We know that Amazon loves Prime. It loves the Prime subscribers, their loyalty, their free spending ways and now it looks like they have a new way of tempting the uninitiated into the programme. In the checkout flow at the moment they are currently promoting a 99p one week Amazon Prime offer to get people signed up to Amazon Prime. Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos has said that he wants not being a member of Amazon Prime to be the “irresponsible” choice.
The 99p one week Amazon Prime offer is attractive enough even if you only want to place one order and your shipping bill is more than a pound. But it is also very tasty if you are planning a spending spree. In the past, Amazon made it deliberately difficult to cancel a Prime subscription but it’s much easier these days. We wrote about that a few weeks ago: It’s surprisingly easy to unsubscribe from Amazon Prime (and get a refund).
How do 3P merchants access Prime buyers?
Third party (3P) merchants can learn to love Amazon Prime shoppers as much as Amazon do but it’s not always easy or cheap. But it is possible to plug into Prime and increase your customer base with Prime. The first way you can get the Prime symbol by your products is to put your products into Fulfilment by Amazon (FBA). That’s where you put your products into an Amazon warehouse and they are treated as Amazon products. And like products that Amazon sells itself, they are eligible for Prime speedy and free delivery.
And the other option is seller fulfilled Prime, which you can find out more about here. As long as you have a successful and efficient fulfilment operation, and will print out shipping labels using Amazon, then you can also get access to Prime shoppers. You’ll need to apply, be approved and then satisfy Amazon’s stringent requirements by passing a trial period of between 5 and 90 days. Have you successfully used seller fulfilled Prime?
