Blog Post #1 - Amazon Prime Has Captured me

Even the most ambitious and energetic college students have had one of those days when leaving the house is not an option. That shampoo you've run out of and need to go pick up at Walgreens across campus? Not happening. The extra shelves that you told yourself you'd buy during welcome week for your overflow of clothes, but have been replaced by piles of clothes on the floor instead? Holding off on another week to grab those. Or even the Christmas lights that would really put the finishing touches on your room and would probably take about one hour total to buy and put up? Sure, I'll get to those around Christmas time, it'll be festive then.

This was a very common occurrence for me last year, and I wouldn't even consider myself a lazy person. I found myself consistently pushing off menial, yet necessary, purchases for another day, and then another week, and then another month, until they simply never happened. Well something finally changed this year. No, I didn't become any less lazy. No, that definitely wasn't it. Instead, I opened my eyes to the incredible invention of Amazon Prime.

I am obsessed with Amazon Prime, I'll be the first to admit it. Actually, the mailman might be the first to admit it. He's the one who drags 3, 4, maybe 10 packages to my doorstep in a single day while cursing under his breath the whole time. The pathetic part is most of these packages are items I can easily buy at the convenience store down the road, items such as ice trays, extra silverware, bottled water, etc. But, the two-day free shipping is too great to pass up. I can wait 48 hours for something to be dropped at my doorstep instead of lugging it from the convenience store to my home, and as amazing as it is I'm sure many of our generation would agree with me.

However, what I find to be so incredible about Amazon Prime is its ability to read my mind while I navigate the internet. For example, just the other day I wanted to buy a new pair of shoes online. I needed some new sneakers. Allbirds are the new trend, and I wanted to grab myself a pair. However, this certainly wasn't a purchase I wanted to make with my own money. I gave good ol' Mom and Dad a call to see if I could use their credit card, to which they immediately responded with a stern "no." So, fine I say goodbye to the brand new Allbirds. That is until I'm navigating Amazon the next day and "suggested advertisements for me" with pictures of Allbirds are everywhere. Of course, this led to me to suck up the $100 hit, reach into my wallet, and buy the Allbirds with my own money. Safe to say Amazon won me over on that one.

Now, this is nothing new for Amazon. They've been doing this for years. In fact, "MediaRadar, a company that provides ad sales intelligence to over 1,400 media clients, says Amazon’s header bidding software is plugged into around 100 websites, including sites managed by Time Inc., Hearst and The Weather Company" (Shields).

The question really comes down to where does Amazon choose to use these advertisements, but moreover who do they consider their target audience and why? Well, Amazon's "target customers consist of upper and middle class social groups who have inclination towards using E-commerce portals and are comfortable with online shopping" (Bhasin).

I wouldn't consider myself in the upper class, but I absolutely fit the bill of their target customer when considering their focus on individuals with the inclination to shop online. And now that I've found myself so happy with Amazon's promise to deliver me anything with no shipping cost in 2 short days, I don't know why I'd ever leave.

Amazon has captured me, and I'm a loyal customer because their business appeals to my personality. Although I initially said I'm not that lazy, I would consider myself lazy when it comes to purchases. I don't want to get out of my bed when I'm exhausted and run errands. Amazon solves that problem for me by appealing to my lazy personality and allowing me to get the same items while lying in my bed. I'm an ideal customer for Amazon and they've secured me as a loyal customer, which is what they've done with millions of others around the world, much to the dismay of my mailman and mailmen everywhere.

Works Cited:

Bhasin, Hitesh. “Marketing Strategy of Amazon.” Marketing91, 14 Apr. 2017, www.marketing91.com/marketing-strategy-of-amazon/.

Shields, Mike. “Amazon Looms Quietly in Digital Ad Landscape.” The Wall Street Journal, Dow Jones & Company, 6 Oct. 2016, www.wsj.com/articles/amazon-looms-quietly-in-digital-ad-landscape-1475782113.

“Amazon Prime.” Amazon.com Help: Amazon Prime, www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=13819211.