????2004年12月，亞馬遜公司的CEO杰夫?貝佐斯給聚在他老家房后的一幢船屋里的一群員工拋出了一個難題（這幢屋子位于華盛頓湖邊，占地有5英畝），讓他們想出一種能夠擴大并加速免費快遞服務的辦法，從而提高顧客的忠誠度。

????經過兩個月的頭腦風暴，亞馬遜推出了金牌服務項目Prime——支付79美元年費的客戶，可以在全美范圍內免費獲得不限次數的兩天送達服務。

????在推介這個項目時，貝佐斯曾經在網絡上寫道：“兩天送達服務將變成一種日常體驗，而不是偶爾的奢侈。”

????推出10年來，亞馬遜Prime服務已經不可避免地改變了網購者的預期，反過來也在快遞服務領域掀起了一場軍備競賽。另外，Prime也從單一的快遞服務發展為包含流媒體娛樂、電子書借閱在內的一系列服務，同時Prime的用戶也有機會獨家享受越來越多的、冠以亞馬遜品牌的商品，比如嬰兒濕巾。

????亞馬遜表示，目前Prime在美國已經擁有“幾千萬名會員”，對于這家總是將業務指標視為國家機密的公司，這是一個典型的模糊數字。分析師估計，Prime服務的全球會員應該在4000萬到5000萬之間。

????不管怎樣，Prime已經成為亞馬遜招攬顧客的一個重要工具，助推亞馬遜成為電商領域的一哥，也讓它成為所有零售商的頭號威脅。如果說亞馬遜最初是靠著極具殺傷力的價格吸引了大批消費者，那么Prime就是那條將他們牢牢套住的繩索。

????然而這個戰略也讓亞馬遜損失了幾十億美元。快遞本身就是一項高成本的業務，再將所有這些附加服務計算在內，Prime很快就成了一個永遠也填不滿的錢坑。

????Prime服務的營銷說辭令消費者難以抗拒。不管是天生購物狂，還是需要經常網購衣服、書籍和其他用具的普通家庭，在加入Prime后，他們就可以盡情網購，完全不必擔心快遞費用的問題。

????反過來，這也讓亞馬遜贏得了一批忠實的回頭客。另外，通過像好市多超市一樣收取年費，它也獲得了一筆具有可預測性和穩定性的現金流。

????亞馬遜Prime服務的副總裁格雷格?格里利表示：“我們想把它做得便于顧客使用——也就是顧客只要一次做出選擇，然后整整一年就不必再為快遞而費神。”格里列和時任客戶服務部高級副總裁杰夫?維爾克、財務總監湯姆?斯庫塔克都參加了當年的“船屋會議”。

????在Prime服務推出之前，大多數快遞包裹可能要一周以上才能送到。如果想讓你的包裹早點送到，就得多花點錢寄聯邦快遞或UPS，否則只能耐心等候。這意味著很多不愿等太久的顧客最終會放棄網購，轉而光顧當地的沃爾瑪超市或塔吉特百貨。

????那時的亞馬遜還并未成長為電商業的巨擎。沒錯，它的規模當時已經足夠龐大，但它仍然面臨著實體零售商的巨大競爭壓力。亞馬遜的高管也非常擔心來自于eBay的競爭。雖然eBay的競拍業務已經開始萎縮，但是從90年代末，也就是亞馬遜從書籍進軍音樂、電器和玩具等領域時開始，eBay就一直是亞馬遜最大的競爭對手。

????推出Prime服務后，亞馬遜可謂如虎添翼，它開始急劇擴張，勢不可擋。過去10年間，可通過Prime訂購的商品從100萬種增長到了2000萬種。Prime還積極進軍國際市場，先是登陸日本、英國和德國，然后又挺進法國、意大利和加拿大。

????2011年，亞馬遜又為Prime添加了一項類似于奈飛（Netflix）的視頻流媒體服務項目，命名為Instant Video。和這項服務一同推出的，還有5000部電影和電視劇集，當時這個規模只及得上奈飛的一個零頭。此舉令一些權威人士感到吃驚，認為亞馬遜是在走彎路。

????不過亞馬遜的格里利認為，快遞與視頻流媒體服務并不沖突。如果Prime會員喜歡Instant Video提供的內容，他們可能就會按需購買數字電影和電視劇，反過來也有利于維持用戶忠誠度，從而進一步促進亞馬遜的業績。

????格里利表示，事情的發展正如同他們所料。從2011年到2014年，Prime的用戶訂閱數不斷飆升，亞馬遜認為，這主要歸功于流媒體視頻服務的吸引力。

????現在，通過與維亞康姆和HBO等發行商合作，Instant Video已經擁有4萬多部電影和電視劇。它還有歐洲DVD與流媒體公司LoveFilm提供的片庫資源，亞馬遜于2008年以近3.17億美元的價格將其收購。

????為了讓Prime Instant Video更有吸引力，亞馬遜甚至還開始自制電視劇。2010年年末成立的亞馬遜工作室致力于把公眾通過亞馬遜網站提交的劇本改編成影視劇。通過該渠道，亞馬遜工作室已經制作了三部試播劇。其中最成功的是黑色家庭喜劇《透明家庭》，由《發展受阻》的男演員杰弗里?塔伯扮演一位變性父親。該劇在今年榮獲兩項金球獎（最佳電視劇和最佳男演員）。

????亞馬遜不愿透露有多少Prime會員使用了它的流媒體視頻服務。但根據網絡設備公司Sandvine發布的一份報告，Prime Instant Video的市場份額還遠遠趕不上流媒體視頻霸主奈飛公司，不過它一直在成長。從2013年3月到2014年9月，它在北美高峰時段（晚7點到11點）的網絡流量份額翻倍，從1.27%上漲到了2.6%。這與奈飛相比仍然相形見絀，后者同一時段的網絡流量份額達到了三分之一以上。

????索尼音樂前高管、現任亞馬遜數字視頻業務負責人的邁克爾?波爾也承認：“我認為，我們本來可以行動得更快，制作出更好的電視劇和電影。”

????有鑒于此，亞馬遜在2014年向Prime Instant Video投資13億美元。今年1月，亞馬遜聲稱今年將開拍12部電影，另外亞馬遜已經簽下了伍迪?艾倫，這位電影界的傳奇人物將執導他的第一部電視劇，該劇將于2016年在Prime Instant Video上獨家播放。

????In December 2004, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos threw out a challenge to a small group of employees huddled in the boathouse behind his Medina, Wash. home, a sprawling 5-acre estate on the shore of Lake Washington. Find a way to expand and speed up free shipping, he told them, as a way to increase customer loyalty.

????Two months after that brainstorming session, Amazon unveiled Prime. Customers who paid $79 annually would get “free” two-day delivery nationwide for an unlimited number of orders.

????“Two-day shipping becomes an everyday experience rather than an occasional indulgence,” Bezos wrote online in introducing the program.

????Since its launch 10 years ago, Amazon Prime has irrevocably transformed shoppers’ expectations and, in turn, spearheaded an all-out arms race for faster shipping. Meanwhile Prime has evolved far beyond its simple roots into an all-inclusive package of streaming entertainment, e-book lending and exclusive access to a growing stable of Amazon-branded products like baby wipes.

????Today, Amazon says Prime has “tens of millions of members” in the U.S., a typically opaque number from a company that hoards business metrics like state secrets. Analysts speculate there are between 40 and 50 million members worldwide.

????Whatever the case, Prime has turned out to be a crucial tool for acquiring customers for Amazon, helping it become the dominant e-commerce company it is now and a threat to all retailers. If Amazon’s cutthroat pricing reels in shoppers initially, Prime keeps them hooked.

????It’s also a strategy that has cost Amazon billions of dollars. On its own, fast shipping is a costly proposition, but factor in all those extras, and Prime quickly becomes a money pit.

????The sales pitch for shoppers to join the program is compelling. Everyone from shopaholics to families who need to regularly stock up on clothes, books and gadgets can do so without worrying about how much all those orders cost to ship.

????Amazon, in turn, gets loyal return customers. It also gets a more predictable and steady stream of revenue by selling those memberships much like Costco, the warehouse retailer.

????“We really wanted to make it easy for customers — the idea of, ‘make the decision once, and then for the year, you don’t have to think about it,” says Greg Greeley, Amazon Prime’s vice president and one of the executives who attended that meeting in Bezos’ boathouse alongside Jeff Wilke, then senior vice president of customer service, and Chief Financial Officer Tom Szkutak.

????Before Prime, most packages took a week or more to get from door-to-door. Anyone who wanted their orders quickly would have to pay FedEx or UPS big bucks or just have to wait. In some cases, that meant customers would end up visiting a local Wal-Mart or Target instead.

????At the time, Amazon wasn’t exactly the big bruiser in e-commerce that it is now. Yes, it was big. But it still faced stiff competition from brick and mortar retailers. Executives also worried intensely about eBay. Although its auction business was already in decline, eBay had proven Amazon’s fiercest competition since the late 1990s, when Amazon began branching out beyond books into sales of music, electronics and toys.

????With Prime, Amazon did what it does best — it expanded quickly and aggressively. Over the last 10 years, the number of available items through Prime grew from 1 million to 20 million. Prime also pushed into international markets: first to Japan, the UK and Germany, then France, Italy and Canada.

????In 2011, Amazon added a Netflix-like video streaming service to the Prime package. Instant Video, as it was called then, rolled out with 5,000 movies and TV episodes, just a fraction of Netflix’s catalog at the time. It was a move that surprised some pundits, who said it seemed like too much of a detour.

????But Amazon’s Greeley argues that shipping and video streaming make sense together. If Prime members liked what they saw on Instant Video, they might buy digital movies and television shows à la carte, and in turn, remain loyal shoppers, further fueling Amazon’s bottom line.

????That’s exactly what happened, according to Greeley. From 2011 to 2014, the number of Prime’s subscribers soared, which Amazon largely attributes to the allure of video streaming.

????Instant Video now has a catalog of 40,000-plus TV shows and movies from licensing deals with distributors such as Viacom and HBO. It also has a library from LoveFilm, a European DVD and movie streaming business that Amazon scooped up for nearly $317 million in 2008.

????Hoping to make Prime Instant Video more compelling, Amazon began developing its own shows. In late 2010, it formed Amazon Studios, a Hollywood production arm that produces series and films from scripts submitted by the public through its website. Studios has produced just three pilots from that pipeline. Its biggest hits have been more standard Hollywood fare. The dark family comedy Transparent, with Arrested Development actor Jeffrey Tambor as a transgender parent, received two Golden Globe awards this year for best TV series and best actor.

????Amazon would not say how many Prime members use its video streaming service. But according to a report from Sandvine, a company that makes networking equipment for Internet providers, Prime Instant Video remains a distant second to Netflix but continues to grow. From March 2013 to September 2014, its share of Internet traffic in North America during peak hours of 7 p.m. to 11 p.m more than doubled from 1.27% to 2.6%. That still pales in comparison to Netflix, which accounted for over one-third of web traffic during the same period.

????“I think we could have moved more quickly to provide even better TV shows and movies,” admits Michael Paull, a former Sony Music executive who now leads Amazon’s digital video efforts.

????Which is why Amazon funneled $1.3 billion into Prime Instant Video in 2014. In January, the company followed up by saying it would produce 12 movies this year and signed Woody Allen to direct his first TV series exclusively for Prime Instant Video in 2016.