Last updated on February 24, 2020

My Favorite Online Store

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I have no problems saying Amazon.com is my favorite online store to purchase from.  I buy online a lot.  Mostly because being in a wheelchair makes shopping at brick and mortar companies pretty difficult for me.  Its a lot of trouble loading my wheelchair and myself in my car and then driving to a regular store, unloading my wheelchair and myself and then rolling myself into the store and then pushing a cart or holding  a basket with my selections and then getting it all back in my vehicle and driving home again.  Then, once back at my home, getting my purchases from my vehicle to inside my home is yet another time consuming chore.

 

Compare the above to sitting at my computer desk, going online to amazon.com, searching through thousands of products which can be sorted various ways; I can read all the details and many reviews and then I can select what I want and have it delivered to my doorstep within 2 days.

And then, once its at my doorstep, my 130 pound Giant Schnauzer loves to go out and bring in my packages and even boxes back into the house for me.  (And he only asks for a small treat in return).

Even bigger boxes can be brought in if he can get a fang into the corner of the box.

This certainly beats shopping at my local stores.

 

 

 

About Amazon

Amazon is the world largest online retailer and  a vast Internet-based enterprise that sells books, music, movies, housewares, electronics, toys, and many other goods, either directly or as the middleman between other retailers and Amazon.com’s millions of customers. Its Web services business includes renting data storage and computing resources, so-called “cloud computing,” over the Internet. Its considerable online presence is such that, in 2012, 1 percent of all Internet traffic in North America traveled in and out of Amazon.com data centres.

Amazon  also makes the market-leading Kindle e-book readers. Its promotion of these devices has led to dramatic growth in e-book publishing and turned Amazon.com into a major disruptive force in the book-publishing market.

According to Wikipeda, Amazon was founded by Jeff Bezos in Bellevue, Washington, in July 1994. The company initially started as an online marketplace for books but later expanded to sell electronics, software, video games, apparel, furniture, food, toys, and jewelry. In 2015, Amazon surpassed Walmart as the most valuable retailer in the United States by market capitalization. In 2017, Amazon acquired Whole Foods Market for US$13.4 billion, which vastly increased Amazon’s presence as a brick-and-mortar retailer.  In 2018, Bezos announced that its two-day delivery service, Amazon Prime.

For the fiscal year 2018, Amazon reported earnings of US$10.07 billion, with an annual revenue of US$232.887 billion, an increase of 30.9% over the previous fiscal cycle. Since 2007 sales increased from 14.835 billion to 232.887 billion, thanks to continued business expansion.  Amazon’s market capitalization was valued at over US$803 billion in early November 2018 and had surpassed 100 million subscribers worldwide.

A cool thing about Amazon is it offers pretty much everything under the sun and  products are presented  to buyers in the best possible manner.  After all, Amazon has the best technology and the best experience with online selling.

I can easily find the “Best Sellers” and “New Releases” within the different product categories and then sort them by gender, age, brand and more.

When I go to my Amazon account and choose the Kindle books category, I see:

• Top picks for you
• New based on author interest
• Based on your reading
• For you in science fiction and fantasy (I love those topics)
• Inspired by your browsing history
• 80% off best of the month picks
  New and noteworthy kindle books
• Books from round the world
• Kindle exclusive deals
• Featured new releases in non-fiction
• First reads:  Pick your free book this month (I have kindle unlimited)

…and it goes on and on with different lists for me to choose from.

Additions to my Amazon Account

1. I have an Amazon Prime subscription.  You can read about the many benefits here.
2. I also have Kindle Unlimited Subscription.  You can read about these benefits here.

I love both those subscriptions and use them happily.

My Amazon Prime Subscription

My amazon prime subscription costs me $99/year.

• • I get FREE 2-day shipping on most items I purchase.
  • Amazon Prime Video” With Prime Video I have streaming video benefits, I have access to over 40,000 choices spanning popular TV shows, blockbuster movies, and premium channels.  The video quality on Amazon Prime Instant Video and Netflix is very similar. All videos stream at a minimum 480p, and new movies and TV shows, by default, stream at 1080p. There are 300 titles that are not available on either Hulu Plus or Netflix? And Amazon is consistently increasing its catalog of entertainment titles and exclusive access to various TV channels?
  • Prime Music gives me ad-free and unlimited streaming access to over a million songs on the Amazon Cloud. I can search through my favorite song titles from top artists and load my library, or use from hundreds of custom playlists catering different genres, individual moods, and more
  • I get Prime storage for Photos that is your unlimited on my Amazon Cloud Drive. Every album I create is intrinsically virtual and hence accessible on any device, any time, and from anywhere on the planet.
  • I get to shop Amazon Lightning Deals and MyHabit.com before most of the world even knows the deals are there. I’m one of the first to decide what hot and should be trending, and what should not. With my Prime subscription I gain 30 minute early access to select deals and events on MyHabit.com and Amazon’s Lightning Deals!
  • Free kindle books.  This is something I really love about my Prime subscription.  With over half a million books, and the ability to borrow one book each month. I can access the Lending Library from the Amazon Store directly through my kindle reader.  (unfortunately I can’t access the library from other apps on other devices – my PC included). Currently, borrowing is limited to just one book at a time, and hence just one new title per month. But the good news is that all my notes, highlights, and bookmarks are preserved even when the book is returned and so I can find them again the next time I decide to borrow the book.
    

Little Known things about My Prime Subscription:

• • Students and Moms Can Get it for FREE for a time and then special pricing.
  • I  can SHARE Shipping Benefits between 4 family members, including myself.
  • I can stream many, many videos Live to my Living Room on my smart TV, wii’s, play station and more and through my browser on my iPhone and other devices like my iPad, kindle fire, and  ipod touch
  • I can building a Watch list and bookmark my favorite titles for instant streaming and create my own personalized watch lists.
  • My Amazon Prime Music is coupled with stations that promise zero interruptions so I can enjoy one great title after another. The music plays continuously plays without being interrupted by any ads. Best of all,  prime stations offer superb streaming capability where I can simply SKIP a song off the station if I want and  go on skipping until I finally hit the song I want.
    There are cool Parental controls that give parents the ability to set restrictions for the video content that can be purchased or viewed through the web browsers or on your registered devices.
  • I can use 1-Click with my Prime purchases.
  •  Amazon Elements is Exclusively for Prime users, Prime Elements is a new line of premium everyday essentials to pamper us into a couch potato. I mean, what else? Now you can skip several of your shopping trips to the store for everyday essentials.
  • Prime Promotional Codes which extends support to partners so that promotions from third party (and unique partners) can use Prime-specific promotional code for Prime through special pages created for the partner that offered the promotional code.  NOTE:  to apply a promotional code for Prime, all you have to do is to visit www.amazon.com/prime and use the link received from the Amazon approved Prime partner. Once you apply the promotional code, your next charge date (for the Prime membership) will be updated. You can verify the change from your Manage Your Prime Membership in your account Settings.

What’s coming for Prime?

Prime Air.  Amazon’s goal is to create a short army of drones that could carry your ordered goods from the warehouses and deliver them to your doorsteps within 30-minutes. Its already happening in the UK. and I can’t wait until this can happen in the U.S.

Conclusion

Overall, my Amazon Prime subscription is so worth it to me.  I love it and I purchase from Amazon many times (almost weekly) throughout the year.

My Kindle Unlimited Subscription

With my monthly $9.99  Kindle Unlimited subscription, I have access to over one million titles in the Kindle Store, including books, audiobooks, and magazines. Using my Amazon account, I can browse and borrow up to ten titles and access them from any Amazon device or Kindle reading app, even while travelling. There are no due dates. Titles in the Kindle Unlimited catalog can change at any time, so I get a wide variety of choices

I get the following benefits:

• • Enjoy unlimited access to over 1 million books.
  • Explore a rotating selection of popular magazines.
  • Listen to thousands of books with Audible narration.
  • Read anytime, on any device with the Kindle app.

If you haven’t tried Kindle Unlimited before, you can sign up for a free trial. At the end of your free trial, you are automatically upgraded to a monthly paid subscription plan. To manage or cancel your subscription, go to Manage or Cancel Your Kindle Unlimited Membership

Conclusion

Kindle Unlimited, along with the hundreds of FREE kindle eBooks I can download allows me to have all the reading content I can ever hope for and get (mostly free).

I truly enjoy both my Amazon Prime and Kindle Unlimited subscriptions and intend to keep both up to date.

Comments

I welcome comments and questions, you can leave yours below -Shirley

NOTE:  This post contains affiliate links, which, if clicked on and a product purchased, I receive a small commission.