6

Amazon Prime is now available in Australia

Advertisement

Overnight Amazon Australia launched Amazon Prime for the local market. What’s Amazon Prime? It’s a monthly paid for service that includes a number of benefits, and it could mean a big deal in the e-commerce scene in Australia (and for you know, gamers).

The Australian version of Prime includes the following benefits;

  • Two-Day domestic delivery to eligible locations
    • 90% of Australia is covered (full list of locations)
    • Release-Date Delivery for games, music and more (get the game on the release date, not after)
  • Free delivery on items from Amazon US over $49
  • Streaming TV and movies from Amazon Prime Video
  • 1000 eBooks a month on rotation
  • Twitch Prime (free games, loot and no ads on Twitch)

Because it’s new there’s a free trial for a month, after that and until January 31st, 2019 it’ll cost just $4.99 a month. The normal price is $6.99 a month.

While Amazon Australia has been underwhelming in a lot of ways since launching (and we’re losing access to the US site) this actually looks pretty attractive.

Amazon has been very aggressive in matching not only local stores but also the likes of OzGameShop. More recently they’ve even matched the eShop and its sales. Combined with release date delivery (or two-day delivery in general) it’s looking very tempting. It’s always a risk buying from a store online, especially when a lot of Nintendo games release on a Friday or Saturday.

Let’s see if all of the above works in practice, Prime is huge in America – but Australia is huge. Can they really deliver (literally and figuratively).

What's your reaction?
Awesome
41%
Oh wow!
10%
Great
7%
Fresh
10%
Hmm
31%
Disappointing!
0%
Grrrr
0%
About The Author
Daniel Vuckovic
The Owner and Creator of this fair website. I also do news, reviews, programming, art and social media here. It is named after me after all. Please understand.
6 Comments
  • Cam
    June 19, 2018 at 7:13 am

    How come we’re losing access to the US site? This seems a pretty big draw card for us Aussies (particularly while the AU store is lacking).

    • Nitemice
      June 19, 2018 at 8:32 am

      They don’t want to deal with enforcing the compulsary GST for online sellers.

    • Mr Retail
      June 21, 2018 at 12:56 am

      Because Australian retailers are garbage and rather than compete they collectively went crying on the steps of parliament which then lead to our friend Trumble (the same guy that is responsible for the disgrace otherwise known as the NBN and many other such garbage projects) and his other rich buddies appeasing retailers by implementing these terrible laws thus screwing another sector of society that is hurting the most.

      I can tell you that large retail chains look at gamers with contempt because retailers refuse to compete and would like to squeeze every last dollar out of it’s consumer. God forbid you ever work for such an industry or company because the culture and attitudes towards you is vastly worse than you would imagine. Its like being invaded by a group of narrow minded morons whilst they justify their actions with stupidity and economic falsehoods.
      Of course now a lot of retailers aren’t even keeping games anymore or when they do they will only order 2-3 copies all designed to further push their narrative that the department does not make money. Top class mismanagement really.

      On top of this we have companies such as Crapcom which won’t even bother releasing half of their games on disc here (nevermind the fact that they insist upon being lazy as a whole in regards to the physical format)

      I’d like to add that the prices on many items on amazon Australia are wildly overpriced and the assortment is underwhelming at best, in one instance there was a difference of more than $100 on one item.
      I doubt Amazon Australia will ever be as good as its US counterpart considering its highly unlikely you will ever get the range of titles that are released elsewhere in the world.

      You gotta love that Nintendo have for once done the right thing by allowing multi-region gaming but the government has given consumers the arse end of the deal meanwhile retailers will still fail regardless because they are largely run by fresh faced morons, old fossils that dedicated their entire carriers to being a suck up that has never had an original thought or the abilities to be anything but.

      So in summary Australia is garbage, trumble is a turd and Aussie retailers are pitiful. lol

  • Tim
    June 19, 2018 at 7:34 am

    The Australian Government wants all overseas retailers to charge GST.

    Amazon said it was too hard.

  • Oliver Phommavanh
    June 20, 2018 at 1:41 pm

    Amazon in Australia is lacklustre at best, I’d expect discounts if I was going to be a prime member.

You must log in to post a comment