Now that Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) has apparently changed the way consumers buy things, the company seems intent on conquering delivery services as well. The company’s Prime service has added two-hour and one-hour delivery on some items in some locations that it calls Prime Now, and today is offering a discount of $10 for new customers who place an order with the Prime Now mobile app.
Amazon Prime is the $99-a-year delivery service that offers free two-day shipping, free same-day delivery in some cities and the Prime streaming video service, among many other things. Prime Now operates like a courier service and, in addition to a membership in Prime, customers pay a delivery charge of $7.99 for one-hour delivery. Two-hour service is free.
Even non-Prime customers can use the Prime Now delivery service but must pay $9.98 per order. This offer Amazon is making today is a one-off promotion to these non-Prime subscribers, likely in the hope of getting them to sign up for the $99 Prime subscription. Amazon said it added 3 million new Prime subscribers in the third week of December alone, and the company may have as many as 30 million U.S. subscribers by the end of this year (that would be today).
Combine the Prime and Prime Now delivery services with last week’s chatter that Amazon may lease as many as 20 Boeing 767s to haul its goods, and the Internet’s biggest retailer may be on its way to becoming one of the world’s largest delivery services.
There is a lot of fine print for the Prime Now offer, and if you live in the middle of Montana this offer does not extend to you.
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