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I have always been a big fan of Amazon.com. I made my very first purchase with them back in March of the year 2000. Back then, they were pretty much just a book store, but over the years, their product offerings expanded. Nowadays, you can find just about anything you need on Amazon.com. In fact, since that first purchase, I have ordered more than 1,000 items from their site.
When they came out with the Amazon Prime membership program in 2005, I signed up right away. Back then, the big draw to the program was free shipping. It just seemed to make sense since I ordered so much from them and I love receiving my orders in 2 days. After being enrolled in the program for so long, it’s hard to imagine life without it. The Amazon Prime membership, which costs $99 per year, has evolved quite a bit and the list of Amazon Prime advantages is constantly growing so that a membership is something that is always increasing in value. So, without further ado, here are the reasons that I love my Amazon Prime membership:
Free Two-Day Shipping
This is one the main reasons I love Prime. I am a procrastinator. I tend to put everything off for the last minute. For instance, I had a baby shower to attend and I totally forgot to buy a gift, but with Prime, I was able to order something just a few days before the event and it arrived on time. Prime has saved me on an occasion or two.
Access to Kindle Lending Library
Surprisingly enough, one of the ways in which Prime adds to your shopping experience is by cutting down on some of the things you need to buy. The Kindle Lending Library is a case in point. Now, instead, of buying a book, you can browse through more than 800,000 titles in Amazon's online lending library and check out one book per month with no due dates or fines.
Amazon Instant Video
While Amazon has not yet grown its video service to fully match the reach of Netflix or Hulu, its video streaming service, Amazon Instant Video, is gaining ground and does not require a separate monthly fee over and above what you pay for a yearly subscription to Prime. In fact, the full price of an Amazon Prime membership, when broken out on a monthly basis, is less than a monthly service fee to other online video providers, yet comes with all of Prime's many other benefits. I’ve Don’t tell anyone, but I've been binge watching a couple of shows on there that aren’t available on any of the other streaming video services.
Free Unlimited Photo Storage
One of the other perks I love is the access to Amazon's cloud servers, which you can use for secure unlimited online photo storage. This service allows you to store photos in their original resolution to the Amazon Cloud from any device.
Prime Music
In keeping with its efforts to become a single source provider for almost everything you could want, the benefits of Amazon Prime have also been extended to cover your listening pleasure through Prime Music, an interruption-free (read: no commercials) site that streams one million songs.
Prime Early Access
This perk allows Prime members to get 30-minute early access to select Lightning Deals on Amazon.com and sale events on MyHabit.com.
Prime Membership Sharing
Prime members can invite up to four eligible household members living at the same address to enjoy the shipping benefits of a free trial or paid Prime membership at no extra cost.
There are other benefits of Amazon Prime membership, of course. There is a sweet Referral Rewards program. There are exclusive early access opportunities that let you see special deals on Amazon before any regular customers are allowed to view them. In certain areas, you can get actually get your packages delivered on Sundays, and through the USPS, no less. There are even an increasing number of non-Amazon retail sites that are partnering with Prime to offer the same benefits at no additional cost to you.
As you can see, the Amazon Prime family of services has grown a lot and is now about much more than saving money on your shipping costs. I’m betting that the list of services will continue to grow in the future.
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