Thread: "Amazon lifts the veil on Prime"
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Old 01-02-2016, 11:35 AM   #35
frahse
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Quote:
Originally Posted by fjtorres View Post
That is exactly the point.
Amazon isn't the only one with free shipping or even free two day shipping. The key to Prime is there is no limit to the free shipping in terms of price or size. Whether it be a $3 cellphone battery or a 20lb case of dietary supplement juice, there is no constraint on the shopper. If they want it, they can order it. And the price is generally cheaper and the experience faster and smoother. Search. Pick. Click. Done! No round trip out of the house.
(Asimov's Solarians would approve.)

And yes, as many point out from time to time, not everything in the Amazon online mall qualifies for Prime and Prime isn't always the cheapest listed price. What it almost always offers is the most convenience.

Things like subscriptions for consumables, the physical one-click DASH buttons...

I forget where I saw it amidst the flood of retail reports over the past few weeks but one number that stuck with me was the percentage of visitors to the website that end up buying something on a given visit: 54% or so.
That number is outrageous: most online sites would kill for 10% and Amazon gets half its visitors to buy?

Wish I could remember where I saw that to check and see if it includes Kindle reader visits. Those digital visits may be a good part of that number.
After some years of experience with Amazon, I have the confidence to generally go ahead and buy the item, assuming it does what I want. No shopping about from store to store unless the item isn't right and that seldom happens.

One thing though, on a few occasions, I couldn't find a product I wanted in the Amazon index, and I then looked on google and the product popped up on Amazon. So Amazon could improve their search routines, so maybe the "naysayers" are a little bit right and Amazon isn't absolutely perfect all the time.
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