I was an Amazon Prime customer for three years, from July 2008 to July 2011. If you buy books, CDs or DVDs more than about once a month it’s enormously convenient and a great way to cut costs and I strongly recommend it. Why then, you might ask, did I cancel after three years of happy use? What went wrong? In a word, Apple; let me explain.
We have a stack of Apple products (iPhone, iPods, a couple of iPads and an Apple TV) designed to make discovery, acquisition and consumption of media (music, text, video) as quick and as easy as possible. The key word in the last sentence is “acquisition” because it is in the acquisition of new media that Apple have really changed the nature of the game. By delivering media products as a digital download Apple have cut a key strut from Amazon’s business model.
Amazon’s business is based on offering a large catalogue of physical objects that can be moved quickly from their warehouse to your living room. They have taken the very best 21st century logistics technology and honed the experience of finding and buying 20th century products to become, for many people, the default choice of vendor. Amazon Prime removes one more barrier (delivery charges), easing the decision to buy and locking out competitors.
My justification for subscribing to Amazon Prime was that I would save money on the regular orders I placed for books, CDs and DVDs and this was indeed my experience. I also found myself less resistant to impulse or low value purchases because delivery charges were no longer a factor. Apple’s role in changing this was to deliver a family of products (primarily the iPad) that offered both media shopping (through iTunes and iBooks) and immediate delivery of the desired items. Amazon’s “overnight and free” delivery was trumped by Apple’s “now and free” downloads.
Amazon must be aware of this problem. The development of the Kindle Fire wasn’t sparked by a burning desire at Amazon to provide the world with an alternative to the iPad; it happened, I believe, because Amazon could see their core market disappearing as people chose to download digital media rather than buy physical equivalents. Amazon are still able to sell jeans and shoes and blenders and TV sets and iPads but the high volume items that keep people returning to the site are migrating to digital downloads.
So is an Amazon Prime subscription worth the money? If you regularly buy physical media the answer is likely to be “yes”. If you don’t, you might find that you can live without it but it obviously depends what else you buy from Amazon, and how often.
Moving to an all-digital media purchase strategy has saved me time, effort and money. I no longer have to store or transport physical media and I can carry loads of books, music and video on my iDevices to enjoy at my convenience. I also no longer need Amazon Prime.
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