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Amazon Hikes Prime Membership Fee
An anonymous reader writes with official news that, as expected, "Amazon officially announced that it is increasing Prime Membership fees from $79 to $99. Amazon Students will pay $49, and participants of Amazon Fresh (the grocery shopping service) will continue to have a $299 fee. The price hike in Prime Membership is attributed to rising shipping costs, but some wonder if the 'real question around Prime is whether it's sustainable at all, even at a higher price.'"
I got the email today, just like everyone else that has Amazon prime.
First thing I did was go try to turn off auto-renew. It turns out that they've hidden that feature, and you actually have to attempt to cancel your membership to do it. Then it gives you an option to end immediately if you qualify for a rebate or end at the normal time (6 months from now in my case).
Well, one would think that the new fee would be $97 to keep in line of being "prime". Maybe I'm being too literal here. :P
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
They already have free shipping at the $35 order mark, so... no.
They already have free shipping at the $35 order mark, so... no.
The free shipping is "standard 5-8 day shipping", so it's not quite the same as free 2-day prime shipping.
Plus, my orders rarely exceed $35, so it might take weeks to accumulate an order that big.
Prime still provides value to me (I dropped my $7.99 Netflix subscription when Amazon added free Prime movie streaming - both Netflix and Amazon streaming catalogs are equally poor), even when they increase it from $6.60/month to $8.25/month.
They have a horde of loyal customers who are willing to pay a FEE just to have "exclusive" access to free shipping and some media streaming. What about that needs to be "sustainable", the goal is merely to make people feel compelled to prefer to shop where they have a vested interest (also known as the human nature to "send good money after bad"). Are they collecting as much from the prime fee as it costs them to ship all that crap? Probably not, but that's hardly the point. The question to ask is: would they make more money if prime didn't exist? Meaning, would all those customers who bought with prime have just shopped elsewhere instead? The answer is probably yes, otherwise Amazon would be pulling the plug instead of doubling down and increasing the rate. The last thing they want to do is drive away customers.
Just so you aren't in a hurry. Free "super saver" shipping has gotten slower and slower over the last year or so. It's gotten so bad that I actually shop around again. They should not underestimate the effect this has on customers - I took a vacation from Newegg when they started occasionally using some bizarro shipping scheme that had my packages leaving my state for Kentucky and then eventually coming back after a hand-off to the USPS.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
I had that attitude, but so many of the local sellers are just gouging. I needed a 12 foot HDMI cable a while back. It was going to cost me $10 on Amazon, but I wanted it right now. I went to Best Buy, half a mile down the road. They wanted $40 for the same cable.
Instant gratification is not worth a $30 surcharge.
Occasionally living proof of the Ballmer peak.
Really? My brother has Netflix and it looks to be leaps ahead of Amazon in terms content available. Amazon has a larger and more recent library but only if you include episodes and movies that you have to purchase, which run $1.99 (for an episode) - $29.99 (for a season or a movie).
No, it has nothing to do with paying to continue using something.
Every month, members get to borrow a book that they don't own and keep it for the month. When they pick out a book the following month, they have to return the one they borrowed the month before. They don't buy the book, so they don't own it.
What happened was that Amazon expected more people to take advantage of the other Prime features besides free shipping. Instead, free shipping was by far the only thing people really used it for. Their streaming services don't have any of the things I want to watch, unfortunately, since the streaming rights to those shows were all gobbled up by the competitors.
Occasionally living proof of the Ballmer peak.
I can't speak for anyone but myself (and my facebook posting about this has generated quite a bit of discussion about this amongst my friends), but this will result in me spending less at Amazon, as well as not renewing Prime next year. Prime is great for things I don't need today, but would love by the end of the week (2-day shipping). It's great for the one time every couple years I need something tomorrow with $3.99 overnight. The video services I don't use (hulu + netflix), and I don't do the kindle sharing thing. The Kindle itself has replaced almost all of my book buying habits, with the exception of technical books, which I still prefer in dead-tree edition. This has reduced the need to actually ship things to me. Over the last year or so, I've begun exploring stuff like buying toiletries via Prime, just to make it semi-worthwhile. I still don't use Prime to order computer parts, or giant TVs and the like as I'd rather have a local return point vs. packing and shipping defective items, etc, but I could be convinced if the value was there. Basically, at $79 a year, I felt that was fair enough that I didn't even bother to create a new account with my educational email address to pay the student rate. At $99/year, that value proposition no longer holds true for me. Your mileage may vary, of course.
So, after my Prime runs out, I'll be shopping more locally and maybe paying a little more, to get the things I normally would have ordered from Amazon. Oh well, such is life.
If you were me, you'd be good lookin'. - six string samurai
I have both (and am sneaking in at the end of the month at the current $79 price for my renewal).
The Netflix streaming player is much more mature than the Amazon streaming player (Amazon's is basically a half-step up from YouTube).
Netflix will save my spot and I can get miniscreen previews as I'm selecting where I want to be in a film.
But Netflix can be tetchy at times. Trying to manually pick a time point in a film in short succession usually winds up leading to an endlessly pre-buffering scenario until I refresh the tab.
The shipping is nice though, for when I order things.
With Netflix, if they don't stream what I want, I have to waste time with shipping a DVD.
With Amazon, they have a decent amount of content available for free, and if I want more, I can purchase (or in some cases rent).
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Theyre going to Kentucky because the shipper sent it there. Louisville is a major shipping hub.
Im pretty sure Newegg does not determine the route your package takes.
Copied from Slickdeals.net forums:
INSTRUCTIONS TO LOCK IN $79 RATE
Quote from orick:
If your current Prime membership is scheduled to expire on or after April 17th, and therefore would auto-renew at the $99 price, you can effectively lock in the $79 price by taking the following steps:
(1) Look up your Prime expiration date. (Let's say yours is June 11th.)
(2) Purchase a Prime Gift Membership here: https://www.amazon.com/gp/prim...
Set the delivery date as the date after your membership expires (in this case, June 12, 2014).
Enter your own e-mail address as the gift recipient. It is okay if this is the exact e-mail address already associated with your Amazon Prime account.
Place order (total will be $79).
(3) Turn off your Prime auto-renew. (End membership - at expiration)
(4) On the day after your membership expires, you will receive an e-mail from Amazon with the gift membership. Follow the instructions to apply it to your account.
This is a pretty straightforward way to save $20.
HOW TO CANCEL AMAZON PRIME AUTO RENEW:
Source: https://www.amazon.com/gp/help...
Quote :
Go to Manage Prime Membership https://www.amazon.com/gp/subs...
Review the renewal date listed on the left-hand side of the page.
If you currently have an Amazon Prime free trial, click Do Not Continue .
If you currently have a paid Amazon Prime membership, click End Membership .
Turn off your renewal using the link below the renewal date.
Note: Your membership will expire at the end of the current period. It will NOT end before your current paid subscription is over, nor can you cancel it early for a refund.
...that has recently moved to the USA, I am stunned by Amazon - I mean, I always knew it looked awesome but until I got here I didn't fully understand how much stuff was on there and how amazing it is to order basically anything.
Prime simply adds to my amazement - I can order (almost) anything and it will arrive (almost always) 2 days later. My shopping behaviour has changed significantly, to the point where I'll not buy something while it's right in front of me in a store because I can just have Amazon bring it to my house a few days later, saving me the effort of carrying it around or trying to get it home (I don't own a car yet).
Even at the new price it seems like a fantastic deal, and that's before I add the streaming video service, which I've also gotten a lot of use out of, despite having Netflix and Hulu.
I guess I am surprised by the people complaining about the price hike. I'm back in Australia right now for a couple weeks and from the wistful look everyone here gets when I explain how great it is, I know they'd happily pay twice the new fee just to never have to deal with the local retailers ever again.
Anyway, my 2c: this price raise would in no way dissuade me from renewing next year (if I'm still living in the usa).
Netflix is getting good at making recommendations.
The gay and lesbian section is now entirely full of movies about hot lesbians.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
I truly feel I get my money's worth out of this. The same can not said of my overpriced ISP and my overpriced cell phone service.