To mark Amazon Prime Day, Recode looked at the origins of the next-day delivery service. It outlined the dramatic effect it had on how people perceived online shopping.
The service, which launched in February of 2005, was a first of its kind: For an upfront payment of $79, customers were rewarded with all-you-can-eat two-day delivery on their orders. At the time, Amazon charged customers $9.48 for two-day delivery, meaning if you placed just nine of these orders in a year, Prime would pay for itself. “[E]ven for people who can afford second-day shipping, this feels sort of like an indulgent luxury,” Bezos said of Prime, on a call with Wall Street analysts when he introduced the service in February 2005. Jeff Bezos’s letters to customers on the Amazon.com homepage announcing the Amazon Prime and Prime Video launches. With it, Amazon single-handedly — and permanently — raised the bar for convenience in online shopping. That, in turn, forever changed the types of products shoppers were willing to buy online.
Check It Out: Amazon Prime Changed How we Shop online