Amazon is being forced to rewrite the wording of its Prime membership programme after the ad watchdog ruled the firm was wrong to describe one of the benefits of the £49-a-year service as “free”.
The Advertising Standards Authority started an investigation following a single complaint. Amazon’s UK website stated: “Get your stuff fast. Unlimited Free One-Day Delivery on all eligible orders”, while the right side of the page read: “Try Amazon Prime Free for one month: Unlimited Free One-Day Delivery… After your free trial, Amazon Prime is just £49/year.”
Amazon responded by claiming Prime provided a number of benefits to its members at a “clearly indicated cost” of £49 a year. And just one of those benefits was free one-day delivery, which would usually cost between £3.95 and £7.99.
But the ASA pointed out that advertisers must not describe part of a package as free if it is included in the overall price.
It said: “Although we understood Amazon’s intention was to make clear that the one-day delivery could be used without charge after subscription, because members had to pay £49 before they could use the service we considered that the claim that one-day delivery was ‘free’ was misleading.”
The watchdog ruled the claim must not appear again in its current form.
