Who needs actual holidays when you’re the biggest shopping site in the world? That’s the thinking behind Amazon’s new Prime Day on July 15th. Prime Day is a chance to get major discounts on a ton of products across dozens of categories including electronics, toys, movies, clothing, patio, lawn and garden, sports and outdoor items and more. The online shopping giant is pitching it as bigger and better than Black Friday, but there’s a catch: only subscribers to Amazon’s Prime service are eligible to receive the deals.
I LOVE Amazon Prime. Seriously. There are few subscription services that I pay for, but Amazon Prime is one of them. It’s $99 a year, which may seem steep until you consider all of the benefits. The biggest one I take advantage of is unlimited free Two-Day shipping. Order something with Prime and it’s at your doorstep in two days. That’s a small miracle. I’ll wait for pretty much anything for two days if it means I don’t have to go to a store. Even better, if they’re late and don’t hit that two-day mark, you can call in and they’ll give you an entire month of Prime for free. That’s an $8 value for having to wait one extra day. Plus, now Amazon’s doing free SAME-DAY delivery on a top of items if you live in one of 14 metro areas (and spend over $35). You think two-day shipping is impressive? Try ordering something and having it show up before you go to sleep. If you live in Atlanta, Austin, Baltimore, Brooklyn, Dallas, Manhattan, Miami, or London, that delivery window gets crunched to one or two HOURS if you order one of the tens of thousands of items that qualify through the Prime Now mobile app.
I realize I’m gushing. It’s well earned. Amazon Prime also gives you free access to Prime Instant Video, which is essentially Netflix with better/different options. Want to watch the award-winning tv show Transparent? You can pay for it like a sucker, or you can get it for free with Prime. There’s also Prime Music for free streaming and the new Prime Photos for unlimited cloud storage of all of your photos so you never have to worry about losing them. Oh, and you get free access to almost a million books, too. It’s a one-stop media shop.
I have no idea what kind of deals they’ll be offering for Prime Day. What I do know is that I’ll have access to them because I have Amazon Prime. You can get it, too, and guess what? For the first month, it’s FREE. That means you can sign up for the 30-day free trial, take advantage of the Prime Day sales and then cancel it before you get charged a cent. That’s the ultimate deal win-win.
Sign up here for your free 30-day trial and get ready for Prime Day on July 15th. It should be pretty spectacular.
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Note: This isn’t a sponsored post and I don’t get paid for writing about how much I love Amazon Prime, but if you sign up for the free 30-day trial using my link, I do get a little bonus since I’m an Amazon Affiliate. That means if you use my link to get your free trial, WE BOTH WIN!
Seriously? You can call in and get credits if they don’t deliver within 2 days? Is that only when they don’t meet the expected delivery date (regardless of when that is) or even if their expected date is beyond 2 business days from the date of order?
It’s only if they don’t hit the expected delivery date. It’s an unpublished promise, but I’ve used it successfully a few times. Just call in and they’ll credit your account.
I like Amazon Prime, mostly for the free two day shipping. That is useful throughout the year, but particularly so near the holidays. Find the perfect gift for someone only five or six days before Christmas? No problem.
I would argue against it being better than Netflix, though. There are far too many kids’ shows that my five year old wants to watch that are free on Netflix, but Amazon wants to charge me a dollar per episode. And there are too many movies that Amazon wants me to pay to rent, that would be free on Netflix, or under $2 if I run the four or five blocks to a Redbox kiosk. For the TV/movie watching, Netflix is better.
For the same $8/month that you pay for Netflix, though, you’re also getting books/music/photos/shipping, so I think it’s a much better deal. As someone without kids, I can’t argue about the availability of children’s programming. Perhaps it’s not better than Netflix, just different with many more benefits.
Annoying that even with Prime expected delivery date is no different without prime when shipping to Hawaii. And it’s via parcel pool?! Good luck to all mainland residents who can take advantage of this new offer
I’m pretty sure there are plenty of mainlanders who will gladly trade two-day shipping for island living!
Don’t forget amazon mom for 20% diapers and amazon student is only $49 if you click here
How can I tell when my membership expires? I’d like to renew monthly but not until it expires. I think I had a one time payment originally.
There’s a section on the Amazon menu bar that says “Prime.” Click on that and look for Prime Membership and that should give you your membership details in terms of expiration and payment terms.