Now that she’s no longer going to school every day, our fictional retired teacher Susan is spending much more time at home, which means more quality time with her busy husband, more time learning to cook, more time volunteering her time or students young and old who need tutors—and finally the opportunity to make the home of her dreams.
Here’s how Amazon Pay — a speedy payment method that requires no sign-up and no
new passwords — can make it easier for Susan to find the products she loves online, whether they’re to help her improve her home, find the perfect gift, or help her make a long-overdue replacement.
About Susan, the Volunteer
Age: 62
Priorities: Finding what she sets out to find, and doing things the way she expects to do them.
Influences: Staying loyal to brands; she’s also a personal finance expert.
Drivers: Meeting unmet needs. When she sees something she wants, it drives her to search for it, or for a replacement.
Barriers: Shipping time, and not being able to quickly find what she needs. If anything is perceived as a negative, like having to wait, it means she’ll head to a local shop.
Susan’s Monday – A diary entry
7am – Up and at it
The morning is my favorite time of the day. It’s the moment before the day’s to-do list grows, when it can just be me and my coffee, staring out into the garden. Mornings didn’t use to be so peaceful, but now that I’m retired I have much more time to myself. This morning, my routine is a little different than normal. My son, Sam, is here to visit, and he brought me a belated birthday present: an Echo Dot, because he knows how much I love listening to the radio. I ask Alexa if she can play Morning Edition.
While I’m staring out into the garden, I realize that the new patio furniture I bought is clashing with my bright pink Azalea bushes. I pull out my iPad and go to YouGarden to see if I can find a shrub that’s a little more subdued in color. I find a beautiful evergreen Gardenia shrub, which will bloom beautiful white flowers—and I see that a 70cm one will come in just a few days. I check out easily with Amazon Pay, and then put down the iPad to turn back to tidying up the living room. It drives me crazy when Sam kicks off his shoes haphazardly and leaves them in the living room for me to trip over. I pick them up, and align them nicely next to the front door.
8:00am – Responding to emails
My friends and I stay in pretty good touch now that we’re all retired. Usually early on Monday I have an influx of news articles in my inbox as we’re all reading and sharing with each other. I’m an Amazon Prime subscriber, and so I get my free subscription with the Washington Post, which I love to read on the big screen of my iPad. I shoot off and attach a heartwarming story about a young man getting a scholarship to go to college. We’re all former teachers, and love to hear about successes in higher education. As I’m typing, I realize how much easier this would be if I got a keyboard to attach to my iPad. I make a mental note that that might be something that LaptopsDirect has—I recently got a screen protector for my iPhone there, and am a big fan of their warranty policy. I should remember to check later.
9:30am - Walking to work
Now that I’m retired, three days a week I volunteer with an organization that helps with reading comprehension, teaching classes and tutoring students and adults who want to improve their English. During the pandemic, we’ve been teaching remotely, but I like going into the office to be around the other teachers and volunteers. My first tutoring session isn’t until 11:30am, but I like walking to work because it gets my heartrate up, and also, I get to window shop on my way. As I’m walking by T M Lewin, I remember that their shops are now shut, but I can still purchase online. I make a note of checking their ecommerce during my lunch break.
12:30pm - Lunch break
I’ve brought my lunch to work today! Which means I have time to go online and see whether or not I can find a nice cashmere sweater for Sam. Usually I would get frustrated with a long payment process and to rifle through my bag to find my credit card while in the shop… and I would just give up. But with Amazon Pay I can just zip through checkout — and Sam’s address back in Chicago is in my address book, so I can send it directly to his home address without any hassle.
5pm – Walking home
The day is done! My tutoring sessions and classes went really well today. At one point, one of my students gave me a tour of her desk over Zoom and I noticed that she had the most beautiful journal. She told me that she got it at CraftTash, which I put in my notes, to remind myself to get one for later. As I walk home, I decide to listen to an audio book. I go over to Audible, and decide that it’s finally time to get around to reading Michelle Obama’s Becoming, which my friends have been raving about. I wonder if it’s time for our book club to talk about it. I play the opening chapters on my phone as I walk home.
5:30pm – Dinner Prep
It’s a rare thing that we’re together as a family, so I’ve decided that I’m going to make something festive. Sam is out with his friends and my husband, Mark, is still at work, so I have a little bit of time in the house to myself. That means I can keep listening to my audiobook on my Amazon Echo! I recently bought a set of chopping boards from ProCook, because I hate a messy counter more than anything. This way, all of the ingredients that I need for this dish are chopped and ready to go before I start cooking.
While the meal is in the oven, I head over to CraftTash on my iPad and find the beautiful pencil case that my student had, and I get one for myself. And then, as I’m doing it, I remember that I wanted to get a keyboard earlier. So, I head over to LaptopDirect and using Amazon Pay I quickly move through checkout. Those purchases both make me feel like I’m taking care of my office needs, and getting things a little more organized.
7:30pm - Dinnertime
Everyone is looking so nice for family dinner. So, I decide to take the moment to take some sweet family photos in the living room before we sit down to eat. A friend of mine last year gave us prints from Photobox, and I think that the photos I just took turned out so well, they could make a nice print to put on our wall of family photos. I love photographs, but it’s always a pleasure to hold a beautiful frame in your hands. It can be so much more powerful than just seeing one on a screen. When the photos are done, we sit down to dinner and catch up on our days. It’s nice to feel at the end of the day that everyone is taken care of and well fed.
9:30pm - Saying goodnight
Sam’s not like us old folks — he’s going to meet some friends at a bar with outdoor seating nearby. Once again, my husband and I are empty nesters. We decide to curl up on the couch to watch a movie — we never tend to agree, but this time we found something on Amazon Prime that we were both in favor of.
If you’re like Susan, or want to learn more about Amazon Pay, click here to find out what’s Possible with Pay.