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Amazon Prime = Free Kindle?

NFS4

NFS4

No Lifer
I hope it's true 🙂 I absolutely love Amazon Prime, it came in handy during the Christmas season.

In January Amazon offered select customers a free Kindle of sorts – they had to pay for it, but if they didn’t like it they could get a full refund and keep the device. It turns out that was just a test run for a much more ambitious program. A reliable source tells us Amazon wants to give a free Kindle to every Amazon Prime subscriber.

Just as soon as they can work out how to do it without losing money.

Amazon Prime is a subscription product that gives customers free two day shipping on everything they buy from Amazon. The current fee is $79/year.

These are Amazon’s very best customers – the ones who tend to make multiple purchases per month. And they are also likely to buy multiple books per month on their Kindle devices. If those users buy enough books, and Amazon gets the production costs of the Kindle down enough, Amazon can get Kindles into “millions” of people’s hands without losing their shirt. At least when the goal is to break even or better over the course of a couple of years, the expected lifetime of a Kindle.
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http://techcrunch.com/2010/02/12/amazon-wants-to-give-a-free-kindle-to-all-amazon-prime-subscribers/
 
I've had Prime since close to the beginning. I'd love a free Kindle - might make me reconsider using only my Costco membership 🙂

Seriously, though, Prime pays for itself at Christmas if your family isn't all in one place or if you have to mail ahead and travel.
 
Oooooh

Love prime. Comes in very handy with birthdays/holidays. Shared my prime membership with my parents and sister so we get our moneys worth.
 
ViviTheMage said:
I don't shop at amazon enough to make prime worthwhile...that would be nice for prime members though!
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You might if you HAD Prime though. I've been a prime member since 2005. I placed 18 orders in 2004, 54 orders in 2005, and 86 orders in 2009. Having Prime makes Amazon a more attractive place to shop. I buy stuff there instead of driving to Target.

Sounds like I'm exactly the kind of customer they want to give a free Kindle to - sign me up!

Unfortunately I also buy most of my books used... I've been on the fence with the Kindle because I'm not sure if it'll get me to read more or if it'll just be a tech toy I never use and regret buying.

Obviously they'd have to have some date cutoff if they did this, otherwise people would sign up for Prime just to get the Kindle.
 
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I buy most of my books used as well, like mugs. I also have a Sony reader, I don't like the DRM in the kindle; it is enough so I wouldn't buy it. However if it is free, I would use it. I would probably be a perfect test case for amazon to see if I can be switched to buying content from amazon instead of from Sony.
 
mugs said:
You might if you HAD Prime though. I've been a prime member since 2005. I placed 18 orders in 2004, 54 orders in 2005, and 86 orders in 2009. Having Prime makes Amazon a more attractive place to shop. I buy stuff there instead of driving to Target.

Sounds like I'm exactly the kind of customer they want to give a free Kindle to - sign me up!

Unfortunately I also buy most of my books used... I've been on the fence with the Kindle because I'm not sure if it'll get me to read more or if it'll just be a tech toy I never use and regret buying.

Obviously they'd have to have some date cutoff if they did this, otherwise people would sign up for Prime just to get the Kindle.
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Might end up being like a mobile phone contract.
Keep your Prime membership for at least 2 years and if you break before then you have to either return the Kindle, maybe, or pay for it/pay a termination fee.
Something like that.
 
mugs said:
You might if you HAD Prime though. I've been a prime member since 2005. I placed 18 orders in 2004, 54 orders in 2005, and 86 orders in 2009. Having Prime makes Amazon a more attractive place to shop. I buy stuff there instead of driving to Target.

Sounds like I'm exactly the kind of customer they want to give a free Kindle to - sign me up!

Unfortunately I also buy most of my books used... I've been on the fence with the Kindle because I'm not sure if it'll get me to read more or if it'll just be a tech toy I never use and regret buying.

Obviously they'd have to have some date cutoff if they did this, otherwise people would sign up for Prime just to get the Kindle.
Click to expand...

Same here. I've always been an Amazon shopper, but I was very picky about what I bought because I didn't always have a cart full of stuff to reach the $25 mark for free shipping. So I'd end up driving to the store to get the item or paid the $2 or $3 shipping.

Now with Prime, I just sit back and order whatever I want whenever I want. And because of the 2-day shipping, my orders with Amazon have increased about 5x or 6x.

During Christmas time, I bought all of my presents from Amazon. Didn't even have to leave the house. Not dealing with malls/best buy/target/etc. during Christmas time is worth my lowered blood pressure 🙂
 
I just got Prime and it does not impress me. Too many things I want are not available through Amazon, and none of their partner stores have shipping deals (that I've found). Will probably not continue it.
And if shipping & handling continues the way it has been, I wont be using Amazon much more at all.

If I got a Kindle somehow I'd give it to my mother.
 
NFS4 said:
Same here. I've always been an Amazon shopper, but I was very picky about what I bought because I didn't always have a cart full of stuff to reach the $25 mark for free shipping. So I'd end up driving to the store to get the item or paid the $2 or $3 shipping.

Now with Prime, I just sit back and order whatever I want whenever I want. And because of the 2-day shipping, my orders with Amazon have increased about 5x or 6x.

During Christmas time, I bought all of my presents from Amazon. Didn't even have to leave the house. Not dealing with malls/best buy/target/etc. during Christmas time is worth my lowered blood pressure 🙂
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Same here. Christmas was a breeze and I almost never go to the store except for food any more.
 
shortylickens said:
I just got Prime and it does not impress me. Too many things I want are not available through Amazon, and none of their partner stores have shipping deals (that I've found). Will probably not continue it.
And if shipping & handling continues the way it has been, I wont be using Amazon much more at all.

If I got a Kindle somehow I'd give it to my mother.
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What are you trying to buy that isn't on Amazon? I've almost never run into that kind of problem using them.
 
Well that's weird. I bought a kindle in December only to return it in late January. No special deal for me, just a normal return. And I buy a ton of stuff via prime.
 
sjwaste said:
I've had Prime since close to the beginning. I'd love a free Kindle - might make me reconsider using only my Costco membership 🙂

Seriously, though, Prime pays for itself at Christmas if your family isn't all in one place or if you have to mail ahead and travel.
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Truth. I mostly use Amazon for x-mas purchases and those weeks alone make prime Worthwhile for me.
 
mugs said:
You might if you HAD Prime though. I've been a prime member since 2005. I placed 18 orders in 2004, 54 orders in 2005, and 86 orders in 2009. Having Prime makes Amazon a more attractive place to shop. I buy stuff there instead of driving to Target.

Sounds like I'm exactly the kind of customer they want to give a free Kindle to - sign me up!

Unfortunately I also buy most of my books used... I've been on the fence with the Kindle because I'm not sure if it'll get me to read more or if it'll just be a tech toy I never use and regret buying.

Obviously they'd have to have some date cutoff if they did this, otherwise people would sign up for Prime just to get the Kindle.
Click to expand...
I love my kindle... it's awesome for when I need/want a book "now" and it saves me a ton of shelf space. it's also a lot more portable.

that said, I still buy used books too... I usually price check and compare used price versus kindle convenience.
 
Demo24 said:
What are you trying to buy that isn't on Amazon? I've almost never run into that kind of problem using them.
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There's plenty of stuff that is offered on the Amazon website but by "partners" and not Amazon itself that is not eligible for Prime shipping, plenty.

I am currently on a free 3 month Prime membership that followed hard on the heels of a free 1 month membership, and I have been the beneficiary of several free Prime stints before.

Amazon generally offers them to past volume buyers/Prime members around the holidays, and it is truly a win/win proposition, imho. I buy tons more when I have a Prime membership going, especially around the holidays.

Follow FW and/or SD, or our own HD, and you will be privy to the more random free Prime membership offerings.

Prime rocks.
 
Demo24 said:
What are you trying to buy that isn't on Amazon? I've almost never run into that kind of problem using them.
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Same here. In the past three months alone I've bought:

32" Vizio TV
26" Panasonic TV
Haribo Gummi Bears
Frontline Flea/Tick med for my dog
Dog bones for the dog
An NC State Christmas Wreath
A cookie press
A Whirpool PUR filter for my refrigerator
A Compound Bypass Lopper to cut branches outside
Four Kingston 40GB SSDs to give to employees
An Arrow dress shirt which I had shipped overnight to arrive just in time for my trip to CES (my old white shirt had a stain that I didn't see until the last minute)
And countless other random stuff from christmas presents to stuff for my parents to stuff that I needed around the house.

Why bother driving to Walmart/Target/Lowes/HomeDepot when I can get it from Amazon with 2-day shipping for less money? 🙂
 
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