It’s hard to imagine a retailer more ubiquitous and far-reaching than Amazon.
Two years ago, as the wedding world began emerging from the COVID-19 pandemic, analysts pegged Amazon’s wedding registry business as the industry’s largest, controlling nearly 45% of the market. In the same survey, former market leader turned defunct retail chain Bed Bath & Beyond was a distant second to Amazon at 30%, and Target was third at 26%. Without recent data to confirm, it’s impossible to know exactly where Amazon’s lead currently stands, but, by all accounts, it’s continued to grow.
Retailer size presents clear and obvious benefits to engaged couples deciding where to register.
In terms of product selection, no retailer comes close to Amazon. While stock and availability are touch and go at times for certain items, product selection is virtually limitless. And with nearly 150 million Prime members in the U.S., there’s a good chance a lot, if not most of your wedding guests will be very accustomed to and comfortable shopping on Amazon.
But alas, size and market dominance are two-sided coins as registering at Amazon comes with some significant tradeoffs. Amazon’s registry features, user experience, and perks are all easily bested by other retailers. However, for better or worse, these drawbacks are basically the same that most of us accept and endure when doing our regular shopping on Amazon. Is shopping on Amazon an amazing experience? No. But we accept it for what it is and recognize its shortcomings as a tradeoff for price, availability, and speed.
If we were engaged today and starting the registry process over again, we’d give Amazon a real hard look. At the end of the day, guest experience is probably the most important wedding registry feature and what will have the biggest impact on how many items will be purchased from your registry. It’s important to pay close attention to which retailer will offer the best value and convenience for your guests.
Amazon is easy. With Prime shipping benefits extending to most registry items, shipping will be free for most of your guests. Amazon’s completion discount is competitive (even with its limitations, which we discuss below) and its return policy is straightforward and fair. With Amazon’s wedding registry you get what you expect, nothing more and nothing less.
Here’s a rundown of the service’s wedding registry offering:
Registry Type
Retailer (the second largest in the world no less)
Free or Paid
Free
Brick and Mortar Options
Limited; not retail focused. Amazon has only a handful of brick-and-mortar stores mostly focused on groceries and prepared foods, but they do have a vast network of lockers, counters, and “Hubs” that can be used for item pickups and returns, which could provide some efficiencies for you and your guests.
Sign-up Incentives or Freebies
Occasional, but usually none.
Completion Benefits
Amazon offers a one-time completion discount on select items “shipped and sold” by Amazon for registrants that receive $500 or more in total purchases from their registry. The actual discount is 20% for all registrants. Formerly, non-Prime registrants only received a 10% discount, but now it’s 20% for everyone. This is a very competitive completion discount assuming the items you want to use it for are shipped and sold by Amazon. Check this closely for all items, especially larger items like furniture or appliances.
Many items sold on Amazon are sold and fulfilled by third-party sellers. Some items are sold by third-party sellers and shipped by Amazon. Neither of these purchase and fulfillment categories qualify for the completion discount. We recommend reviewing the company’s completion discount terms and conditions closely before deciding to register at Amazon. Most complaints we see about Amazon’s registry service have to do with confusion around the completion discount terms.
Completion codes are good for a single purchase of up to $1,500 within 90 days of your wedding date. This equates to a max benefit of $300. We wish this were a bit higher. The $1,500 threshold limited to a single transaction could be limiting for some couples. Registrants will receive their completion discount code within seven days of their wedding.
Creation Features
As mentioned above, Amazon biggest feature is its nearly unlimited product selection. Other features are more limited. They do offer a group gifting feature where couples receive contributions in the form of Amazon gift cards. This affords some added flexibility over other retailers’ group gifting options since couples can change their mind after a group “gift” is given.
Registrants can add pictures, notes, and prioritization to their registry items. These are nice features, but their utility is limited by the site’s poor user interface. Unless your guests know to look for these details, they are easy to overlook.
Amazon has a price point tracker so registrants can balance their product selections across different price points. This feature is really nothing more than a product sorting function that sorts by price ranges. It’s not fancy, but it works.
Amazon does offer couples the ability to raise funds for different purposes (for example, a honeymoon or a new house), but we see this as minimally useful since it only provides payouts via Amazon gift cards like the company’s regular group gifting function. If you are planning to backpack through Yosemite for your honeymoon (side note, why?) and you need a lot of gear, you could designate a pooled gift card for that purpose and label it as such, but this is just group gifting in disguise. It’s not an additional benefit so much as a single benefit presented to registrants in two different ways.
Basic additional creation features include a customizable registry link and the ability to create and edit your registry from the Amazon mobile app.
User Experience
For adding items to your registry and for your guests purchasing items from it, the user experience is the same as what you are already used to from shopping on Amazon via their website or mobile app. Adding gifts to your registry has the same look and feel as adding items to an Amazon wish list. The same is true for purchasing an item from an Amazon registry. If you haven’t added items to an Amazon wish list, the button and drop down menu are somewhat difficult to find the first time, but easy enough once you know what to look for.
The user experience of managing your registry once you’ve added items to it is very poor and one of the biggest drawbacks of registering on Amazon. The list of items already on your registry is presented in a thumbnail view only with limited sorting options and no categorization functionality. This part of Amazon’s registry service needs a ton of work, but it is probably not a deal breaker for most couples.
Personal Consultation
None
Shopping Features
Free shipping on items “shipped and sold” by Amazon. Prime shipping benefits (for Prime members) extend to registry purchases.
Amazon has a similarly poor user interface for gift givers wanting to view a full list of gifts on a single page as it does for couples trying to view or edit their entire registry at once. Sorting options are almost non-existent.
Shipping Customization
None
After-Wedding Features
Amazon provides a list of gift givers and the gifts they purchased for use off the site. They do not, however, offer the ability to send digital thank you notes or messages. The list includes addresses for guests who enable this during their checkout process. If they disable sharing of their address (on purpose or by accident), you’ll need to collect their information elsewhere, which you probably already have it if they were invited to your wedding. It will just be an extra step for you to connect the dots.
Return Policy
Gifts purchased for a couple (that are shipped and sold by Amazon) can be returned up to 180 days after your wedding date. Gifts purchased by a couple are subject to the return terms listed on individual product pages (typically 30, 60, or 90 days, depending on the item). To maximize your return flexibility, try to stick to items shipped and sold by Amazon.
Other Potential Drawbacks
As anyone who regularly shops on Amazon knows, the shopping experience with third party sellers is not nearly as good as purchasing items that are shipped and sold by Amazon. Additionally, return policies are usually much stricter (or sometimes non-existent) with third-party sellers. For guests who are less acclimated to shopping on Amazon, this could be confusing or lead to an unexpected outcome (like a product purchased accidentally that cannot be returned).
Product availability on Amazon changes quickly. Couples are almost guaranteed to have some products on their registry go out of stock (at least from Amazon directly) at some or multiple points before their wedding. We recommend paying close attention to product availability after you’ve shared your registry with your guests. An out-of-stock from Amazon (aka not available as “shipped and sold by Amazon”) product might cause one of your guests to unknowingly make a purchase from a third-party seller (see concerns above).
Final Thoughts
Despite its shortcomings, which we’ve discussed at length, Amazon is one of our favorite wedding registry options to recommend for couples for standard, easy-to-find registry items like small appliances, kitchen gadgets, organizational pieces, etc., for the simple fact that it’s so highly accessible and familiar to most wedding guests. No retailer can match Amazon’s product availability and selection.
Where Amazon falls short is in its user experience, feature availability, and the availability of unique or stylish products that will add character to your home. We recommend using Amazon in combination with other retailers that can add better style to products like linens, table or glassware, decorative pieces, etc. Retailers like Crate & Barrel or Target pair well with Amazon. Amazon will most often (but not always) beat other retailers on price for more common items. With user experience and feature availability, you get what you get with Amazon. Don’t sign up for an Amazon registry expecting to see new features or changes in benefits before your wedding. It’s very unlikely. Wedding registries are clearly not a high-priority service offering for the company.
