Slashdot Mirror
Price of Amazon Prime May Jump To $119 a Year
colinneagle writes "Amazon CFO Tom Szkutak hinted during the company's earnings conference call [Thursday] that we might see an increase to the company's popular Amazon Prime service. As it stands now, Amazon Prime costs $79 per year and offers users free shipping on millions of items, free book borrowing for select Kindle titles, and last but not least, free streaming to the company's video on-demand service. Going forward, Amazon may increase that pricepoint to either $99 or $119. That's a rather significant price increase, but it's important to keep in mind that the price of Amazon Prime has remained the same ever since Amazon first started the program nine years ago." How many products do you use that haven't increased in price for that long?
hmm lets see.
isp is cheaper now than 9 years ago.
the tv I got at back home I could not have afforded 9 years ago.
my mobile subscriptions are cheaper than 9 years ago. I can order stuff from china cheaper than 9 years ago(transportation costs).
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
"Sumsing vwrong here!"
http://www.wired.com/business/2013/03/amazon-prime-could-soon-cost-next-to-nothing/
According to the US federal reserve governments are printing billions of dollars all over the world to prevent the horrible horrible deflation that might happen. Why there has been no rising prices in stocks, food, commodities, or cars, or anything. Nope no inflation anywhere.... Just like all the unemployment numbers are perfectly fine and everyone is doing much better. After all gold is super cheap. I don't possibly see why Amazon would jack up prices all of the sudden, especially since its been making so much money the past few quarters... After all the last failed revenue report, they just said they intentionally weren't making money. Amazon has often believed in making up losses with volume. Maybe Amazon is making a play to be a central bank.
Just in the savings in shipping costs it would still be a bargain for me. I order a boatload of stuff from Amazon, and watch their steaming service all the time. I think of their streaming service as my humongous DVR. Even at $119 per year we're still talking about less than $10 a month, just slightly more than my Netflix subscription. It's like having Netflix with the added benefit of free two day shipping.
Personally I love prime, but at $129 I would actually count my purchases
Prime makes financial sense if you make on average more than 2 orders a month items that would be covered by prime that would not be eligible for free shipping, at $5 shipping.
The streaming videos and free upgrade to 2 day shipping on prime eligible items: add additional value.
I suppose what would be interesting is if they started offering a "Prime Lite" for $60 a year --- with no streaming videos, no 2 day shipping, but free standard shipping on all normally prime-eligible items fulfilled by Amazon.
In other news. Starting today.
Not sure I'd be paying for it for just one or the other, but the free shipping on eligible items and Amazon Video on my Roku make it a sweet deal.
My coworkers get a laugh at how many packages I get, but for anyone who's busy, there are countless items that are just a pain to get in the store, but easy as pie to just show up in a box and bring home from work. (Have 'em shipped to work to avoid the whole randomness of where packages get left thing.)
services have definitely decreased in prices, however the question is about products. HDTV's, books/magazines, and some popular prescription medicines (depending upon where you shop)...have all decreased in retail price over the last nine years.
Your final thought there made me think of something. Imagine if all the spare cycles on EC2 were devoted to mining bitcoin any time they were idle. Amazon probably does have the capacity to corner the market on crypto currency, Google could as well.
Have 'em shipped to work to avoid the whole randomness of where packages get left thing.
This is getting common enough that some companies are starting to complain, though. If a few people do it occasionally it's no big deal, but if 500 employees are each receiving multiple packages a week, it starts becoming a significant added burden on the corporate mailroom.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Also, natural gas: was around $6.50 per million BTU in 2003, now it's $2.25.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
The mailroom staff are demanding bribes or they'll go postal.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Your cow-orkers don't steal your packages, don't break your packages, and don't bully you for receiving packages? Must be nice not working among humans.
If that is happening to you then you're the one not working among humans.
The population isn't increasing, at least not everywhere. Ever heard of the demographic time bomb?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
This is getting common enough that some companies are starting to complain, though. If a few people do it occasionally it's no big deal, but if 500 employees are each receiving multiple packages a week, it starts becoming a significant added burden on the corporate mailroom.
The relationship between company and employees, at first approximation, is that employees come to work, and the company pays them money. In a better approximation, employees do useful work to advance the purposes of the company, while the company does things to keep employees happy. Adding a person to the mailroom is a cheap way to make 500 employees a lot happier, so they will work for you instead of someone else if everything else is equal.
This makes perfect sense from a shareholder point of view. Raising the price to $119 will decrease the number of Prime members, thereby decreasing the cost of providing the Prime service, but the people who stay with Prime will likely more than pay for those who leave. So, it's a win-win for shareholders and Amazon.
There are two things wrong with your post. The first is that the electricity cost just from the CPU is significantly higher than the value of the BitCoins created. The second is the assumption that there are a lot of spare cycles on EC2. The entire design of datacentres like this is to ensure that the computers are used efficiently by ensuring that there is always some job ready to run.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
You having them != Amazon (or any other host) having them.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Is Amazon shipping more expensive in the US? I can't remember the last time I bought anything from Amazon that didn't come with free shipping. The only difference is that Prime gives you next day, whereas their super-saver free delivery gives you 3-5 days (typically closer to 3). I've found that if I need something very urgently then I will go into town and buy it - there are few situations where tomorrow is soon enough, but in a few days time is not.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Given an increasing population and a limited supply of land, the price of real estate will never get cheaper.
Yeah, I know; house prices never go down, isn't it?
Questions raise, answers kill. Raise questions to stay alive.
I find it interesting that this comes just as Amazon has fallen in love with hybrid shipping services such as UPS Mail Innovations and FedEx SmartPost for Prime delivery. These services utilize UPS or FedEx only to the destination city where your package is then handed off to the USPS for delivery. As a result, Prime "guaranteed" 2-day delivery has become "often 2-day" or "occasional 2-day" ...and now, they feel like this is worth more? Wow.
Oh, they still haven't dropped the magic word "guaranteed". Their offering to satisfy the guarantee is an additional month of inconsistent, slower than stated service.
That's certainly an option. However around here, we got an email in December asking us to please not have all our Christmas shopping sent to the office address. No real enforcement, just "hey don't ship everything to the office pls". My guess is that this will become more common if more people start doing it: right now the people ordering from prime regularly to their work address at most workplaces are a pretty small proportion of employees, so it's not a big deal to accommodate them.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Was $1.10 in 2003, now it is $0.99
Last time I checked, it was over $40 a galon 128 fl oz.
Yeap, it starts at $45 now, but can get as high as $120,000.00 (+$13.49 shipping).
Questions raise, answers kill. Raise questions to stay alive.
Computers have gone down in price.
I paid $10,000 less for my new tractor than the one 12 years before and the new one is 50% more powerful.
Music, DVDs and other entertainment cost less - I don't go to the theater which I hear costs more but the fact that it costs more is part of why I don't go.
Amazon Prime has even less to delivery than computers so by your logic it should decrease in price over time.
...it really doesn't need to be justified. It's a leash. Like your Sam's, BJ's or Costco membership. It makes you want to buy more stuff at Amazon (on account of you don't want to waste that $80 you handed them) and they make it all up on volume and margins. No way the $80 ever offset the shipping in any reasonable fashion. I get free shipping from Bean's and pay nothing up front for it.
They do need to get more money though, if only to replace the drones that will no doubt be used for plinking practice by the neighbor kids.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
This is a bad move on Amazons part. I dumped cable in favor of Netflix. I dumped Netflix in favor of Amazon Prime. All 3 have crap content so price point is my comparison. Except Amazons interface is the crappiest of all 3 AND it forces me to stream from an iPod or iPhone to an AppleTV because there is no app for the AppleTV (yet?) and so the resolution is less than other choices. I am not firing up my Playstation every time my kid wants to watch some Nickelodeon stuff as its a power hog.
Amazons prices in general don't encourage me to purchase anything and "free" shipping as a Prime member is not free if the shipping is built into the price of the product. I have made one purchase in 3 months through Prime and that was for a pile of computer memory offered through an affiliate of Amazon.
I WILL go back to Netflix if I am presented with a bill next year that is the same or more than Netflix per year.
But is it organic milk from certified virgin lesbian cows that have never felt the touch of a bull?
Maybe they are going to start collecting more to help fund prime air. Either way i get it 50% off with my student discount :P
I agree, they should offer a Prime Shipping only option, at the old price.
But even if it did increase to $120 I would still pay it, as long as Amazon remains sales tax free
anyway my Prime subscription renews in October, so I have time to save up for the increase
Having Prime makes me more likely to buy an item. In fact, when I search I generally click the "Prime" filter. Many of the items I won't buy without Prime because the extra shipping discourages me .It's not that I care all that much about the actual shipping cost, just the total price. When a retailer puts an artificially low price then tacks on a large shipping price then I get annoyed and don't buy from them. With Prime, I know the price I see is what I'll pay and have it there in two days.
I don't use the Prime video service because it sucks. I can't watch it on AppleTV or Chromecast natively and selection is quite poor.
As a Prime member, for every non-prime eligible item I find, I look for a Prime eligible counterpart. The price for the counterpart is _always_ about $3-5 more expensive, usually by the same amount as the quoted shipping price on the non-Prime eligible item. So what we are getting here is the 2-day upgrade for free, not the entire cost of shipping. Most of the time, 2-day vs. 4-day shipping makes no difference to me.
We do occasionally stream Prime content, but the vast majority of titles on Prime are also on Netflix. If I could cancel my Netflix subscription and replace with Prime, the $120 pricepoint might not look so steep, but alas, it often seems Amazon's library is only about 25% the size of Netflix, so that's not an option.
So as it stands, I feel I am not really getting $80 in value from Prime as it stands. $120 with no improvement to the service is out of the question. I like the idea of a premium Amazon service, it just needs to actually _be_ premium.
"...How many products do you use that haven't increased in price for that long?..."
Pretty much none. Of course, the government (of both parties) has been telling me "inflation's at/near 0%" for longer than that....
-Styopa
Just FYI
"When I first heard Daydream Nation it quite frankly scared the living shit out of me." -- Matthew Stearns
Gay or not the superintelligent blacks are the ones who reject thug culture because they understand it is self-destructive. The biggest threat to them is the blacks who weren't so smart. After all valuing education and not thinking of jailtime as a trophy is "acting white" and running a business is being an "uncle Tom".
Course the media would rather blow a few instances of real white racism out of proportion than talk about what really keeps black people down. No one in media or politics is interested in actually solving a problem. That would hurt their business.
This is getting common enough that some companies are starting to complain, though. If a few people do it occasionally it's no big deal, but if 500 employees are each receiving multiple packages a week, it starts becoming a significant added burden on the corporate mailroom.
The relationship between company and employees, at first approximation, is that employees come to work, and the company pays them money. In a better approximation, employees do useful work to advance the purposes of the company, while the company does things to keep employees happy. Adding a person to the mailroom is a cheap way to make 500 employees a lot happier, so they will work for you instead of someone else if everything else is equal.
Not doing this falls under "keep employers and coworkers the fuck out of my business thankyouverymuch", a policy that has served me well. I know a lot of people use the workplace as a substitute for having a real social life. They're the ones who want to have some stupid "potluck" or awkward office party every other day so they can waste your time and make you have to bring something in like you weren't already busy enough so they can feel significant for a whole afternoon. But when you have a real social life and meet those needs in a more healthy way, you realize the virtue of keeping nosy gossips out of your business. You're also more productive when you come to the workplace for the sole purpose of working, something bosses tend to appreciate.
My employer already knows a lot about me. What I order and from whom and how often and what the busybodies can infer about me doesn't need to be added to that list. Believe me, they'll take the most innocent act and twist it around. If you think this isn't happening to you, it's happening behind your back. It's nothing more personal than how petty and childish the average person has become. Besides, most of the reasons why you'd send packages to the office are resolved in a much more satisfying way by living in a decent neighborhood.
I never saw the fascination of Amazon Prime. I figured that, like most people on /., I'm not in the target demographic. I'm quite happy to wait 3-5 days for a package to arive. In addition, when I buy a movie, I like to hold the disc in my hand.
Prime is for the people that must have what they bought now. Whatever happened to delaying gratification?
Help! I'm a slashdot refugee.
In real dollars food costs far less than it did 30 years ago. Not everything goes up in price. In fact, accounting for inflation, a lot of things go down in price.
I can order from online companies I have never heard of, without fear of being cheated, when they are under the umbrella of the Amazon corporation. This is their prime benefit to me.
The reduced prime membership rates also include a nominal fee (sometimes $3.99) to upgrade to one day shipping... very handy when shopping parts for a job. It is still almost magical to me that I can order something from a city 1500 miles away at 1400 hours and, despite signs at both gates to leave the package outside the fence, have our puppy chewing the box it was delivered in the next day.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
I have Prime for the German amazon, as it is the closest (less delivery time) to where I live, the prices are in euros, and has the most diversity of the European amazon stores.
However, I have my kindle set to amazon.co.uk because I only understand a few German words, most my reading is in English, my magazine subscriptions (Analog) are available only from there or the US, and I'd rather read some of my favourite authors in the original UK English spelling.
As such, I can't loan kindle titles (only if I had my kindle set to the German amazon), and of course I don't have the streaming. The interesting part here is that I can have prime either with German, French, Italian or UK amazon, without living in any of these countries, but I must pay a Prime subscription in each country, like if it was a different company and not the same one with headquarters in Luxembourg.
Prime is for those who don't understand marketing.
Why do manufacturers come out with those two-bit coupons? The handling on that $0.25 discount is probably $25.00. What do they get for that?
(1) They get some advertising of their product, sure, but most importantly (2) They lower the barrier to entry/purchase so that (3) More people buy their product with (4) Less thought about it.
Gift cards are a similar idea. Give someone a gift card and they will spend it as a "bonus". Give them cash and they will treat it like all their other cash. When gift cards first came out, they used to offer something extra, for your trouble. That something extra was a tip-of-the-icebergian fraction of what they were gaining from the transaction. Now we are all so accepting of, and enamoured with, gifting hunks of plastic that they charge...up to $10...for a "gift" charge card.
When you have "free shipping" you buy (1) more stuff, (2) more often, (3) with less thought about it. And Amazon laughs all the way to the bank.
If I want something and it is over the $25/35 cutoff, then I order it. Otherwise I put it on the wish list and forget about it. For video watching I use Netflix. Amazon Prime is for $DerogatoryWord.
I come here for the love
Surprising - our State doesn't extract taxes on sales here in NH, but so many of my friends have Prime. We use it to replace driving. I can get a package overnight for what gas costs to go to the local urban sprawl and do other things with my time. Plus, if you need anything odd, the local & big box stores rarely have it. Yeah, the local store will order it for you if you have two weeks to wait, but to do that you have to go there and not find it in the first place.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Free Super Saver Shipping is a minimum of $35 now, and usually takes 3-5 days to even ship out from Amazon,
Interesting... I suppose it depends on item. Some items have significant shipping, but are prime eligible. A few items are ineligible for super saver shipping; for some items there is a "Subscribe and Save" option that includes free shipping and a discount --- for automatic reordering of the item on a continual X week basis.
Some big ticket items include automatic free shipping, even without prime.
Some 3rd party sellers have items where shipping is free with or without prime.
Other 3rd party sellers have charges for basic shipping that apply to prime users --- when the seller's not a "fulfilled by Amazon" seller.
has shipping gotten more expensive or are people ordering more stuff?
Both. As wages and fuel prices increase, shipping costs increase. (Much of this ultimately results from cost-push when the U.S. minimum wage and other wages tied to it rise.) And people have been ordering so much stuff from online stores in general that in the fourth quarter of 2013, parcel volume exceeded even UPS's reserve capacity.
Smarmy answers to rhetorical questions....
The Demonoid made me do it.
Aaarrrrr. Aarrrrrrr...
super-saver free delivery gives you 3-5 days (typically closer to 3)
I have prime not so much for free shipping, as I'm willing to leave items in my cart until I hit the free shipping minimum, and not for two-day shipping, as I rarely need it that fast. I have prime because standard shipping is unpredictable. Sometimes it's three days, sometimes it's ten. I have prime because I want to know when it will arrive. I'd be okay with three or four days, consistently. But an occasional ten days isn't acceptable.
When gift cards first came out, they used to offer something extra, for your trouble. That something extra was a tip-of-the-icebergian fraction of what they were gaining from the transaction. Now we are all so accepting of, and enamoured with, gifting hunks of plastic that they charge...up to $10...for a "gift" charge card.
For one thing, these new cards with a fee run on the credit card network and can be used at any business that takes credit cards. Retailer-specific gift cards, such as Walmart cards, Target cards, Google Play cards, and the like, still have no transaction fee for a couple reasons. First, the retailer doesn't have to pay a transaction fee every time a shopper uses the gift card, especially when it requires store gift cards to be purchased with cash or EFTPOS (PIN debit), which has a much lower swipe fee than a credit card. Second, the retailer is assured of a return visit and earns interest on the stored value.
Nine years ago, I could order whatever I wanted and have it delivered in two days.
Now every item on Amazon is an "add-on item" that you can only get shipped to you if you're buying more than $25 worth of stuff. Making me pay $25 for extra stuff I don't need or want when I need toothpaste and deodorant is quite an increase in cost from nine years ago. Amazon Prime was almost $80. That $80 investment gives people quite an incentive to choose amazon.com, and it's not even like every item on amazon was available for Prime shipping even before they started doing this "add-on item" crap. There are plenty of times where I've chosen the prime item, not because it was the cheapest, but because it would be here in two days. There are many other sites and many other non-prime Amazon sellers who have better prices. Being locked into a system that doesn't have the lowest prices is not a benefit. It's a burden.
And to make matters worse, if I decide that I do want just one add-on item, I can't even opt to just pay the cost of shipping on that one "add-on item" that I do want. If shipping is costing you too much, why can't I just pay the cost of shipping to have you send the *one* thing I do want? People who don't have Amazon Prime get to pay regular shipping cost without having to buy $25 worth of stuff they don't need, so why do people who are paying $80 extra have to get screwed over every time?
Asking someone to pay almost $80 per year to get "unlimited two-day shipping" on things and then hiding most items behind an "add-on item" label and not allowing them to order said items at all unless said person buys $25 worth of stuff every time is not a money saver, and it is not the same price as it was nine years ago. A $40 increase in price for something that is now a burden and not a service is not justified or reasonable.
I read an article some time ago that argued Amazon Prime should be free or nominal. I agree. Trying to make money off the membership fee is short-sighted. When I want something online I go immediately to Amazon, because they probably have it and it might be in the Prime program. If they keep raising the Prime fee, I might be at some point tempted to include some other service or services in my initial search, and when that happens Amazon will have lost the mindshare monopoly they own right now in my house and millions of others. The money they stand to lose to other sites is way more than the piddling membership fee.
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
I also noticed recently that a LOT of items are no longer "prime eligible" and their video service is a joke compared to anything else out there, we never use it.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
And have absolutely used it to my advantage.
My issue is some people I know who have now signed up for prime have received the 2-day stuff sent via SurePost.. Which has taken more than 2 days to arrive (in one case 4). If amazon is going to say 2-day and use a service that has UPS or FedEx drop it off at the local post office knowing that's going to add time to when it is finally delivered, and that time pushes it past the 2 days.. I'm not okay with that and am waiting to see someone else who gets sick of it to file a class-action.
I myself haven't had it happen but have heard of quite a few others who have...
What U.S. state do you live in that charges sales tax but doesn't require you to report use tax on your income tax return?
Amazon punishes people who use free shipping, they will refuse to process the order until there is a whole semi truck full going to the section of the state you are in, I have had an item sit for 7 days before they shipped it. It's the scammy Fedex Post they use, Fedex delivers a semi truck to your state region post office then they carry the packages off to the cities around it. If your timing sucks it can be up to 10 days before it ships.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
the prime items cost more to buy and so the 'free shipping' is just discounted shipping, its never free. the amazon prime item is always more, by a few dollars, at least, than the non-prime item.
I just joined prime a few months ago but I don't know if I'll continue it if they raise prices that much. its already expensive for shipping and the 'free 2nd day' costs more if you find the primable items.
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
Housing prices do experience corrections, or troughs in the overall price level. But overall, each correction is to a higher price level than the previous correction.
That is why you dont have it delivered to the mail room. Put in your address the Building Address and Suite. it get's delivered to the receptionist. Bypass themail room as much as possible and you end run the idiots in management. Be nice and buy the Receptionist lunch once in a while and she will never say a word.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Employer can STFU and stop being assholes or they can try and pay someone else for my expert talents and all the experience I have with their systems... Childish hissy fit by a moron manager are always costly in employee replacement and training.
Why is it you people all roll over for the company? they OWE YOU not the other way around.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
And to further confuse things, it depends on where you live. In Alaska (and I presume Hawaii and perhaps Puerto Rico), Prime is a great deal because routine shipping is expensive. Except when it's impossible when you find out that the affiliate doesn't ship to the hinterlands. Amazon also jacks up prices in Alaska, apparently to cover shipping or just because they're Amazon.
It's complicated...
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
we have offices in various countries and we have foreign workers fly to the US for extended periods of time to work here. you would not believe the amount of amazon boxes that accumulate in our open office environ when the foreign workers 'go nuts' and buy everything they can from amazon before returning home.
the funny part: most of the foreign workers are from china and the goods they buy are almost always made in china. but they are cheaper here and they buy from amazon, have it shipped to the company mailroom and then bring those goodies home on their return flight. after they leave there are a ton of amazon empties all over the office floor. sneakers and cameras and laptops seem to be the things they buy the most, from what I can tell, looking at the empties.
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
in your mind.... Its $4.75 a gallon here in 2014
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Sure, if the place you work for has the money to do this. The situation is where we work, we don't, and we can't get funding for a position like that. Quite a few people started to use work as the delivery address, and the higher-ups passed a new policy for no personal packages allowed to be delivered at work - they are flat-out refused. We don't have a dedicated mail person and never will.
In my specific case, I order stuff all the time for work and have it delivered (including from Amazon, NewEgg, and other sites) so if I were to order one personal package it would not likely be noticed. However, the other 99% of staff need to order through someone else and don't have that luxury.
My current place of employment has a separate area for personal packages. Warehouse staff will sign off on the package (which is fantastic since I don't have to be at home and the dog still hasn't figured out to use the little terminal thing). They place it in the locked area, email you that you have a package and you pick it up at your convenience.
Doesn't cost the warehouse staff anything - they're signing for tons of boxes anyway. Makes people happier.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Likely I'll pay the price hike, but if they want to earn money, how about something like this. Currently (as many know) Shared Amazon Prime Members can only use the 2 day shipping benefits, not the Streaming Instant Video benefits. How about for $40/member/month more, change that? This way I don't have to beg my wife for her last login all the time and can use my account instead. Also perhaps, allowing 2 linked prime accounts who both have instant video access to get to each others separately purchased (non-prime) instant videos? This way I can even get to my wife's video library and watch something of hers if there's something in there I want without needing a second purchase. Just sayin...
...in bed
Costco hot dog and soda at the snack bar. Been $1.50 for nigh on 20 years.
They need Prime for diapers? They could order an extra day's worth and go back to regular shipping. They'll also notice that non-Prime items are typically cheaper.
sorry, anonymous coward again... To add, I'm probably one of the Prime customers that Amazon makes a profit on since I'm not making Prime purchases probably as much as I should, but magic 2-day shipping with a $80 once a year hit makes me come back for more. If it raises, I will be done. If they bring in a fleet of delivery drones, I'll pay $200 for the service for a year because that would be freakin awesome, but probably get bored of it and then be done again.
Those "retailer-specific" cards that "don't charge" are the ones I mentioned that used to GIVE you something.
Target gift cards give 5% off. (But so do Target credit cards.)
I think, for Amazon, part of the reason behind Prime is to force/enable them to improve their content/product delivery network. They don't want to sell slower shipping. They want to move up to same day shipping, so that they can sell you groceries and be able to insert their delivery and payment infrastructure into purchases you make from local farmers.
but increased parcel volume should reduce the cost per parcel (smaller distances between drops).
It does to some extent but there are limits. It cannot go below the variable cost of delivering the product. In reality you can only amortize the fixed costs down so much as well since volume is never infinite.
They'll also notice that non-Prime items are typically cheaper.
Not once you factor in the cost of shipping in a lot of cases. I'm typically looking for the best price including cost of delivery and the cost difference between Prime and non-Prime is often minimal to non-existent.
What I don't get though is that Amazon provides basically no incentive to use slower shipping methods. I use Prime and there are times when I don't really need the product in a hurry but the cost is the same for 2 day shipping or regular ground. If Amazon would throw me a bone (discount, bonus merch, whatever) I'd be willing to order some things without the 2 day shipping.
Quadcopters are expensive. Yes I'll pay the extra $40 if I can get Kindle delivered via Drone.
People who are poor and stupid are humans. The work environment where >60% of the people present are making more than $50k / yr is often very different from the work environment where the majority of your co-workers feel financial motivation to steal your lunch.
When Amazon introduced Prime at $79, I evaluated it.
It really didn't offer me enough to compensate for the $79 fee.
Some people have a life style that the service at makes sense, at certain price points.
I imagine there are some people for whom a Valet makes sense.
For you it may be the greatest thing since slice bread.
For me, the break even is very low. Lower than $79.
It will be interesting to see what they do.
It is like cable TV channel bundling. You have to take the whole thing so they can profit
"When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!" -- Cave Johnson
If they release Amazon Prime Video for other Android devices, most likely I would not mind. I take advantage of it enough for shipping to make it worth while.
Yes you can get it on an Amazon Android device like Kindle Fire etc... but I'm not going to buy one of those (actually my wife has one). I have a Nexus 7 and a Samsung Galaxy Note 3, neither have Amazon Prime video available for them. I don't even use Amazon prime video for that reason. Would be nice for GoogleChrome to access it as well.
I also have both Prime and Netflix.
However, the interface to use Prime video is pretty horrible. I hate searching with it, and generally I've found Netflix has a wider selection with Prime very occasionally having something Netflix does not.
So what are you watching on Prime that you can't find on Netflix?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
If you look at Prime and Netflix, just about all of the movies that are free to Prime users are also on Netflix. There are a few exceptions, but not very many.
Meanwhile for TV stuff, Netflix has far and away a better and wider selection.
I watch a few things on Prime video, but not more than a handful per year - I could easily replace that with a disc choice from Netflix or even just renting a few times. A more expensive Prime I'm really on the fence paying for.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Soon to be less popular.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
I just did a search on a couple things and I didn't see any price penalty on Prime items. I've never had Prime, as it doesn't work for Alaska, but I haven't seen the problem you complain about. Could you point out some examples?
Learn to love Alaska
Yup, the only two ways to get the US shoes are to steal them from the Chinese factory, or re-import them from the US after they were sold at full-retail in the US.
Learn to love Alaska
That's fine. Imagine having to wait months for your mailed-in Sears Roebuck order to arrive in Chicago and then get shipped back by train. You don't need instant gratification to get by in life.
I am becoming gerund, destroyer of verbs.
Have 'em shipped to work to avoid the whole randomness of where packages get left thing.
This is getting common enough that some companies are starting to complain, though. If a few people do it occasionally it's no big deal, but if 500 employees are each receiving multiple packages a week, it starts becoming a significant added burden on the corporate mailroom.
I work in a small office, and we don't have a mailroom. I either pick it up from the receptionist's desk, or she drops it on my desk.
If anybody minded, I wouldn't do it.
That depends. I'm at a university and, no matter what I put for the address, the package always goes through the receiving department. Some companies are like that, too. This is especially true at places with restricted access to the buildings, in which case delivery trucks are only allowed to go to the receiving docks.
If you want a vision of the future, imagine a youtube comments section scrolling - forever.
That seems like a brilliant strategy to get Prime members to all quit. If they raised it by a little, say $5-10, a lot of people probably wouldn't care enough to go to the effort of quitting. Increasing the price by 50% though? People are going to care then. As it is, the value of Prime has gone down substantially in just the three years I've had it. One of the reasons it seemed worth it to me was that before, I'd always feel like I had to make sure I had an order worth $25 in order to get free shipping. Prime made it so that I would just go and buy the thing I actually needed instead of buying extra crap just to get free shipping. Now they've made a huge number of items, including the exact things I've bought in the past, "add-on" items that you can't buy unless...you order at least $25 worth of product. So I'm back to square one. I haven't even been getting my free book lately because trying to find good stuff by digging through the Kindle's awful, slow menus takes longer than hitting TPB (or even Baen's free list) and downloading what I want. As for Prime Video, I don't think there's ever been anything I wanted to see (though admittedly there are a few kids' shows my kids like) that wasn't also on Netflix. So go ahead, Amazon. Raise the price. I'll just cancel. I'm half tempted to right now after documenting how little value I'm getting out of Prime already. Getting a new power supply in a day for only $6 extra (the best use I've gotten out of it recently) really doesn't justify $79/year as it is.
Things that are "bargains" will increase in price or decrease in quality or quantity until they are merely "ok" deals. Yet another reason economics truly is the dismal science.
I'm posting anon because I've already modded.
That seems like a brilliant strategy to get Prime members to all quit. If they raised it by a little, say $5-10, a lot of people probably wouldn't care enough to go to the effort of quitting. Increasing the price by 50% though?
I think their strategy is slightly more sophisticated. They figured out that they are going to have to raise the price $5-$10 but some market survey said even this modest increase would cause defection so they are getting people over the sticker shock by leaking a possible large price increase. Then when people see the actual increase is only $5-$10 they will be much less likely to defect.
Video on Demand stopped working on Linux some time last year. It is possible that the main culprit is Adobe, who stopped updating Flash on Linux. So my only option for Flash is now Google Chrome browser, that has its own interpreter. Unfortunately, Amazon vide is broken there as well. And the worst part? I cannot teminate my Prime until next year.
I used to see this all over the place, where the non-Amazon sellers selling through Amazon's portal would be discounted to where, with shipping, they matched the Prime cost. Hard to find examples today - makes me wonder about price fixing.
For Marketplace items it's still common though - here's an example: http://www.amazon.com/gp/produ... Both hardback and paperback Amazon marketplace sellers are setting prices that, with shipping, more or less match the prime price. I suspect for marketplace items this is just the cheaper ones sell out, and the more expensive don't.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
I dunno. All of the prime stuff is also free shipping anyway, so long as it's over $35 on your order and you don't mind it not getting there in two days. I'm not usually that impatient, so everything is free shipping, stuff shows up in 3-4 days, and I don't have to pay for prime.
And now that they've started charging sales tax, I'm definitely not paying for prime, I'm buying from alternate sources whenever I can. Sales tax adds damn near 10% to the price.
Unless you are obscenely overqualified, and have either huge saving to pay rent/other expenses or don't have them at all (mom's basement?) being unemployed for several months while looking for a job that pays better than starvation wages (not an exaggeration at my last one, I had to choose between gas, food, and rent on a regular basis) isn't exactly an option. Since most people like not going hungry, building huge amounts of debt, or being homeless, we tend to keep the jobs we have.
I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it! --Longbottle
According to Measuring Worth, the inflation-adjusted price of Prime today would be ~$90 per year. $99 isn't a huge step up from there.
Visit the
I probably wouldn't renew at $119. And without free shipping, I would order less stuff from Amazon. That doesn't sound too good for the shareholders.
You could very well be right. Amazon generally seems pretty sophisticated with this sort of thing. At the same time, though, everyone blunders at times and the comments on HuffPo were full of people claiming they'd be happy to pay as much as $200 for Prime. So I could also see them having done some sort of market research and deciding that people like that were their target demographic for Prime and forget people like me. I still think that'd be a poor idea though. As people have noted, Prime is a leash. I do almost all of my online shopping on Amazon these days. That'll change if I don't have the incentive to maximize the value of Prime. I might be poor, but I do shop online and will continue to do so. Seems to me it'd be better for them to cement my brand loyalty, which a price hike at all will not do at this point. I /might/ not have noticed or cared about $5 without this announcement. With it? I've definitely thought about what value I get from Prime and will not be keeping it with a hike of any sort.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D...
And, if you are in a busy region with a nearby warehouse, I almost always get the items within 2 days even without Prime. I do have Prime, because occasionally I get something that comes from across the country and I appreciate the consistency of knowing when it should arrive.
Oddly enough, sometimes I order things I expect in two days and make plans around it; only to have Amazon deliver the next day (once I had an item the same day when I ordered very early in the morning). I prefer consistent times over anything else.
All these comparisons with Netflix fail to address one critical point: video quality
I can stream the same movie on Netflix and Hulu on the same device (Roku), at the same time, on the same internet connection. If I stream that movie on Netflix, the stream doesn't fully-utilize my internet connection and is noticeably poor. If I cancel, then immediately start streaming the same movie on Amazon Prime, same device, just moments later, it saturates my internet connection and looks considerably better. I can switch back and forth and the results are consistent. I can also recreate this with other movies available on both. I've done this on multiple different nights... the test results are always the same.
Not to say that if Amazon ups the price of Prime that we'll keep it... I'm not a big fan of streaming in-general. But to compare Netflix and Amazon one really needs to take into account the video quality. Netflix quality is absolutely HORRIBLE and I can't stand watching content off it, and choose Amazon or Hulu whenever possible. Of course, in this day and age people seem content with Youtube level of over-compressed shit so it's probably a lost cause...
But in fairness, the gallon with the $120,000 price tag has been quality checked by the seller:
Just wait until ONE package is lost/missing/disappears, and see how fast that policy continues.
Since when do companies care whether their workers are happy or not? And what company has a mailroom nowadays? My company doesn't even have a reception, it was closed down to save money. If you had something delivered to the security lodge it would just get stolen, and you wouldn't be there to sign for it anyway.
In this jobs market employers don't have to do anything to attract workers.