Last month Amazon began quietly working with a select group of its third-party merchants to bring more of their products to one of its strongest customer bases — Amazon Prime.
And late last week (June 12) those efforts seemed to hit the next stage as Amazon has now started shipping Prime-eligible items from independent merchant warehouses to customers, The Wall Street Journal reported. This is a big step forward for Amazon’s third-party merchants since the process before involved shipping merchandise to Amazon if it wanted to be qualified for Amazon Prime. That threw that extra shipping cost burden on the merchants, disincentivizing some from wanting to offer too many products on Prime.
The move may represent a shift in Amazon’s policy that sellers participate in the Fulfillment by Amazon program, through which warehouse storage is mandatory in order to qualify for the two-day Prime delivery option. Having more Prime-eligible items may also encourage more Amazon customers to buy into Prime since it enables those members access to more products that qualify for free shipping. Prime has also recently expanded into more same-day shipping options in 14 metropolitan areas.
By relaxing its warehouse terms, Amazon will be able to expand the number of products that can be sold through Prime and add higher priced items from sellers who have not wanted items residing in Amazon’s 100 centers around the globe so that they can sell those higher priced goods to other retailers — or avoid passing sales taxes on to consumers.
Prime members are said to spend two to four times as much as their non-Prime brethren. And Amazon has been capitalizing on the spending by investing in plans to broaden free video, photos and streaming content to members as more perks for its Prime members.
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