Cost of Amazon Prime increasing by 20%

[Paul_Heery]

Amazon has announced that the price of Prime membership will be increased 20% to $119. I have had a Prime account for years, but this has caused me to take a look at what I buy from Amazon and evaluate if the cost is worthwhile.

Today, I downloaded a list of all of my transactions for 2017 and 2018 with Amazon and analyzed my usage of Prime services and the costs involved. I have come to the conclusion that I don’t think it is worth it for me.

Shipping costs:
I rarely need something in two days. While free 2 day shipping is nice, it is not really needed. Going forward if I batch the things that I need in a single order, I will get free shipping if the order value is over $35. If I need something quickly, I could pay Amazon a shipping fee or source it from another vendor or locally.

Prime Video
There are some new original TV shows that I would miss. But, there is nothing that I would pay for. I was hoping that the Grand Tour would be much better than it is.

Prime Music
There are several free alternatives that offer much of the same content that is free with Prime. Won’t miss Prime Music at all.

Even if I spend $100 on shipping charges with Amazon, I will come out ahead.

What are your thoughts on the price increase?

[stevej37]

To me...it's still worth the price hike.
I use Prime video a lot. I compare it to Netflix..with that only, it almost pays for itself.
The 2 day free shipping is very nice..I buy a lot more from Amazon for that reason.
Prime Music is not worth it IMO
I'll continue with the price hike.

[GH85Carrera]

Yea the shopping and on-line purchases are regular for me. The Amazon video is a big part of my watching. I need to catch up on Bosch, and some other shows.

[Nickshu]

Still WAY worth it to me. Check the cost of 2 day air UPS/Fedex shipping. That $119 would be paid off by ordering 3-4 items.

[OldSpool87]

I suspect they had the price originally as a loss. It gives them a good study on customer behavior and where to scale the business I.e video, music, etc. amazon has a customer obsession as a model and will try anything to get deeper wallet share but always with customer experience in mind. They want to make so easy that there’s really no other reason to look around. Cost is a secondary concern.

I think it’s still a fair price.

[mepstein]

My family uses our one account. Kids in college. We’ve saved hundreds on shipping. Probably more.

[jrj3rd]

Originally Posted by mepstein

My family uses our one account. Kids in college. We’ve saved hundreds on shipping. Probably more.

Same here. One still left in college so we actually have a student account (saves 50%)

[Scott R]

Maybe the movie selections will get better.

[Nickshu]

Originally Posted by Scott R

Maybe the movie selections will get better.

You mean the free movies? I find the overall selection (including pay titles) to be excellent.

[Scott R]

Originally Posted by Nickshu

You mean the free movies? I find the overall selection (including pay titles) to be excellent.

Free is relative really, some portion of my $99 goes to it.

[Nickshu]

Originally Posted by Scott R

Free is relative really, some portion of my $99 goes to it.

Lol that sounds like something my Dad would say. Yes for sure of course.

[island911]

Amazon runs their numbers just like Sears did back in the day.

And just like consumers do constantly.

Amazon will, at some point in the future, cross a threshold of price/service and consumers will go on to other options.

IMO they started getting wobbly a while back.

meh, perhaps AI will save them.

or doom them.

[widebody911]

Originally Posted by island911

Amazon runs their numbers just like Sears did back in the day.

70+% of their profit comes from AWS, so...

[island911]

70% from web service ?

damn!

I wonder if Sears leveraged their catalog printing services.

[Scott R]

Originally Posted by island911

70% from web service ?

damn!

I wonder if Sears leveraged their catalog printing services.

It's "web" only in name really. They are providing compute resources of all types, servers, storage, networking, really anything you find in an on premise datacenter in "the Amazon cloud." Their customer base is massive, private and government both domestic and foreign it's just of a size that's almost unimaginable.

[biosurfer1]

From 79 to 99 wasn't a concern to me. Going up to 119 will at least make me look at the numbers, which is something I don't think Amazon wants people doing. Not sure if I would if it were only to 109, but probably wouldn't.

[aigel]

After everyone is hooked (including me) they are starting to make money now and turning the screws. Trust that they have excellent research in how far they can turn before it would hurt their business. I have branched out to Walmart and Ebay to make sure they aren't jacking up their prices.

The prime is worth it for movies for me. No cable or Netflix. A pay for flick is 3-4 bucks which we often get credited by choosing slower shipping options on supplies we do not need urgently.

Hope that someone else is stepping it up. Walmart is okay for supplies they sell, but not good for other sellers.

G

[epbrown]

Originally Posted by Paul_Heery

Even if I spend $100 on shipping charges with Amazon, I will come out ahead.

What are your thoughts on the price increase?

For me, Amazon Prime is mostly a video service like Netflix. If I subscribed to Netflix at $8/month it'd be $96 a year, so I'm getting quite a bit for my extra $23 with the additional perks from Prime (I've definitely saved more than $23 in shipping). My sole gripe is I think Kindle Unlimited should be included - Prime members get music and video, but books is pretty limited. I'd like more reading options, or have them stop nagging me about paying for Kindle Unlimited.

Btw, I've still got Netflix, as my brother added me to his account.

[WPOZZZ]

I buy a lot of stuff from Amazon. The free shipping more than pays for the Prime fee. Ordered 2 tires from Amazon last month with free shipping. Tirerack would have charged $112 for that.

[Baz]

$20 is nothing in this day and age.

Nothing.

Don't even know why this is being questioned, TBH.....