Amazon Has A Plan To Make Prime The 'VIP Pass To The Internet'

Amazon is starting to extend some of the perks of its $99-a-year membership program, Amazon Prime, to other shopping sites, Re/Code's Jason Del Rey reports.

Starting today, the British fashion site AllSaints will offer free, next-day shipping to anyone who is an Amazon Prime member. Amazon is reportedly targeting fashion and apparel sites to pilot its new initiative.

Here's how it works:

AllSaints has set up a custom storefront on Amazon.com:

Amazon

When you find an AllSaints product that you want to buy, you'll be re-directed to AllSaint's actual website. From there you will log-in to your Amazon Prime account if you have one, and pay using whatever method you have stored there. If you have Prime, you'll get free next-day shipping (that's even better than what Prime usually offers, which is free two-day shipping):

Amazon

Amazon gets a small fee any time a customer clicks through from Amazon to AllSaints, but it will not take any percentage of the sale.

This move seems to make sense for both companies.

For Amazon, free, fast delivery from other retail sites would be another Prime perk the company could add to its list to make the subscription worth $99. Membership already includes free, two-day shipping on hundreds of thousands of Amazon items, unlimited cloud photo storage, and free streaming of many movies, TV shows, and books.

The more people Amazon can convince to convert to Prime, the better: Members tend to spend double what non-members do every year.

An AllSaints exec, on the other hand, told Del Rey that Amazon customers complete purchases after placing items in their shopping carts 34% more often than people who aren't Amazon customers. The Amazon payments integration has also reportedly boosted sales and reduced check-out times.

"Prime could be the VIP pass to the Internet," AllSaints global digital chief Rich Ascott told Del Rey. Amazon reportedly refers to its initiative to partner with more retailers as "Prime Pass" internally.

However, not every retailer has as sunny a view of the idea. AllSaints is the only site publically signed on so far. Other higher-end retailers Re/Code spoke to expressed concern that partnering with Amazon would dilute their brand or give the e-commerce giant dangerous amounts of information about what products from their sites people want. Amazon, however, insists that in its partnership with AllSaints it doesn't get any information beyond the total sale amount.

If Amazon does manage to build partnerships with other fashion retailers, though, it would be a step towards grabbing more of the $174 billion apparel industry.