Boxes upon boxes line the walls of the SMU Mail and Copy Central by Ricoh, especially this midterm season as parents send numerous care packages, hoping to brighten the day of their overloaded and overstressed students, or at least, fill their stomachs.
However, parents’ packages are no longer the sole occupant of students’ mail buckets. Amazon Prime has quickly taken the SMU campus by storm, bringing 100s of packages to SMU daily, according to Tonda Williams, an employee of the SMU Mail and Copy Center.
“Please, do I use Amazon Prime?” said SMU second year Chang Zou with a laugh and a hint of sarcasm in her voice. “I probably use it once a week.”
This phenomenon of the quickly increasing use of Prime is not exclusive to the SMU campus. Nationwide, several universities are suffering from overpacked post offices, overflowing with boxes closed with the well-known black Amazon Prime tape.
The UConn post office hired over 100 employees and reorganized their postage system to manage the incoming loads of packages, according to the University of Connecticut’s student newspaper.
The past few years, Amazon Prime has attracted college-aged customers through its free trial offer to students. Students then can receive free two-day shipping, offering hope for those students who tend to wait until a few day before class to order their textbooks.
“In some cases it’s convenient; in other cases it’s overhyped,” said Anna Carroll, an SMU senior.
The student version of Prime is not the only service bringing much traffic to Amazon’s site. The regular version of Amazon Prime broke even within three months of its start, according to a Time article from 2013. The service continues to keep a loyal group of customers who buy everything from electronics to groceries.
SMU students typically use this service to mainly buy electronics such as chargers or phone cases. However, for some students who do not have a car on campus, they use Prime to purchase cosmetics and groceries as well.
“If one person uses it, and it’s really, really good, then they tell their classmates and dorm mates, and then they use it,” said Williams.
