Amazon’s Prime membership program, for the most part, has been extremely beneficial for buyers since the day it was first created. Its simplicity and cost savings are two factors that any buyer can love. And the monthly cost of membership is more than offset by the enormous savings of having items shipped to your door for free.
What made things even better was Amazon’s own expansion of shipping center locations. This ensured that the growing number of customers could get their deliveries within a reasonable time frame, instead of waiting weeks for arrival.
Now, Amazon has created an even newer twist to its original Prime membership deal. This latest feature is called “Buy with Prime” and here’s how it benefits not only buyers but also sellers.
How “Buy With Prime” Works
Amazon has introduced “Buy with Prime” as a method by which sellers can sell products on their own unique websites (outside the Amazon marketplace), but use Amazon’s enormously powerful and sophisticated fulfillment service to handle product deliveries.
Through this program, Amazon then offers buyers who are also Prime members all the same Prime benefits that they would receive if they were making their purchases on the Amazon website itself.
Benefits to Sellers
For sellers, Buy with Prime means removing part of their shipping hassle while giving buyers more confidence when it comes to purchasing. A participating merchant can display the Prime logo and expected delivery times on any eligible products they include in their own external online store.
With this in place, this seller can then create a simplified, convenient, and secure selling process for themselves while showing customers that it applies to them as well. Not only that, but it comes with all the attached free shipping, fast delivery times, and other benefits that Prime membership previously offered on the Amazon marketplace.
For now, Buy with Prime will only be available by invitation to select merchants who already use Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) for their sales. Once enrolled, these sellers can add a Buy with Prime button to their own online stores immediately as long as their inventory is already being handled by an Amazon fulfillment center. As mentioned, this is currently an invite-only program, but Amazon does have a list to join if interested.
When a customer makes an order, the seller will receive the buyer’s order number, basic personal information, and email contact details. This lets them reach out to the customer directly even though Amazon itself is handling the fulfillment details of the customer’s order.
How To Get Started with “Buy with Prime” in Four Easy Steps
- Sign up and create your account.
Start by entering your business details. - Set up Buy with Prime
Link your Seller Central and Amazon Pay accounts to Buy with Prime, then import your existing Amazon product catalog information. - Pick products to offer Prime
Select which products display the Prime logo and delivery promise. - Add the Buy with Prime button
Simply copy and paste button code into your existing site in minutes.
Benefits to Buyers
For buyers, the benefits of Buy with Prime are obvious. The service means buying more safely and securely while receiving their products faster, and more fully backed by Amazon’s refund and replacement guarantees, even when shopping through third-party websites.
Suppose you’re a buyer online and prefer a certain niche website for specific products that you don’t want to search for on Amazon. In that case, you can use Buy with Prime to keep the good things about your Prime experience despite shopping externally.
One other curious benefit of Buy with Prime for buyers will be avoiding the often terrible search quality on the Amazon website itself. Amazon often saturates its product search results with unrelated or third-party seller listings for reasons known only to itself, even when a customer wants to buy an exact and authentic product from Amazon itself. This often means filtering through pirated or off-brand products to find what you really want.
If Buy with Prime spreads widely enough across external websites, it will let buyers go directly to the sites of vendors they already directly trust, search more easily there and keep enjoying Prime membership benefits.
Increasing Your Sales Through Buy with Prime
If you’re an online merchant who’d like to explore the sales implications of Buy with Prime, and improve your digital product marketing in general, professional support is available. OperationROI offers the experience and strategic skills necessary to expand your sales, either through Amazon or elsewhere.
We are a full-service e-commerce marketing agency that has helped hundreds of e-commerce sellers thrive online.
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