Over the past week I’ve had four or five people tell me that whenever they want to buy something online, they first check to see if they can get it from Amazon.com.
That’s been my approach for quite some time. I find myself ordering from Amazon without much regard for price. What makes Amazon so appealing?
- Privacy. The more personal information you spread around online, the more vulnerable you are to spam and identity theft. One-stop shopping gives you some control.
- Easy. It doesn’t get any easier than Amazon’s 1-Click ordering.
- Browsing is fun. Amazon’s site is chock-full of meaningful related product recommendations and advertisements.
- Searching is easy. Amazon probably offers more items for sale than any other site in the universe save eBay, yet you can generally find what you’re looking for within a minute.
- Fantastic follow-up. Amazon keeps you posted on order status better than any online company I know.
With such a remarkable customer shopping experience, will Amazon corner the market on the online market? Will every significant retailer eventually be selling through Amazon?
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Yes, this is so true, Brad. In addition, if you sign up for Amazon Prime, which is $79/year, you can order products without any shipping charge and in most states (unless you live in Washington as I do) without sales tax. Over a year it adds up, especially if you buy more than books. I buy books, but also pretty much everything else—including kitchen implements, food, electronics, and more.
Some items do not qualify for Arizona Prime, but I rarely order those (as I don’t like to pay for shipping) unless they are a used item and worth a small shipping charge.
Once I got an item that was not what it was supposed to be, and Amazon refunded the money to me immediately.
I have been ordering from Amazon for 10 years, and am one of those people that always goes to Amazon first.
Hi Olivia, Ten years–you are an Amazon pioneer! Never paid much attention to the Prime program, but it sounds like a winner. Thanks for the tip.
Hi Brad, thanks for your comment at my blog. Just want to ask, is you switch from Blogger to Wordpress hassle-free?
Hi Blogmunch, the switch to WordPress was not a hassle at all. For me the biggest problems were all the related issues–notifying people of my new e-mail, resubmitting my blog to directories, etc. The biggest headache was a domain transfer issue, which had nothing to do with WP.