The Personal & Professional Benefits of Being an Amazon Prime Member

July 8th, 2010 I placed my very first Amazon order. It was a 3-pack of hard cases for my Blackberry Tour. This was a little over 5 years after Amazon Prime was born, but at the time all I knew about Amazon was that it was the only site where I could get hard to find items & affordable accessories for my phone & car — what simple times!

Since then, I’ve used Amazon for everything from phone parts to car parts, last minute baby wipes to last minute gifts, and everything in between.

And that’s just recounting the shopping!

As a mother, a wife, and an entrepreneur Amazon has become so much more than a shopping site — it’s a resource!

But before I get into why I, Alberthe Buabeng, can’t get enough of Amazon, these are a few things that are worth noting:

There is a myriad of ways to take advantage of all that Amazon offers — whether it’s by simply shopping the site, getting a prime membership, or using their devices and that’s not even scratching the surface!

For as long as I can remember, I’ve had a Prime membership but if my prime membership was a kid, it’d be an entire first grader, because there was a time I didn’t have a membership — for those earlier purchases.

Anyone can shop Amazon without any commitments of the membership, but when I started to evaluate how often I was turning to them for my purchases, it simply made good sense. Free two day shipping (it wasn’t until about 3 or 4 years ago that I got to start reaping the benefits of same day delivery) was super invaluable to me because I was able to get things basically instantly.

In the past 3 or 4 years my relationship with Amazon has gotten really serious, going from just shopping to:

placing WAY more same day delivery orders
shopping Prime NOW for instant local deliveries
using Subscribe & Save for things that I was purchasing often
buying Dash Buttons for my recurring, but often last minute, purchases
watching (and loving) original Prime shows like Bosch & Jack Ryan
using Audible to listen to way more books than I know I would’ve been able to read
connecting Fire TV devices to both of our televisions for streaming
taking advantage of Amazon Smile to donate while I shop (currently donations from my purchases go to a local museum to help support their programs)
being part of the Amazon Affiliate Program so that I earn commission on referrals

You could basically say, when it comes to Amazon & I, we go together.

How and why I use Amazon only makes up for a fraction of the site’s features & benefits. So for easy reference, I’ll just list them below; but because they offer so much, anytime I meet someone who doesn’t use Amazon I find myself giving em a bit of a head tilt & squinty eye.

For example, during my pregnancy, there were a lot of times I just couldn’t go outside — I wasn’t sick, thankfully, but man was I tired! The Prime Now app became my go to solution for any time I was having a craving & my husband wasn’t around to go to the store for me. After giving birth, we used the Subscribe & Save program — product subscriptions — to keep us stocked with diapers, wipes, and other essentials. During this time I also purchased a few Dash Buttons for items that didn’t need to schedule but were purchased often, like detergent & coffee… yes, I said coffee!

As someone who used to read often (I took advantage of my very long school & work commutes) I now found myself reading less & less, and to be honest, I started to feel like I was missing a piece of me. With Audible, I’ve been able to reconnect with books in a new & exciting way — I can listen to them while working out, folding laundry, washing dishes, or just sitting on the sofa with a cup of cocoa.

Amazon has become part of my lifestyle, but also part of my business, with the biggest piece of this being their affiliate program.

As a designer & blogger, I recommend a lot of product to a lot of people. As an Amazon affiliate, I now have the opportunity to earn a commission for those recommendations, with nothing extra on your part or my part…like Amazon is giving me a finder’s fee! How dope is that?!

For my personal life, as a mother, a wife, and a shopaholic, and in my professional life as an interior designer & a content creator, I’ve come to see Amazon as a tool to simplify a lot of the things I’d be doing anyway.

There are different ways to become an Amazon member — since my husband and I have almost always had the divine timing of one of us always being in school, we have a student membership which affords us a six month trial followed by a 50% off membership.

During times when one of us had a full price membership (pre-marriage), we took advantage of the membership sharing, which essentially means that we could have separate accounts, but share certain Prime benefits as an Amazon household. This didn’t last long, because duh, we got married, so I kept my account & my husband closed his; but this is perfect for 2 roommates, for example, who trust each other, LOL.

I also found it to be pretty dope that Amazon even offers a discounted option for qualifying customers in select U.S. government assistance programs such as anyone with an EBT or Medicaid card — $5.99/month versus their full rate of $12.99/month (or $119/year). For reference, the student membership is $6.49/month ($59/year).

So many people think I got into Amazon because I live near Seattle, but that couldn’t be any further from the truth. I’ve been obsessed since my east coast days, and I am excited to see what they ~~buy~~ do next.

As a long time loyal Prime member I’ve gotten to take advantage of effortlessly shopping online — from the desktop and the app — often saving quite a bit of coins compared to other retailers. But there are still features haven’t tried but plan to take advantage of like Freetime Unlimited for our daughter to have access to kid-friendly books, movies, apps, and shows all in one place.

Benefits

Shipping

Free Two-Day Shipping on eligible items in the contiguous U.S.
Free Same-Day Delivery in eligible zip codes
Prime Now for Free 2-Hour Delivery on thousands of items in eligible zip codes
Free No-Rush Shipping to earn rewards for future purchases

Shopping

Prime Early Access to Lightning Deals
Prime Wardrobe program where you can try before you buy from eligible items
Prime Pantry in select regions to shop for groceries & household products
Exclusive Whole Foods Market savings

Streaming

Prime Video for unlimited streaming of movies and TV episodes
Prime Music for unlimited, ad-free access to hundreds of Prime Playlists and more than two million songs
Amazon Channels from HBO, SHOWTIME and STARZ channels are $4.99–$14.99/month for Prime members
Twitch Prime for exclusive promotions on eligible pre-order games

Wanna try Amazon Prime for yourself?

You can get a free 30-day trial & instantly start taking advantage of a full membership; or if you’re a student you can get a free 6-month trial — yes, 6 whole calendar months! — to really dive into the benefits.

If you’re a family, you can also do what we did & start out with an Amazon Family 30-day trial, which gets you the same benefits in addition to some very family specific deals & discounts, like 15% off eligible products from your baby registry and 20% off diapers, baby food, and all that jazz through Subscribe & Save .

If you’re not quite ready for the shopping commitment because you just know you won’t use it (I’m only judging a little bit because I appreciate honesty & discernment) there are some things you can access without a membership, like Audible, which you can try with two free audiobooks to see if it’s a fit for you, whether you’re a Prime member or not.