What Is Amazon Prime Membership and How You Can Sign Up for It?

One of the biggest challenges for online marketplaces is to keep customers coming back. Given the number of options an online shopper usually has, this turns out to be a major problem for most marketplaces. Amazon seems to have figured out a way to solve this problem with Amazon Prime, and with the Amazon Great Indian Festival sale 2018 around the corner, the membership is in focus once again.

Amazon Prime is a paid membership which offers a large number of benefits at a fixed price. These include free shipping with no minimum order value, early access to deals and offers, free access to Prime Video and Prime Music, and a lot more. If you do most of your shopping on Amazon, it makes sense to become a Prime member. As expected, Amazon is letting its Prime members access deals and offers on the Great Indian Festival sale early this year, like previous sales. Prime members will be able to access deals starting 12 PM on October 9 while the sale will open for everyone else from October 10. Prime members usually get a number of Prime-exclusive deals as well during festive season sales.

Amazon Great Indian Festival Sale 2018: Everything You Can Expect

Amazon Prime membership benefits

If you usually do most of your shopping offline and don't buy more than 2-3 products online in a month, Amazon Prime may not be for you. But if you do make most of your purchases online you could enjoy Amazon Prime's benefits. You usually get free shipping on most online marketplaces above a certain amount, but priority shipping is generally charged extra. Prime members can get free priority shipping with no minimum order value. That's perfect when you want your products quickly without paying an insane charge for shipping. Prime members can also receive discounted same-day and morning deliveries, available at select locations right now.

Apart from free shipping, Prime members also get unlimited free access to Prime Video and Prime Music in India. Prime Video offers a large collection of TV shows and movies that you can watch on your computer, TV, or a mobile device. Prime Music allows you to stream music on a device of your choice. These two services alone make the Prime membership worth the price.

Amazon has recently introduced another free benefit for Prime subscribers in India called Prime Reading. As the name suggests, it offers a free collection of Kindle books that users can read just about anywhere. These free ebooks can be downloaded on a Kindle e-reader or can be accessed using any free Kindle mobile app.

Amazon Prime members also get early access to deals and offers. This year, Amazon Prime members will be able to access deals on the Great Indian Festival sale from 12 PM on Tuesday, one day before the sale is available to everyone else. This can be useful if you love to shop online during festive season sales.

Amazon Prime membership price

Amazon Prime membership costs Rs. 999 in India annually while there's a monthly plan that is priced at Rs. 129. In case you want to try it out, the monthly plan is a good starting point. If you're looking for a free option to join Amazon Prime, you should check with your telecom operator. Some mobile service providers are offering free or discounted access to Amazon Prime on select tariff plans.

How to sign up for Amazon Prime membership

1. Visit the Prime membership page on Amazon's website or simply open the Amazon mobile app on your Android smartphone (In case you're using an iOS device, you'll need to visit Amazon's website using a web browser).
2. Click on Login to join Prime on this page.
3. You'll be asked to sign in with your Amazon account on the next page.
4. Once you're signed in, you can choose from the yearly payment option (Rs. 999) or the monthly plan (Rs. 129).
5. Once you select a plan you'll be asked to make a payment.
6. After your payment is confirmed you'll become an Amazon Prime member.
7. That's it. You can now start enjoying Amazon Prime benefits.