man’ by name and are excited to see him.  We order small things like $0.39 ear rings for a gag gift, household staples that are cheaper on Amazon than buying with a coupon at the store, and big items like cameras and such.

Amazon doesn’t always have the best price on the items I am looking for, but 95% of the time they will.  I have been an Amazon Prime member since 2010 and find it to be a good investment.  Here are a few of the reasons that I like Amazon Prime…

Free Two Day Shipping

Amazon recently changed their shipping policy, bumping the purchase threshold from $25 to $35 for free shipping.  I went back and quickly looked through our orders in 2013 and found that 51 of the 68 orders would not have qualified for free shipping.  Shipping can range in cost from $0.99 to $4.99 on Amazon, and obviously higher if it is an over-sized item.  Average shipping for items is $2.99, so the Prime membership has already paid for itself based on our purchasing habits.

Some might say, “You have to account for the Prime membership for these purchases.”  You’re right!  And I have.  Let me give you a few examples from purchases we have made just this month:

• I picked up a copy machine for our church.  It was a “Lightning Deal” and was 60% cheaper than the exact same machine at the big office store here in town.  Where else can you find a highly reviewed $82 laser copier?  My Prime membership got the copier to the church building in two days as promised.  There would have been shipping costs for this over-sized item without my Prime membership.
• I ordered a small Christmas gift for our girls.  Another “Lightning Deal” this little toy was $10 compared to it’s normal Amazon price of $29.  Around the corner at Target I would pay $35 for this item today.  There is some padding room in there for our Prime membership.
• Or how about the Texas Rangers potty ring my wife picked up for some friends.  It’s a fun gift for some baseball loving friends and it was also a steal of a deal.  Where else could you find something so easily without burning up fuel driving all over town.

Amazon Prime Instant Video

Another perk of Amazon Prime is the large (and growing) library of movies and television shows that are available for free to Prime members.  Our oldest child is on a kick of watching the black and white television shows that we grew up watching. The Andy Griffith show is her favorite show right now.  She is working her way through the entire series two episodes a day.  All seven seasons are available for free to Prime members along with TONS of newer TV series and movies.  You won’t find the newest releases among the free Prime videos but with thousands of titles to choose from is plenty to watch.

Amazon Customer Service

You don’t have to be a Prime member to get the great customer service that Amazon offers, but it is a reason I shop with Amazon.  Let me give you an example from this week.  At the end of September I ordered an external hard drive from my favorite manufacturer.  It was a simple drive for storing video for the church and the stores in our area don’t carry this brand of hard drive.

To this point I had never had a bad drive from this company.  There is a first time for everything.  For most of October I casually worked with tech support on problem-solving the issue with this drive.  I would let weeks pass before taking the prescribed action with the drive.  Earlier this week I got serious about it and determined the drive was faulty.  The manufacturer wanted me to pay shipping to return the drive or pay $50 for a next day swap where they would send me a new one and I would return the bad one.

I didn’t feel it was appropriate to pay shipping for a drive that never worked, so I logged onto Amazon to see if the item was still returnable. I beat the deadline by 2 days.  A few clicks later and I had a return label for my item and a new drive was on its way to my house.  What the manufacturer wanted $50 for was FREE with Amazon.  That is customer service!

Is It Worth It?

For our family I believe that the Amazon Prime membership is worth it.  We buy items for ourselves, lots of items for the church, and a few items for family members.  Some of the “Lightning Deals” this time of year are hard to beat.  I also do a lot of shopping with Amazon because our credit card points from playing the “credit card game” translate directly into dollars on Amazon.  I also sell items on Amazon and credit from those sales go directly into my account, but that is a topic for another post.