It’s been at least a couple of hours since Amazon rolled out a new service or launched a new product, so it’s no surprise that another one has just landed: photo printing.
The company that’s surely running out of pies into which it can stick its finger launched the service with very little fanfare. None, in fact.
“Amazon Prints offers high quality, affordable prints of digital photos, delivered by Amazon,” reads some rather small text toward the bottom of the new service’s landing page. “Create custom photo books and online photo prints, and receive free standard shipping and free expedited shipping on orders of $15 or more.”
Available to Amazon Prime and Amazon Drive members, the service is offering some decent prices on a range of sizes. For example, 6×4 prints of your favorite snaps can be had for just 9 cents. If you fancy something a little larger, a 7×5 print comes in at 58 cents, while a 10×8 one costs $1.79.
For comparison, Shutterfly offers 6×4 prints for 15 cents, 7×5 for 99 cents, and 10×8 for $3.99, while Snapfish charges 9 cents for 6×4, 69 cents for 7×5, and $2.99 for 10×8. Of course, now that Amazon’s turned up, these two companies, and others like them, may well feel compelled t0 adjust their prices to compete more effectively.
The service also offers the chance to create photo books starting at $20, with calendars and stationery promised soon.
With unlimited photo back-up offered to Prime members since 2014, the Seattle-based e-commerce giant will be hoping its new service tempts users into embarking on the relatively simple process of pulling a few photos from their cloud-based albums and ordering a print or three, or better still, transforming a collection of digital images into a fancy photo book.
Of course, what matters most with a service like this is the quality of the printed image and the paper it’s printed on, so till we see that, it’s impossible to judge if Amazon’s service is a threat to the competition.
