It is not free if you are paying $79 per year. It requires quite a bit of ordering to even break even. Besides, you don't have to go back to 3-5 day shipping, you can just pay a bit extra with each order and have your 2 day. If the service was half the price, I would reconsider myself, but at my volume of ordering, which is rarely more than 1 or 2 orders per month, why pay in advance and lock myself in.

The whole point of the post is that it's free for U.S. college students. They don't have to pay the $79.

I LOVE AMAZON PRIME!!! The best thing ever to happen to online shopping. Free 2nd day or $4 next day shipping, WOW!!!

but…that's why the article says it's FREE FOR STUDENTS…

Buy one TV on Amazon and prime just paid for itself. You can also invite up to three other people to use your prime, so it's $20 per person. I had it free for a year already, and now happily pay for it because my family definitely makes good use of it. You'd be surprised how fast it adds up.

a TV qualifies for free shipping anyways (As long as it is above 25 bucks which I am guessing it should be)

Amazon Prime has turned Amazon into my corner store. Since signing up before last Christmas I've placed over 60 (!) orders on Amazon. That works out to a little more that $1 per order for 2-day shipping and I'm sure that I'll go well over 100 orders by the time I have to pay the $79 subscription cost again. Since their prices are close to the best available online…and there isn't any sales tax (at least not yet) — it's a deal that's hard to beat. I occasionally feel bad about taking money away from my actual corner store, but with more money in my pocket and merchandise arriving directly to my front door, that feeling passes quickly.

Amazon Prime is a win for me. I live in a fairly rural location – It's a 30 minute round trip to the nearest Staples, and and hour round trip to "real" shopping. Even then, the options are pretty limited.

heh I ordered a book yesterday which had an expected delivery date of July 16, I just canceled it and signed up for this and re-ordered. Thanks!

For free, I'm game.

Yes the TV is free shipping but that is the 3-5 day standard shipping..with amazon prime it is free 2 day shipping. I don't think many people have urgent enough reasons to ship a tv 2 day shipping though. I think this is for college students who need the 2 day shipping for their textbooks which they usually procrastinate from buying until it is near exam time lol

I had a 3 month trial at the beginning of the spring semester and was able to order my books and some other nice cheap stuff. Its very addicting. Very happy to have a whole year, just before the fall starts.

We can't get Amazon Prime in Hawaii. Fail.

Brilliant move. Amazon is damn smart.

All my friends are signing up. And yes, this makes people love Amazon.

Pretty smart move, reflected in the AMZN stock price.

SWEET. I can't say I love a big company like Amazon, but I sure like it right now.

SMOOOOKEEE

Amazon really great, thank you :)

Thanks for posting this, this is going to make my Christmas shopping very easy.

Here's hoping Amazon decides they'd like to do something like this in the UK for us hard working British students….

Well, in Europe consumers would complain if you article does not arrive within two days. Most parcels within Germany arrive within a day. Charging extra for this two day shipping seems like a ripoff, as Amazon has the distribution facilities across the US anyways..

Uh. Amazon has been doing this for ages. They just put a name on it. When I was a freshman (I'm now out of school), I used their free Amazon Prime for 1 year. …in fact, it wasn't even limited to just students. I think they're just now limiting it to students only and removing it for everyone else. Nice, Amazon.

They scaled back the time for the free Prime promotion to 30 days for everyone several years ago.

Things, that are in stock a shipped within 24 hours in Germany^^. No need to even ask for overnight shipping because it works in my area in 80% of all cases.

Even my local independent book seller can deliver the books within 24 hours.

Every dorm room has a TV – and – much, much more. Google "dorm room list." Then there is dorm room life – for 4 years or more. Afterwards, graduation beyond the dorm room. If Amazon Prime is your distribution platform, by choice as a college student, (with Mom and Dad paying the bills….), Amazon is getting more data than just an edu email address. Amazon is surrounding its wagon with niche marketing, just like pizza, delicious any way you slice it. Consider two of its recent acquisitions, Zappos and Woot. College students and Prime give Amazon a dynamically changing circulation – not so unlike a Google algorithm. Amazon is repositioning its "book platform" as a brand-management company built around product licensing and distribution rights. Amazon is a digital newspaper "and" a corner store. It sells/distributes information, entertainment, advertising and products. Amazon's warehouses have allowed Bezos to turn products into a service. Convenience is never undervalued.

I wonder how upset Pitney Bowes and other on campus mail room management companies feel about this offer. If college students use Amazon Prime like I do, it means the avg number of packages that students receive will go way up.

I saw a comment about this on another blog that said that Amazon raises the price on items when you've got Amazon Prime –thus paying for the service out of the customer's pocket. Anyone know if that's true?

Wish they brought this to the UK and our ".ac.uk" accounts =] (academic uk)

Looks like the zappos/Tony Hsieh effect is rubbing off on amazon.com/jeff bezos.

When I was in Hawaii on my honeymoon I had prime ship me a phone charger

I'd say no

You got lucky. :) Your Amazon Prime account is linked to a mainland mailing address, so perhaps Amazon made a one-time exception for you. My mailing address is Honolulu, and the Amazon Prime Help:Overview page clearly says that Alaska & Hawaii are ineligible addresses for the program. Prime is designed for the 48 contiguous United States.

if free for student, it's really great for student…

LOLOLOLOLOLOLOL……..I know this post is old but I just couldn’t sit back and not reply to this…..Germany has roughly the land area of ONE of our FIFTY states, Montana (which though large, is certainly not the largest of the fifty). After converting for you Europeans, America has a land area of 9,629,091 square kilometers to Germany’s 357,021 (approx. 27 times the size)…….I think it’s safe to say that something shipped across Germany should arrive much faster than anything shipped across the U.S. so paying more for the 2 day shipping seems pretty reasonable to me.
While i was tempted to look up some other facts about Germany’s lack of land area to further illustrate the epicness of the above posters failure, I happen to be one of those proud and arrogant Americans so I’m not going to.
And this free prime deal is awesome and I will be making good use it for the next year.
Peace

I’m a student and I just signed up. Some of the items I just ordered don’t have 2 day shipping they just have standard. My question is; will Amazon still pay for the shipping? I need an answer ASAP please. One more question are there any limitations to this free 2 day shipping?

nope sorry — the product has to have the amazon prime logo next to it for the free 2day shipping to work