‘It was never about the seventy-nine dollars. It was really about changing people’s mentality so they wouldn’t shop anywhere else.’
Vijay Ravindran, ex-Amazon Director, 20134
It appears so. By 2018, Amazon was shipping more than 5 billion items worldwide and had over 100 million paid Prime members globally, making it one of the world’s largest online subscription schemes.5
The Prime model is classic Amazon – customer-obsessed with a long-term view of success. Today, Prime is about so much more than just shipping perks. Amazon has spent the past decade relentlessly building out the Prime flywheel to the extent that it is now described as ‘the gateway to the best of Amazon’, according to Prime Director Lisa Leung.6 The retailer has significantly expanded an already impressive range of Prime-eligible products (from 20 million in 2014 to 100 million by 20187) while also tacking on a plethora of new services in a bid to provide customers with ever greater value. Today, there are more reasons than ever before to join Prime.