PSA: Amazon Will Increase Price of Prime To $119 (cnbc.com)

EzInKy writes: Effective on May 11, Jeff Bezos says the price of Prime membership will increase to $119 from $99. Now, as much as I have enjoyed the free shipping over these many years, I just don't believe that benefit outweighs the increased cost of membership. Existing Prime members will have until June 16 to renew their membership at the current $99 price-point, notes CNBC. In its first quarter earnings call, Amazon attributed the price increase to the service's rising costs, noting that this was its first price hike since March 2014.

Comments

$10/month

[indytx]

So, $10/month for unlimited, free 2-day delivery which often includes Sunday delivery along with streaming video is too much for the poster?

Re:$10/month

[Desprez]

Is this surprising? That different people have different needs? If you don't order that often, it's a net loss.

I tried prime a while back when it cost even less, and it wasn't worth it for me. Their streaming content was mostly available elsewhere, and their interface was much worse than others, while constantly trying to shove additional-cost content in my face.

Re: $10/month

[AmiMoJo]

Prime is one of those services that relies on most people not getting their money's worth from it. It basically amortises the cost of two day shipping over everyone using it. Some will win, some will lose.

In the UK it's worse than that though, because most items eligible for Prime cost more anyway. It usually costs the same to buy the non-Prime version and just pay for next day shipping on top.

I get the impression that the selection of stuff available in the US is much better too, especially since they bought that grocery chain.

Re:$10/month

[registrations_suck]

Amazon says the +$20 is due to the increased budgets for content creation, acquisition and delivery. Seems reasonable that if that is the case, then only the people who want those services pay the +$20.

Personally, I watch the "free" Prime Video because it is there anyway. I don't give a shit about it. If Amazon offered Prime without it, at a savings of $20 or $30 or more, fuck yeah, I'd sign up for that "Prime Lite".

Re: $10/month

[Holi]

Interesting you say that. Since Amazon has been relying on their own logistics in my area I have found that their delivery has gotten far worse.
Overnight orders delayed by several days(FBA not SFP so no blaming 3rd parties) .
Prime orders not making the 2 day delivery time
Orders of Prime listed items defaulting to non prime sellers , often with no warning.

I make no claim how it is in your neck of the woods but around here, even with a warehouse in spitting distance, Prime seems to be losing its luster.

Re: $10/month

[Miamicanes]

Power & Water is a bit of a reach, as is healthcare SERVICE. Prescription drugs, however, are ripe territory for poaching. Amazon has the capital resources to do things like find foreign suppliers for semi-commodity drugs sold in the US whose supply has tightened due to mergers & acquisitions, then pay to get those foreign suppliers FDA-approved in return for making them beholden to Amazon thereafter. Walgreens & CVS have lots of market power, but Amazon can out-spend them on capital investments with barely a blip on their balance sheet beyond the next quarter.

Re: $10/month

[Wycliffe]

Prime is one of those services that relies on most people not getting their money's worth from it. It basically amortises the cost of two day shipping over everyone using it. Some will win, some will lose.

They probably have a few people who don't get their money's worth but that's not their main business plan. By having an upfront sunk cost, they are actually hoping that once you have a membership that you order everything from them. That's exactly what most people I know who have prime do. That are ordering almost everything from amazon so amazon breaks even on the shipping and makes it up with the increased volume.

Re:$10/month

[sexconker]

Digital items are a fixed cost that is amortized among many millions of existing subscribers.

Nope. For content they license they have to pay per subscriber or viewer. They may negotiate a flat fee for a limited duration license available to all, but the price negotiation includes such things as "How many subscribers do you have?" and "How many people watched our show last year?".

And for the content they produce, well, Jeremy Clarkson doesn't come cheap.

IF you don't buy a lot at Amazon, and don't stream

[Salgak1]

. . . probably not worth it.

On the other hand, if you're like **our** household, buy quite a bit, and quite often, from Amazon, and stream their Included-in-Prime video content, 10 bucks a month is dirt cheap.

So the question is, does Prime meet your needs for the price charged? IF so, get it. IF not, don't. It's THAT simple.

The devil in the details

[jmd]

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/amazon-earnings-more-than-double-sending-stock-toward-record-highs-2018-04-26

From the article: "Amazon.com Inc.’s massive growth just grew even more massive in the first quarter, as the e-commerce giant reported Thursday that profit more than doubled and sales continued to accelerate, and the company announced an increase in Prime subscription prices that should add even more."

Profits double and Amazon raises Prime membership fees. Why? Because they can.

Re:The devil in the details

[SlaveToTheGrind]

Just to be clear, the number of profit dollars more than doubled, not the profit margin . Revenue went up significantly as well, as you can imagine.

Net profit went from ~2% last year to ~3% this year. Unexpected oopsies can soak that up real quick.

Another fun way to think about it is that $1.6B net profit was about two tenths of one percent of Amazon's $738B market cap. Increase that by another 10-20x and they can actually start thinking about paying a dividend.

Re:IF you don't buy a lot at Amazon, and don't str

[turp182]

My wife stumbled upon our order history in Amazon recently, we place a Prime order about every 3 days (for at least the past 2 years).

Prime is worth every penny for us.

We do watch more Netflix than Amazon streaming, but Amazon is where we purchase things rather than our crappy cable provider - AT&T.

Now we know why

[goombah99]

SpaceX had to raise prices for NASA,