Tomorrow is Amazon Prime Day, starting at noon and running through for 36 hours until Tuesday. I decided to write about it because I noticed a lot of our readers are taking advantage of some of the early deals on the Prime Day Sale, notably the Garmin Vivoactive HR GPS Smart Watch, one of the most impressive fitness trackers on the market today – which can currently be yours for an unprecedented 44% off. I am having to hold myself back from this one (mainly because Maggie will kill me if I buy another fitness tracker). Basically, Amazon Prime is a subscription service that entitles you a range of benefits for an annual fee, and Amazon Prime Day is a once-a-year, flash sales event that offers some of the best deals of the year – but only if you are an Amazon Prime member. This post sums up seven reasons to join Amazon Prime, and rounds up some of the best deals available on this year’s Amazon Prime Day.
Reason #1 to Join Amazon Prime
Because Amazon Prime membership is an awesome deal. RBC Capital Markets’ Mark Mahaney sums it up: “There are three great deals in America today – the Happy Meal ($3.29), Netflix ($10.99), and Prime (even at the new price of $119 – up 5 Grande Lattes … a year).” Why is it such an awesome deal? Well, JP Morgan analysts examined all the perks you get with Prime membership, and calculated that your $119 purchase is actually worth $785 per year, based on all the benefits you get.
These benefits include free two-day shipping, Prime Video, Prime Music, Prime Photo, Family Sharing, free video games through Twitch, a whole lot of free reading on Kindle, and free two-hour delivery of groceries from Whole Foods through Prime Now.
Prime members also qualify for a discount price on Amazon Music Unlimited, which offers tens of millions of songs, curated playlists, etc. But of course, you will already have free access to Prime Music, so it is likely that the two million songs you get with that service will be enough! Finally, if you like to have your books read to you (as I do – I find this perfect for long bike rides), you can get a great deal on Audible with your Prime membership.
Reason #2 to Join Amazon Prime
To get free shipping! You get free two-day shipping on 100 million items, plus free one-day shipping on more than one million items. This free shipping saves you time and money. Let’s say you just need a really good mini pump, such as the Vibrelli. You could spend a couple of hours going to a local store and finding a mini bicycle pump. Or you could just order it online from Amazon in about three minutes. But if you’re not a Prime member, you are very likely to buy something else as well, because you will want to spend more than $25 in order to qualify for free shipping. I used to do that all the time, before I became a Prime member. That’s over-shopping, and for me, it usually meant I was wasting money on something I didn’t really need.
Reason #3 to Join Amazon Prime
To get access to the Prime Day Sale. This is a bigger deal than you might think. Prime Day was introduced in 2015 to celebrate Amazon’s 20th anniversary as a company. The first year was not a great success, so Amazon made it much better, adding in tons of great deals. By 2017, Prime Day was the biggest sales day of all time for Amazon. Prime Day offers hundreds of thousands of deals site-wide, and has new deals starting as often as every 5 minutes. They also offer Lightning Deals, which are very limited, deeply discounted deals on electronics and other popular products. You have to be quick to take advantage of them, though! It’s also the best time to buy an Amazon device, with great deals on Alexa products like the Amazon Echo and Fire tablets. I got a Fire tablet last year, and have been very impressed by it. To me, it is an iPad at a fraction of the price. The only big difference is a shorter battery life on the Fire, but as I could buy about four Fire tablets for the price of one iPad, I can live with that!
Amazon has now extended Prime Day beyond the USA, so that customers living in Canada, the UK, Spain, Mexico, Japan, Italy, India, Germany, France, China, Belgium, Austria, Australia, Singapore, the Netherlands, and Luxumbourg can also benefit from the sale prices. Note however that only customers living in the USA can be certain of getting all possible benefits of Amazon Prime. For example, Prime Video only became available in Canada recently. However, all customers can take advantage of sale prices on Prime Deals of the Day.
Reason #4 to Join Amazon Prime
To watch Prime Video! I only discovered this aspect of Prime membership recently, and since then Maggie and I have enjoyed access to a whole new selection of movies and TV shows. Amazon is pumping a ton of money into this venture, and developing some excellent new content. Like Netflix, Amazon offers a wide range of third party content, plus Prime Originals, and they are top notch. Two shows we love are The Man in the High Castle (95% on Rotten Tomatoes; What would the world be like if Hitler had won?), and The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (96% on Rotten Tomatoes; We love seeing New York in the 1950s). And we can’t wait for the release of Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan – one of the first series ever to be renewed for a second season before its premier.
Reason #5 to Join Amazon Prime
To get free photo storage with Amazon Photo. I only just learned about this. Coincidentally, I have just been agonizing over where to store my thousands of digital photos. And now I find out that my Amazon Prime membership gives me unlimited photo storage and sharing, as well as 5 GB to store videos and files. And there I was just about to increase my iCloud storage to the next level!
Reason #6 to Join Amazon Prime
To enjoy free family sharing. I never knew about this one until I started researching this post, and it’s a really great deal. You can share your Amazon Prime membership with two adults, plus up to four teens and four children, in a “Household.” This means that up to ten people can share a single Prime membership. Unfortunately we only have one child left who is still in her teens – but this still means I can extend my Prime membership to Maggie and to our daughter. Who knew? As a student, my daughter will benefit greatly from the free shipping, Prime Video, and Prime Photos.
Reason #7 to Join Amazon Prime
To buy some of the great wearable tech deals on the Prime Day Sale. I have highlighted some of these below. Many more will show up during the day, so go ahead and help yourself to a great deal!
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