Amazon is Raising the Price of Prime Monthly Memberships by Nearly 20 Percent (recode.net)

Amazon is boosting the price of its monthly Prime membership fees for new and existing members by nearly 20%. The online retailer said Friday its annual membership fee of $99 will not change. From a report: The increase comes less than two years after Amazon first introduced the monthly payment option as a way to attract new Prime members who either couldn't afford the annual membership of $99, which is not increasing, or didn't want to commit to using the service continuously. Prime is the engine at the center of the Amazon commerce machine -- Prime members buy from Amazon more frequently than non-Prime members and also spend more, hence why Amazon introduced the monthly option to lure new members. So if the company is raising the fee, you can bet that it discovered the current $10.99 was just not sustainable.

Comments

Not sustainable?

[Anonymous Coward]

Or they just like money... Is that possibility really too crazy to consider?

Re:Not sustainable?

[Kenja]

What seems to have been happening, is that people would order a pile of stuff and find that paying for one month of Prime cost less than shipping. So they would sign up and then cancel.

Re:Not sustainable?

[obenchainr]

As soon as I read the post, I assumed this was what was happening. Especially for something larger, the shipping will likely be more than $10, so signing up for Prime to get, say, a lawn mower or something big delivered (especially around the holidays) and then cancelling again would be a fiscally smart way to (ab)use the system.

Long-term lock-in

[Anonymous Coward]

Sustainable my ass. Now that they've got people hooked Amazon wants to make sure they don't leave again and lock them in for a full year.

Bonus side effect: they get to charge people who cannot afford a lump sum of 100$ more. Being poor is expensive.

Re:Long-term lock-in

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think you understand just how slim some people's margins are. Something might come up one month that requires that $10 you were going to put into Prime (and $10 from groceries, and $10 from something else, and $10 from something else, and..).

If you still want to argue that Prime is a luxury not an entitlement, by all means go ahead. But at least try to argue sensibly.

Free Market at Work

[gti_guy]

No one is forcing you to use Prime. What is this even a story?

Re:Why does anyone need prime?

[cayenne8]

I cant figure that part out.

My packages will get here when they get here.

And usually they arrive much sooner than the estimate.

I will never pay for Prime.

I find a lot of value in it.

I do a LOT of shopping on Amazon, I rarely go to brick and mortar stores, and I like the 2x day shipping. I have patience for 2 days.

I like the options I find on Amazon Prime that comes with it.

I like that I get free eBooks monthly.

You get some free storage on amazon cloud.

I enjoy the Amazon Music, I use that to stream in my car off my cell phone.

There's other stuff I've not tried yet, something called Twitch.tv you get free.

I believe there are some other things, but I find these all to be a big value to me....

Here are some links here and here....

And all that for a mere $99/yr?

Hell, I've had single night bar tabs that much....

Unreasonable conclusion.

[plague911]

"So if the company is raising the fee, you can bet that it discovered the current $10.99 was just not sustainable."

Talk about jumping to conclusions. There are a myriad of reasons why the company could be choosing to raise its price and dozens of factors at play. Yet the author picked one, because "reasons." There likely is a analysis out there 100 pages thick about the implications of rising the price yet you think the answer is of-course a one word statement of "sustainability."

Re:The new price

[cayenne8]

It wasn't worth it at the old price. Their streaming service is substandard and the "free" shipping is just added on to the price of the item.

I find for the small sum of $99/yr, it is VERY much worth it to me.

I like the 2x day shipping, and I do most of my shopping there online, rather than brick and mortar.

I really have been using Amazon Music to stream in my car lately.

I like the free eBooks I get monthly for reading.

I believe there is also free online storage you get for photos and something called Twitch.tv too, but I"ve not explored those yet.

I do shop around online for best prices, but most of the time, I find it at Amazon, and I have just enough patience for most things to get here in 2x days.

Their video streaming content is getting better, I have both it and Netflix....Netflix seems to have less and less and Amazon seems to be starting to have more and more movies I want to watch these days.

Again....$99 a year is nothing, as I mentioned elsewhere, I've had bar tabs that high, so for all that entertainment AND "free" 2x day shipping, it is more than worth it to me.