If you’ve been meaning to sign up for Amazon Prime but just haven’t gotten around to it yet, you’re in luck: Amazon is dropping the price of its signature membership program to $73 for this weekend only.
Prime is a key driver of Amazon’s business and typically costs $99 a year. The best known perk of the program is probably its unlimited two-day shipping, but Amazon has spent the last two years and billions of dollars expanding the program from those humble origins.
Today, Amazon Prime is what CEO Jeff Bezos has called ”a one-of-a-kind, all-you-can-eat, physical-digital hybrid.” It’s a pass to unlimited video and music streaming from Amazon’s libraries, book rentals for Kindle, and unlimited photo storage in Amazon’s cloud. In certain zip codes, Prime members are even eligible for free same-day delivery.
Prime members spend much more on Amazon than regular shoppers, hence the company’s investment in making the service ever more lucrative. The program has grown rapidly since it launched in 2005, with Prime members making up 35% to 40% of US shoppers, according to two different analyst estimates.
Why? Amazon Prime is a good deal for online shoppers! It’s a good deal at $99, and it’s a really good deal at $73. That’s even cheaper than the $79 price Amazon launched Prime with and kept until March 2014.
The weekend promotion is to celebrate Amazon’s two Golden Globe wins for its series Mozart in the Jungle. If you want to get Prime cheap, you have from 9 pm PT on Friday until 11:59 pm local time Sunday (Jan. 17) to sign up.