Millions of people use Amazon every day, as the site is perfect for finding pretty much anything you could possibly need. Of course, it didn’t start out that way, as at first Amazon was just an online bookstore.
But over the years it has turned into so much more, with Amazon now being one of the most powerful and influential tech companies on the planet.
It has reached such lofty heights in large part because of continually adding features, be it music, video or a host of other things we enjoy.
One of the most well-liked things Amazon introduced to us was Prime. While it is free to use Amazon, people who subscribe to Prime receive many benefits, including access to different Amazon content as well as faster deliveries.
That’s not all you get, though. If you are not a Prime member, you’ll be interested to know what you’re missing out on. And if you are, there’s a good chance you don’t know about everything you get with the subscription.
Amazon bought Whole Foods for $13.7 billion in 2017, looking to the struggling store as a way to get further into the grocery game. It did not take long for the tech company to make its mark on the store as it slashed prices on many products.
Prime members get even more benefits, such as an extra 10 percent off of items with yellow sale signs as well as 2-hour delivery from Whole Foods stores in select cities, free grocery pickup at certain locations and 5 percent back on Whole Foods purchases with an Amazon Prime Rewards Visa Card. This can save you money on your food bill and save you time when it comes to getting your groceries.
One of the nice things about Prime is access to Amazon Video, which is a collection of shows and movies that can be streamed to your devices. But did you know you can watch them all even if you don’t have access to a Wi-Fi network?
Selected Prime Video titles are available to be downloaded to compatible mobile devices, which include Fire tablets, Fire phones, Android phones and tablets, and iOS devices.
If you are using a compatible device, make sure you are connected to a Wi-Fi or wireless network, find the Prime title you want to download and open the video details. After that, tap on “Download” to start the process. Just keep in mind this can use up data on your cellular plan, so make sure you have enough to spare.
Note that for TV shows, you will want to select the episode you want to download and then look for the specific download icon, which will be a down arrow. Also, the amount of time you will have to be able to watch a downloaded title — movie or show — offline will vary, though a notification will typically display on-screen when the viewing period is almost over.
Prime subscribers can take advantage of Prime Reload, in which members can get 2 percent back on purchases when they first load funds into their Amazon balance using a debit card that is attached to a checking account.
In other words, you supply the money for your own Amazon gift card, which you then use to purchase items. For example, you could load $500 into an Amazon gift card using the Reload program and then receive a gift card that’s actually worth $510. There are some limitations to Reload. You must load at least $100 into your gift card balance and you can’t go over $2,000 for a single reload amount.
Reload requires you to jump through some minor hoops to earn the rewards, but it can work out well for customers who already use a debit card for their purchases, and for those who are heavy Amazon shoppers looking to net some bonus cash.
Amazon has been finding ways to turn the Whole Foods natural-foods grocery chain into a key link in Amazon’s offerings. One of the most tantalizing perks for customers is free two-hour grocery delivery, which is available in an ever-growing list of cities through Amazon’s Prime Now service.
The delivery is free is you’re content with a two-hour delivery window at a time suggested by Amazon. If you need your groceries faster, you can opt to pay a fee. Amazon will also automatically calculate a suggested tip for your courier, which is optional.
Are you eligible for this Prime perk? You can check your ZIP code through Prime Now. The list of cities offering Whole Foods delivery has grown recently:
Albuquerque, Ann Arbor, Annapolis, Atlanta, Austin, Baltimore, Birmingham, Boise, Boston, Central Jersey, Charleston, Charlotte, Chicago, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Colorado Springs, Columbus, Dallas and Fort Worth, Dayton, Denver, Detroit, Fairfield County and White Plains, Greenville, Hartford, Houston, Indianapolis, Jacksonville, Kansas City, Las Vegas, Long Island, Los Angeles and Orange County, Louisville, Madison, Manhattan and Brooklyn, Memphis, Milwaukee ,Minneapolis and St. Paul, Nashville, New Orleans, North Jersey, Oklahoma City, Omaha, Orlando, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Pittsburgh, Portland, Providence, Raleigh, Richmond, Sacramento, Salt Lake City, San Antonio, San Diego, San Francisco Bay Area, Seattle and Eastside, South Florida, St. Louis, Tampa, Tucson, Tulsa, Virginia Beach and Washington, DC, Metro.
Amazon has been expanding the Whole Foods delivery service at a rapid pace, so if your city is not yet on the list, it may be soon.
Warm up your Kindle; you’ve got some free reading to do. The Amazon Prime Reading First Reads benefit is your ticket to check out a new book. Prime Reading is Amazon’s version of an online library stocked with a selection of books and magazines. You can access Prime Reading through a Kindle e-reader or the Kindle app.
First Reads is a selection of six editor’s choice books. Prime members can pick one to read free each month. Chances are good you’ll find an option that will draw your interest. A recent list included a thriller, a gothic murder story, a historical novel, a true-crime book, a young-adult book, and a cute kid’s book about a duck.
A lot of the free Prime perks aren’t things you can hold in your hand. If you want something tangible to show for your membership, then check out Amazon’s Sample Box program. You choose from a selection of theme boxes and receive a credit for future purchases of eligible items related to that box.
For example, Amazon has offered a luxury skin care box stocked with perfume, exfoliating gel, moisturizer, and skin serum samples for $19.99. You get to try out everything included in the box and also receive a $19.99 credit towards luxury beauty products sold by Amazon. So, if you like something in the box, you can use your credit towards a full-size version of the product or other similar items in that category.
Sample boxes aren’t just for beauty supplies; Amazon often offers snack food, pet food and nutrition and wellness themed boxes as well. Click or tap here to learn even more about Amazon’s Sample Boxes.
Package theft from porches is a growing problem as opportunistic thieves snatch up Amazon customers’ deliveries. The retailer is taking a creative new approach to dealing with the issue by offering a service called Amazon Key In-Car Delivery. This ties in with the Amazon Key app that lets you lock and unlock the front door of your home with a compatible smart lock while allowing Amazon delivery people access to your house to leave packages in a secure location.
In-Car Delivery works with supported models of vehicles, including 2015 or newer vehicles from Buick, GMC, Cadillac, Chevrolet, and Volvo that have an active connected car service plan like OnStar. You can set up the in-car option through the Amazon Key app. Amazon delivery agents will then drop off your packages in your car, though it must be parked at an accessible, ground-level location.
Besides giving you a secure delivery option, the in-car service also lets you receive packages while you’re at work so you don’t miss deliveries or leave them vulnerable to porch pirates. Amazon Key delivery services aren’t available in all locations yet, but you can check if you and your car are eligible through the Key site.
While more and more shopping has moved online, shopping for clothes has remained challenging since you have to guess about whether a fit or style will work for you. Amazons Prime Wardrobe is focused on making clothes shopping much easier by letting you try before you buy. This service lets you use your own home as a dressing room.
Prime Wardrobe works by you filling a box with three or more items of eligible clothing, shoes, or accessories, up to a maximum of eight. Amazon ships you the box and you get a week to try on the clothes at your leisure. You can then keep the pieces you like, pay for them, and ship the rest back to Amazon using a prepaid label at no additional cost.
Prime Wardrobe is your chance to try different sizes and looks with no regrets or return shipping costs.
One of Amazon Prime’s siren calls has always been the free shipping, but it’s not restricted to just Amazon.com. Amazon acquired popular deal-of-the-day site Woot in 2010. Prime’s free standard shipping extends to Woot purchases.
Fashionistas will also be happy to learn the clothes-focused Amazon subsidiary Shopbop is part of the free Prime shipping family, and you get free returns, too. You can get your designer brand fix and free Amazon shipping through East Dane, which is similar to Shopbop, but focused on men’s fashion. Between Woot, ShopBop and East Dane, your online shopping horizons with bonus shipping perks have just expanded.
Whether you’re looking to entertain or inform yourself, you can find Prime perks that will satisfy you. Here’s how to get free reading and listening material through your Amazon membership.
Magazines: Amazon Prime Reading is your go-to source for free access to issues of popular magazines, including Vogue, Bon Appetit, Popular Mechanics, Esquire, and Better Homes & Gardens. Just start at the Prime Reading page to browse the magazines that are included with your membership. Click on the magazine you’re interested in and choose “Borrow this issue for free” to have it delivered to your Kindle, Fire tablet, or Kindle app.
Podcasts and audiobooks: Audible is a division of Amazon that’s best known for providing audiobooks, but Amazon also uses it to deliver a service called Audible Channels. Amazon doesn’t specifically refer to Channels’ offerings as “podcasts,” but that’s essentially what they are.
You will need to download the Audible app to get started with Channels. Open the app, tap on the menu and choose Channels for Prime. Here, you can choose from a variety of short-form audio programs that explore sketch comedy, music culture, world history, and even news snippets from The New York Times.
Channels also gives you access to a small selection of free Prime-exclusive audiobooks. From the main Channels tab, just scroll down and tap on Audiobook Collections to check out the options, which range from histories to mysteries.
Prime parents with newborns have a lot of ongoing expenses, but the Amazon Family program can give you a break on the cost of diapers and baby food. To earn a 20-percent discount, you will need to use Amazon’s Subscribe & Save program and set up subscriptions for five or more eligible baby products to be delivered on the same recurring day to the same address. Just go to the Amazon Family page to get started.
You may have started with Amazon Prime thanks to the lure of free shipping, but the many perks that come with the program can sweeten the deal and make the annual membership expense very worthwhile.
We may receive a commission when you buy through our links, but our reporting and recommendations are always independent and objective.
Apple Watches are one of the coolest pieces of tech out there right now. Not only can it act as a phone, answer text messages and check your email, but it also has health benefits as well. Using this device you can make sure your blood pressure, heart rate and exercise levels are all healthy. That’s exactly why this insurance company has decided to give them away to their customers for free. All you have to do, is walk. Do you qualify?
Open/download audioOver the years, we’ve seen big companies that have been in business a long time eventually shut their doors forever. In many cases, the rise of Amazon has been used as a reason companies don’t survive. But even Amazon itself is not immune to being “too big to fail.” In this episode of Consumer Tech Update, Kim looks at statements made by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and his thoughts on the company’s future.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Gift-giving season is here at last, and some of the hottest items on the list will likely be connected toys and gadgets and Internet-of-Things appliances.
To help you choose which gadgets deserve their place under the Christmas tree, Mozilla, the nonprofit organization known for its Firefox browser, just released its “Privacy Not Included” list for 2018.
If you have an Apple device, you already know what Apple ID is. In fact, you know it very well because you have to use your Apple ID quite frequently to sign into your devices and to log in to the App Store or iTunes. Recently, there seems to be a hack that has targeted Apple IDs and locking users out. Here is what to do if you have already been hacked, and if not, how to protect yourself.
Sometimes, hacks can be more annoying then necessarily dangerous or life-changing for those impacted. This latest data breach is not that. A recent hack and data breach at a major London-based bank has leaked not only people’s names and addresses, but also their banking information, account number and even, in some cases, their PIN. If you use this bank, you absolutely want to find out if you were affected.
There’s something attractive about the idea of buried treasure. And that’s how it feels when you find unclaimed money just lying around waiting for you to claim it. Here are some free places to search to find money that belongs to you.
Google held its Pixel 3 event yesterday and the company announced a slew of new products — the new Pixel 3 phones, the Pixel Stand, the Google Home Hub, and the Pixel Slate. But it wasn’t all about the hardware. The event’s focus on the synergy between AI, hardware and software produced plenty of software surprises! Some of these features are so innovative and fresh that it will be inevitable that Apple and Samsung will follow suit. The tech industry is a copycat world, after all.
If you own one of these smart televisions, you need to know about these three critical flaws that have recently surfaced that might allow hackers to get into your network and wreak havoc.
A recent Bloomberg report has stated that their might be evidence that some Chinese computer manufacturers may be putting a spy chip within the servers that could give Chinese hackers a backdoor.
Apple just held its big iPhone event last Wednesday and in case you didn’t know by now, the company released three new iPhones and the Apple Watch Series 4. Although it’s always exciting when gadgets are updated with shinier, more advanced features, older gadgets are inevitably pushed into obsolescence. As such, heads up! A bunch of older Apple products just got discontinued.
Computers are expensive. That can make you want to hold onto the old Dell you bought six years ago. But sometimes even upgrading your computer’s hardware can’t fix basic problems. No matter how clean your desktop looks, there might be some bugs packed deep into your PC’s code slowing it down. Here’s how to fix those issues fast.
You’re settled comfortably on the couch for a family movie night or a marathon session of your favorite TV series. Without warning, your relaxing night turns into a nightmare as the streaming internet video keeps pausing to buffer. Fortunately, I can help you fix your video streaming problems so cable can stay a distant memory.
Is your dream of fast, high-quality Internet video streaming turning into a nightmare? Here’s how to fix it.
Remember that email you sent that was meant to be read just by the person you sent it to? It might have been a joke only to be read by the recipient or perhaps contained some private details. It could also have been innocuous but really, it didn’t matter. The only person who was reading it was the one it was sent to and unless they shared it with someone else there was nothing to worry about. Well, it turns out that’s not entirely true.
For the last few years, fall has always been Apple’s biggest season. Of course, this is the time when the new iPhones are announced and the excitement during this time of year is understandable. But will the last quarter of the year be any different? Here are all the new and exciting gadgets we are expecting from Apple this fall.
It’s very convenient to bank, shop and post photos and status updates online. It means you don’t have to physically go to the bank, the store or travel long distances to catch up with family and friends who might be scattered around the country.
Crowdfunding has gone mainstream, but how do you know who’s sincere and who’s not? A start-up company just walked off with over $3 million, leaving investors with nothing. Listen to my Consumer Tech Update to learn more about why I don’t contribute to crowdfunding.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Who couldn’t use a little extra cash nowadays? Especially if you’re a retiree on a budget. Finding a way to add to your cash-flow can be a challenge. Have you ever thought about renting out your home or a spare room? It might be easier and more profitable than you think.
As part of their big privacy revamp, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced a full audit and investigation of all third-party apps. Two months in, the results are public – and somewhat stunning. Facebook has suspended 200 apps for possible data misuse.
