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As my bank account recovers in the wake of Amazon Prime day, I couldn’t help but think about how the internet superstore crushes it in terms of marketing to millennials.  As a millennial myself, I’m consistently impressed by their uncanny ability to serve up the next best thing I can’t help but buy.  Not only this, but they’re always on the cutting edge in terms of making purchases simpler and less time consuming, making it easier for customers to indulge themselves.  Here are a few ways Amazon completely wins when it comes to millennial marketing.

Their app feels like their website

As someone who’s wary to download an app to make purchases on, the Amazon app completely removes this paranoid mindset.  It simply doesn’t seem like an app when I’m flipping through products.  It feels exactly how their mobile site should feel and has all the necessary components. 

Amazon Prime removes the hatred of high shipping costs

How familiar does the following situation sound?

You’re shopping online and you finally find the item you just can’t live without.  You add it to your cart and go to check out.  You fill in your information, then the price goes up significantly because of shipping.  Even if you select standard ground shipping you’ll still end up paying more than what you think the item is worth.  Consequently, you remove the item from the cart and go to another site to try and find it for a lower overall price.

Ever been in that situation before?  Millennials loath high shipping rates.  Especially when it doesn’t make sense.  If I’m ordering a refrigerator, by all means charge me for shipping.  It’s heavy, bulky, and an overall pain to move a few inches let alone from the factory to my house.  But if I’m ordering a half pound part for my motorcycle, does it really cost an extra $15 in shipping to get it to me?  Doubtful. 

Amazon Prime takes all of this away by providing free shipping for most of the products sold on Amazon for an annual fee.  Just ask Netflix or Spotify, millennials love subscription services.  It simply makes life a lot easier and we don’t have to worry about how much something is going to cost in the moment.

One-Click Ordering

I have mixed feelings about this since it’s done some damage to my finances.  Amazon introduced one-click ordering on their app to reduce the friction from product page to check-out page and it works.  If you’re going to test this out, make sure it’s on an item you actually have the intention of buying.  I was skeptical about it at first.  Could it really be a single click ordering system?  Well, it is and luckily, I wanted the item I tested it out on.

Do you ever get annoyed when you have to re-enter all your information when checking out online?  Amazon conveniently stores all your shipping and billing information on file so you can set up your preferences and truly order something with a single click. 

Their “Suggested Items” are relevant

Something about their AI is set up the right way.  Every time I get notifications about related items to my past purchases they always catch my interest.  Other sites fail to do this on a regular basis so much that I’ve come to disregard their suggestions.  With Amazon, I couldn’t tell you how many items they’ve gotten me to order from these suggestions.  They’re always spot on and relevant to what I’m searching for.

They give you options

Having one option is the same as having no options right?  Well Amazon’s inventory reaches across the globe and you can pick and choose from a variety of brands and styles for anything you’re looking for.  Millennials like to have the option of making up their own mind, especially when it comes to spending their money.  Unless you’re looking for a pair of custom designer shoes, Amazon will have plenty of options at various price points for you to choose from.

There are plenty of other ways that Amazon kills it when it comes to marketing to millennials, but these are just a few that stand out.  They consistently surprise me with relevant notifications and marketing messages that always tempt me to go buy something I could use…even if I don’t need it.  It’s good marketing because it doesn’t feel like marketing.  Their messages consistently offer value and have context to the activities I’ve taken on their site making it much more of a personalized experience.