The Joy of Click

Ahhh... I discovered the joy of one-click ordering on Amazon. Now before you scold me -- "it's been around for years, you fool" -- how many of you have actually used it? I always figured I was fine reviewing my orders and checking out the regular way.

But recently I became an Amazon Prime member. Amazon Prime is a program that gives you free two-day shipping on most products, and only $4 for overnight shipping (talk about instant gratification!) for a yearly fee of about $70. I subscribed partly because they offered me a free two-month trial in early December, when -- surprise -- I had a lot of gift plans. I also wanted to perform a social experiment on myself: would my shopping behavior change at all because I could order anything overnight for just $4?

So tonight, four months later, I was looking for a gift for my sister on Amazon... and found an electric water kettle for myself. Out of a sudden curiosity, and before I could think twice, I clicked Order with One-Click. How would they ship it? Would I be charged extra for anything? To my surprise and delight, they had placed the order as two-day (no shipping charge) and used all my saved preferences to ship it to my home.

I had a wave of euphoria come over me as a I realized that with one click I had ordered something shipped to me -- with no extra shipping charge, from a merchant as reputable as Amazon. Now one-click after the decision to buy had been reached, I could have the product shipped to me. What genius...