American e-commerce giant Amazon is all set to dominate the photo printing world through its new venture, Amazon Prints.
The service is available for Prime or Drive members in the US only. Prime memberships are $99 per year ($49 for students), while Drive memberships are $59.99 per year for unlimited storage or $11.99 per year for photos only (Prime members get free unlimited photo storage).
The photo printing service from Amazon is available at www.amazonprinting.com
On offer are 4×6, 5×7, and 8×10 prints $0.09, $0.58, and $1.79, respectively. And 8×11 photobooks are also available, with stationary and calendars to be added soon. Furthermore, standard shipping (3-7 business days) is free with all orders, as is expedited shipping for orders of $15 or more (3-5 business days).
Every order for online photos carry with it the bonus to customize your order with your most liked photos, themes, paper types and print sizes.
Questions about its quality vary but there is no doubt that for bulk printing of personal keepsakes and others of this category are a good take for Prime and Drive members.
As of now, product offerings include photo books and single photo prints, with free shipping for a limited time. Single print prices start at 9 cents each, with photo books beginning at $19.99. Future offerings will include calendars, invitations, cards and more.
A separate printing company is partnering with Amazon Prints for realizing the aims to produce high quality, yet affordable printing of digital photos. The condition is that customers will have to consent to share their Amazon Drive access with the new service as a precondition to printing of their photos.
The repercussions on the stocks of Amazon Prints were hugely advantageous. The big name in printing, Shutterfly suffered a bashing in its 8 year history in the stock market as its shares plummeted 12%. Much depends on whether the fall continues unabated or a miraculous recovery appears in the offing.
Amazon pocketed a 16.69 % rise. It sure was a bitter pill for Shutterfly to swallow. “It couldn’t come at a worse time” was how an analyst put in. Such are the vagaries of business and the yo-yo effect plays spoilsport.