Amazon Prime

I pre-ordered a book which is due to be released tomorrow...

...but I got it in the mail today. That is to say, I got it into my hands faster by ordering it through the mail than I could have if I bought it in my local bookstore.

How? I really love Amazon Prime! We must be close to a distribution center, because for a lot of books our sort-of-free 2-day shopping ends up getting books to us in one day. So, with a new Tuesday release (books are usually released on Tuesdays, you know,) they ship it out on Saturday, assuming it will arrive on Tuesday, but for us, we get it Monday--before the official release date.

Amazon Prime is a pre-paid shipping option. You pay $79 each year, and for that, they will ship anything that they have in their warehouses to you without extra charge and with 2-day shipping. Amazon has a lot of products that third parties sell using their website which ship from non-Amazon warehouses. Those ship slowly, and you have to pay for shipment. But most things there are available through Prime, if you look for it.

Because of the ease of shopping and the price of shipping, we order lots of things through Amazon which we might have purchased locally or on other websites. It's a great service!