Call me a conversion. After a three month free trial, i’ve spent the $79 to continue my Amazon Prime membership for a full year. Our subscription entitles me and other members of my household (aka Caroline) to free two-day shipping on all Amazon purchases. This effectively makes impulse purchases an easy and appealing proposition, whether it’s CD pre-order for me, a book for a friend or, as I tend to do each December, all my holiday shopping.

Before I was addicted to their free shipping for orders over $25 dollars and thus waited to combine various purchases in order to hit the minimum. Now it’s one-click ordering early and often. There’s been debate as to whether the economics of Prime work out for either Amazon or the customer. All i know is that over the last few months I’ve ordered 2x more merchandise, albeit in smaller frequent shipments. And unfortunately for Amazon, most of these goods are low margin new music or books at cut rate prices. But they continue to solidify my brand loyalty and first option website for many categories (electronics, books, music, computer software, etc) so that’s gotta pay off over time.