Amazon Prime’s free two-day shipping is its best perk, survey says

Free two-day shipping is still super important to Prime
members.
AP/Scott
Sady

• Amazon
  Prime members still overwhelmingly cite free two-day
  shipping as the most important perk of the membership,
  according to a new survey by The Diffusion Group.
• 79% of the Prime members who were surveyed cited the
  perk as most important. The second-highest was Prime Video,
  with 11% saying it’s the biggest perk of Prime.
• Prime is one of the biggest drivers of growth at
  Amazon,
  as members tend to spend more money, more often on the
  website.

Amazon
Prime’s free two-day shipping is still first in most members’
hearts.

According to a new survey by The Diffusion Group, 79% of
Prime members said that the free two-day shipping perk is the
“primary reason” they subscribe to the $119-a-year — or
$12.99-a-month — service.

That’s by far the top reason cited by the 1,160 Prime members who
were surveyed. The next primary reason was Prime Video, Amazon’s
Netflix-like streaming service that is included with Prime
membership.

The remaining 10% of customers cite features
like Prime Music, Photos, Reading, Twitch, or
something else entirely as the No. 1 reason they pay for a Prime
membership.

The
Diffusion Group

“Prime is first and foremost about developing more and
broader retail relationships, and free shipping is key to that
mission,” Michael Greeson, president and director of
research at TDG,
said in a statement. “That is where the real value of Prime
lies.”

Amazon has been evolving Prime’s classic two-day shipping
guarantee and offering additional perks like one-day and same-day
shipping.

That value is both for the customer and for Amazon itself, as
Amazon sees customers subscribed to Prime spend more and shop
more often on the site.

The value of Prime has risen steadily as Amazon has added
more benefits to the program over the years.
A 
recent
JP Morgan analysis estimated
 
that the
service is actually worth $785 a year when everything it offers
is counted together. That’s six-and-a-half times the actual cost
of an annual Prime subscription, even with the recent price
increase. It’s also an increase of about 12% from what JP Morgan
estimated Prime to be worth last year, when its analysts said
membership was worth $700 a year.

“Prime delivers such massive scale and features that we believe
it would be very difficult for any company to replicate and
compete against, and Amazon continues to expand and add more
value to Prime by adding new benefits and growing existing
offerings,” the analysts wrote.

That means that even if a customer does not take advantage of
everything Prime membership has to offer, there’s still the
perception that they’re getting a good value for their money.

As Amazon adds services, it wants to make sure that when
customers take a second look at whether they’re really getting
value for their money after the price increase, they’re satisfied
with their membership and will renew another year.

New products and services are one way Amazon does this, but it
must take care that its current service standards don’t slip in
the meantime. Business Insider has spoken with and heard from
many customers who claimed
that Prime shipping standards have
slipped . That may all
be a
misunderstanding , though.