Today I want to share with you my experiences, as a business owner, with Amazon Prime and the Top Reasons you are losing out on massive savings if you are not ordering your supplies through Prime. 

NOTES: If you have an actual business, you can get business pricing by joining Amazon HERE.  If you do not have an actual business you can still get ALL of the perks I discuss below by signing up HERE (+ a 30-Day FREE Trial!).  And if you are a Medicaid Card Holder or an EBT Cardholder you get HALF OFF Amazon Prime monthly membership (only $6 total!) with this promotion here. If you are a student, get SIX MONTHS FREE here.

HOW AMAZON PRIME SAVES SMALL BUSINESSES TONS OF MONEY

1. One of the biggest benefits of Prime is FREE shipping.  Actually, this is probably the biggest benefit because not having to pay shipping costs on shipping supplies literally pays for the cost of the monthly membership price, many times over.  For example, if I want to buy an 8-pack ream / case of printer paper from Office Depot, I would have to eat almost $12 in shipping cost:

Whereas, on Amazon Prime, shipping is 100% free. $12 is a very large amount of savings on a Case of paper that cost $24!  KEEP IN MIND, Amazon Prime is only regularly priced at $12.99 a month.  So if you save $12 in shipping costs, your membership has already paid for itself!  Maybe you're wondering just how much we use Amazon Prime, well, this year we have placed 331 orders as of July 6th:

Last year we placed 613 total orders:

2. Additionally, the prices on Amazon are generally lower than anywhere else when it comes to business supplies.   We are able to get mailers, tape and paper for 15% - 50% less than at local stores.  For example, at Office Max / Office Depot, the printer ink we need for our business printer are insanely expensive:

The absolute cheapest option at Office Max if to buy the "refurbished" for $50.99.  But, on Amazon Prime I can get absolutely amazing cartridges for as low as $12 per piece!!!  That is damn-near 75% less than Office Depot!!:

3. One of the most commonly overlooked, but underrated Amazon Features is the ability to shop "Used" merchandise and save loads of money. But the term "Used" on Amazon doesn't actually mean "Used". It simply means someone else bought it and returned it. This is really, super valuable because the "Used" merchandise you get it typically brand-spanking-new but the box might be dented or something really stupid. Let me know you how big the "Used" savings are:

This pack of paper is (retail priced at) $14.99, but the Amazon price is $12.77:

******BUT, if you look in the lower right corner of the image, you can see the "USED" price is only $7.38!!!:

I bet you are wondering "What on earth is USED paper?! Sounds terrifying!" - Well, from my experience (I have bought at least 100 packs of "Used" printer paper), it typically means some pages are imperfect; for example, the top 25 sheets might have a crease or fold. We simply take the "bad" ones out and use them as scrap paper. This leaves us with approximately 475 pieces of perfect paper for $7.38 instead of paying $12.77 for 500 sheets! If you want to look at the actual cost-per-page, here's the difference:

Full Price ($14.99) = $0.029 cents per page

Amazon Prime Price ($12.77) = $0.025 cents per page

Amazon "USED" Price ($7.38 for approximately 475 usable pages) = $0.015!

Simply buy buying "Used" we are saving 1 additional penny every single page! That might sound like nothing but all these little savings add up to GIANT amounts yearly. 

4. Some merchandise on Amazon is the same price as at the actual store, BUT the amount of time and money you save not having to drive to the store to buy ink, paper, tape, mailers, etc also adds up in major ways. One thing I love is not having to break my back lugging cases of paper.  The Amazon Prime price is almost the same as Office Depot, but with Prime it arrives to our warehouse, for free:

AMAZON PRICE (below, left image)  vs   OFFICE MAX (below right image - ream with blue lid)

5. Amazon usually ships super fast (things have been a little slower than normal since COVID-19 started in March 2020), so this means that if you order supplies on Sunday it usually arrives Monday or Tuesday, depending on how far you are from an Amazon warehouse facility.  Here in Michigan, we are only 1 city away from an Amazon Warehouse so it is not uncommon for merchandise to arrive next-day.  Think of it like this: If it takes me 10 minutes to drive to Office Max, 20 mins to stand in line and pay, 10 minutes to drive home; thats 40 total minutes I spent to get a case of paper (plus gasoline).  It is simply such a better deal to have it arrive tomorrow and spend those 40 minutes listing, shipping, responding to customer inquiries, etc.  

6. Another huge benefit is that Amazon offers a "Subscribe and Save" program.  The way this works is that you can sign up for auto-delivery on items you know you will have to buy on a regular basis.  The reward for "Subscribe and Save" is an even deeper discount off that item. We currently are enrolled on Coffee, Creamer and Coconut Sugar for our warehouse staff.  It's awesome to never run out.  Best of all, you can set up how often you want the items, so if you want coffee creamer bi-weekly and coconut sugar monthly, it's easy to do!

7. You can also return just about anything.  This is great because we have bought electronics for our warehouse and after a couple days they became defective.  Not only could we return them but Amazon ships out a replacement pronto (before the return is even received back).  This may not seem like "savings" but not being stuck with defective stuff is a big perk!  Here's an amazing example of how valuable this is:  25 days ago I purchased a $500 camera for work.  I did purchase insurance but when the camera malfunctioned in under a month it was super simple to have it quickly REPLACED by Amazon without the hassle of the insurance claim.  The new camera then malfunctioned in 2 weeks.  Amazon immediately accepted a return without the need for the insurance claim. 

8.  There's a bunch of other perks.  You get access to free movies, shows, music and more.  There's some pretty good documentaries if you love docs as much as I do.  

AMAZON PRIME SIGN-UP DEALS:

• If you have an actual business, you can get business pricing by joining Amazon HERE.
• If you do not have an actual business you can still get ALL of the perks I discuss below by signing up HERE (+ a 30-Day FREE Trial!). 
• And if you are a Medicaid Card Holder or an EBT Cardholder you get HALF OFF Amazon Prime monthly membership (only $6 total!) with this promotion here.
• If you are a student, get SIX MONTHS FREE here.