Amazon Prime Pros/Cons
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This post is about Amazon Prime, the shipping service offered by Amazon.com, I hope to explain what the service is to people who are curious about it, or have never heard of it before.
So what is the $79 yearly service, and what you do you get for it? Below I’ve put what I think are the main pros and cons, having been a Member for the past couple years.
Here are the main benefits:
Free Unlimited 2-Day Shipping
Anything Amazon sells is eligible for free 2-Day shipping, and with Prime, order processing is a lot quicker than without. With Free Super Saver Shipping, orders can sit for days before they’re even processed, and then after they ship take more time to get to you. With Amazon Prime, all orders process immediately after they are placed, and in my experience, for anything in-stock all orders have shipped out within 24 hours. After they are shipped, they are guaranteed to arrive in 2 business days or less. I am lucky and live not too far from an Amazon warehouse, so items shipped from there always come the next day. This is a great feature for people who like to have items quickly and don’t want to wait a while for them to arrive.
No Minimum Order Requirements
To me, this is the best part of the program, there is no order requirement to reach, like the $25 minimum with Super Saver Shipping. If all you wanted was a $5 book, you could get that, shipped free, and have it within 2 days. No more having to find filler to get free shipping, no matter what it is, as long as Amazon sells it, it can be ordered by itself and arrive in 2 days shipped free.
Sharing Your Membership with Family
Also, with Amazon Prime, the person who signs up can share the membership with up to 4 family members, with no extra charge, and they get all the same benefits for the entire length of the Membership.
$3.99 Overnight Shipping
Overnight shipping can get very expensive, and a benefit of Prime, is if you need or want something to arrive in 1 day, you can upgrade the shipping to Next Day for $3.99 per item. Depending on the item, this can be a lot cheaper than the regular overnight rate, especially for big and heavy items.
30 Day Trial
A great thing about Amazon Prime is they offer a full 30 Day Trial. On this page, just hit Continue to Free Trial Sign-up. Try the Membership free for 30 days, no restrictions, with full benefits. See if its something you like, or something you wouldn’t really use.
Note after signing up for the trial, your account will be set to renew the membership in 30 days, simply go the Prime Membership management page, and hit the 
Button. Then you don’t have to worry about the membership being automatically renewed.
Now here are the cons:
Applies only to items sold by Amazon
Not just Amazon sells things on Amazon.com, there is a large marketplace with millions of sellers listing items for sale as well. Amazon Prime does not cover shipping from these sellers. It only applies to items sold by Amazon.com. Amazon sells a lot of items, but there are quite a few things that, are either out of print, or just not for sale for one reason or another, and they are sold my other people. If you order something from them, you have to pay the normal shipping charges.
2-Day Items aren’t always sent 2nd Day Shipping
Depending on the location of the warehouse shipping the item(s) to you, they may not be sent 2nd Day Air, if it’s close enough they will be sent Ground. Most packages I receive are Ground, but they come in 1 day so I can’t really complain. It’s not a big problem, since delivery time is the most important thing, but it should be noted.
Overall for me the service is worth the price, however it is different for everybody. I’ve laid out what I think are the main pros/cons, but the best way to see is to try it free with the 30 day trial. Just make sure to follow the instructions above and set it to not renew.
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