Amazon has launched its subscription service Prime on the company’s Australian website, offering users free delivery and subscription access to ebooks, videos and games.
The service will include free ‘expedited delivery’ to addresses in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth, Adelaide and other major regional centres, although Australian customers signing up to Prime will have to wait two days for delivery compared to the same-day or next-day delivery offered to Prime subscribers in other countries.
Products bought from the US on the Amazon Australia website will include free international delivery for Prime customers on orders totalling more than $49.
The current cost of the subscription is about half the price of the cost in the US. The service also includes access to the Prime Reading subscription service, online video streaming platform Prime Video, online gaming service Prime Twitch, and access to a loyalty program that markets shopping deals to users on ‘Prime Day’.
The launch comes after the announcement that Amazon’s international websites will no longer deliver to Australian addresses from 1 July, following changes in GST laws requiring online retailers to collect 10% GST on all overseas purchases.
As a result, Amazon has established a ‘global store’ option on its Australian site, which offers more than four million products that were previously only accessible from Amazon.com. Sales of these products will collect and remit the required 10% GST, however, the Australian Financial Review reports that the global store offers only a fraction of the 480 million products currently available on Amazon.com.
The multinational is growing its network of fulfilment centres in Australia, which includes a facility in Dandenong South, Victoria, that opened in December last year and a 43,000 square metre facility in Moorebank, NSW, due to open in the second half of 2018.
As previously reported, Amazon launched its local website last year. Australia is the 17th country where Amazon has launched its Prime service.