Amazon Prime Fee to increase to $119

[WanderingWinoZ]

Bleh....they are making SO MUCH MONEY!

I doubt some (many?) people will cancel, but I can see it detering new signups.

I wish you could select what you wanted (shipping, music, movies, etc.) and not have to pay for it all if you don't use it all.


www.recode.net/2018/4/26/17287476/amazon-prime-new-price-increase-119-99-dollars

[icedcoffee]

On the one hand, shipping is super expensive so I'm not surprised. Somebody needs to pay for the cost of shipping the numerous packages people order each day as Amazon has become a replacement for ever stepping into a store. On the other hand, Amazon is rolling in the dough so clearly they don't NEED to increase it.

I've never been a Prime member and this won't change that.

[1confused1]

I'm sad about this, but I won't cancel my membership. I use Amazon all the time, but why does it need to be such a large increase?

[abs]

I'm strongly considering canceling Prime. I mostly use it at Christmas time and to order my kid new books. It's not longer cost effective for me.

[mrsd2006]

I'm considering cancelling too. I rarely order anything that i need in a rush, and don't use many of the other included features (other than prime music)

[goldengirlz]

Apr 27, 2018 11:43:02 GMT -5 icedcoffee said:

On the one hand, shipping is super expensive so I'm not surprised. Somebody needs to pay for the cost of shipping the numerous packages people order each day as Amazon has become a replacement for ever stepping into a store. On the other hand, Amazon is rolling in the dough so clearly they don't NEED to increase it.

I've never been a Prime member and this won't change that.

Except this isn’t a business strategy. The only thing that companies care about is what the market will bear.

And $119/year is still only $10/month. That’s what a premium subscription costs for Spotify alone.

[krystee]

We watch Prime TV a lot for DS, so I don't think we'll cancel. We are more likely to cancel cable and just rely on Prime more. What I do want to do is read up on all the Prime benefits again and make sure I take advantage of more of them.

[bex]

We will renew. We use the movies/TV shows available, the music (not as much as we should, but we use it), and the shipping. I know that often you can do super saver shipping for free, so maybe I'll start tracking how often I would use that vs the 2 day shipping and see if it remains to be worth it.

We get our dog food from there once a month so I figure we make money on the cost of shipping that thing alone (35 or 40 pounds.)


What I am trying to be better about are my random Amazon purchases. I used to like it bc I spent less than if I walked into a store (go to a store to buy TP, come out with a cart full of stuff, ha) but now I found I am buying just as much random crap on amazon. So I need to cut back on that stuff.

[marie]

You can share Prime. I split it with my Mom. We even set up separate subscribe and save delivery schedules to two different addresses and have our own payment information on file. $119 is a lot, but not a lot at all for me to split.

We have split a membership for probably 4-5 years and only one time I accidentally shipped something to her instead of me :-)

[pixy0stix]

Apr 27, 2018 11:43:02 GMT -5 icedcoffee said:

On the one hand, shipping is super expensive so I'm not surprised. Somebody needs to pay for the cost of shipping the numerous packages people order each day as Amazon has become a replacement for ever stepping into a store. On the other hand, Amazon is rolling in the dough so clearly they don't NEED to increase it.

I've never been a Prime member and this won't change that.

Except that most of the venders build isn’t the price to ship in their prime prices.

[wildrice]

Huh. Mine just renewed earlier this month, so I guess I lucked out getting the lower rate.

I use Amazon Prime almost daily (mostly for streaming/music, but frequently for online purchases) so I will probably never cancel.

[secretlyevil]

Our prime auto renewed earlier this month. It's definitely giving me pause for next year. I don't think H would know what to do with himself without it though, we've been a prime member since its inception.

[downtoearth]

Apr 27, 2018 12:28:49 GMT -5 pixy0stix said:

Apr 27, 2018 11:43:02 GMT -5 icedcoffee said:

On the one hand, shipping is super expensive so I'm not surprised. Somebody needs to pay for the cost of shipping the numerous packages people order each day as Amazon has become a replacement for ever stepping into a store. On the other hand, Amazon is rolling in the dough so clearly they don't NEED to increase it.

I've never been a Prime member and this won't change that.

Except that most of the venders build isn’t the price to ship in their prime prices.

Which is hard to believe sometimes, but then I think about quantity, right? They must get quantity discounts b/c things like dog food and cleaning supplies are cheaper there than in our local big-box stores.

[pixy0stix]

Apr 27, 2018 12:36:04 GMT -5 downtoearth said:

Apr 27, 2018 12:28:49 GMT -5 pixy0stix said:

Except that most of the venders build isn’t the price to ship in their prime prices.

Which is hard to believe sometimes, but then I think about quantity, right? They must get quantity discounts b/c things like dog food and cleaning supplies are cheaper there than in our local big-box stores.

Yes. They’re selling them at pennies per item, hoping to get money from selling a lot of it. So take a costume prop like fake teeth that wholesale is $1. Retail would be $3. The amazon sellers will sell at $1.50 and sell 5x what a physical retail store would sell, thereby making a profit.

[katieinthecity]

Ehhhh. We watch a ton of Amazon Prime shows, get multiple packages a week with "free" shipping, and almost exclusively use Amazon music for streaming. And at $119 a year it's still less than we pay for Netflix or Hulu annually. And WAY less than we pay for cable or our phones.

[Deleted]

Jeff Bezos already owns my soul. Do we really think I'm going to take it back over $30? LOL.

[pantsparty]

Worth it for the shipping alone. Plus I use Prime music and watch Prime TV.

[pantsparty]

Apr 27, 2018 12:40:49 GMT -5 pixy0stix said:

Apr 27, 2018 12:36:04 GMT -5 downtoearth said:

Which is hard to believe sometimes, but then I think about quantity, right? They must get quantity discounts b/c things like dog food and cleaning supplies are cheaper there than in our local big-box stores.

Yes. They’re selling them at pennies per item, hoping to get money from selling a lot of it. So take a costume prop like fake teeth that wholesale is $1. Retail would be $3. The amazon sellers will sell at $1.50 and sell 5x what a physical retail store would sell, thereby making a profit.

The Amazon seller platform is interesting. H and I have a specific product manufactured that we sell on Amazon. To be a Prime seller, you're assessed multiple fees:

-A monthly fee just to be a Prime seller
-A percentage of the retail cost, depending on the product category
-A warehousing fee, since if you're a Prime seller, you're required to send your product to Amazon, and they handle all fulfillment

When we started selling our product last year, it was really profitable, because we were in a 15% category. Then they moved us into a 35% category, which you can't rebut, and now we make, like, $2 per product sold, and the retail is $21. For some people if they can sell enough volume, this is worth it. For us, we're just going to hold on for now and see if it picks up again over the holiday season, but right now it's not profitable. And there is software you can purchase and people who constantly look for "gaps" so they can find a product cheaper and resell it on Amazon. It seems like a lot of work to me, but I guess these people don't have to have traditional jobs, so it's worth it to them.

All this to say a lot of sellers are beholden to Amazon's traffic. And Amazon controls the fees and often times, product exposure. 

[Champagne Supernova]

I'm torn about this because I curbed my shopping habits this year so I don't buy that much stuff anymore, don't have time to watch the shows on Prime and read books so I'm not really taking advantage of the Prime membership anymore.

I might just ask my brother to add me to his just to get the prime shipping.

[mbcdefg]

I can’t remember the last time a Prime order actually got to me within the promised amount of time.

[suburbanzookeeper]

We use Amazon Photos, Music, Video, Prime shipping, and the Kindle lending library... oh, and I'm an Amazon Seller. Amazon owns my soul. The price increase doesn't really phase me.

[hopecounts]

I split prime with my Mom so we aren’t likely to drop it over this but I’ll have to check with her.

We use prime video pretty much daily for DD and I watch it frequently as well the cost is in line with Netflix so worth it to us.

I don’t use prime shipping as much but right now am using it for my smarty pants prenatal vitamins which are $5 cheaper on amazon than at Target (only place locally that carries them) so that savings will balance it out.
We mainly use the shipping for DD’s bday and Christmas.
I will occasionally use it to ship a present to my goddaughter who lives back home but that’s pretty rare.

[bittybomb]

I'm kind of annoyed by it, to be honest. I started with prime in the beginning and was also annoyed with the jump to $99 annually. I am kind of tempted to cancel it. I think I would save a boat load by not relying so heavily on prime.

[andwhat]

Apr 27, 2018 12:54:23 GMT -5 @angryharpy said:

Jeff Bezos already owns my soul. Do we really think I'm going to take it back over $30? LOL.

I just said Jeff Bezos gets my entire paycheck already. I get a step increase, he gets more. LOL

I did wonder why they started putting how much money I have saved this year by having Prime on the page though. Now I know.

[ebeth]

they've got unlimited photo storage to include my entire photo library with prime

that + 2 day shipping + daniel tiger + $4/mo for my wapo subscription is worth the $119

[claudiajean]

There’s not an easy way for me to download the 40000 pictures I have backed up on their so I think I’ll be with prime forever.

[pugz]

I tried to quit with the last price jump but lasted all of a month.

[simpsongal]

I already decided to cancel before the announcement. We use target shipping and frequent Costco. I haven’t been thrilled with prime shipping or prices lately.

[One Girl In All The World]

Ditto some others above - we order a lot of stuff from there, plus Prime Video (not so much music) and my Wapo subscription. And my ILs use our prime account so in consideration of all the shit they do for us, it's a very small token to cover that for them. It's annoying but meh.

[spindle92]

Even if they charged $500 a year, I would still save money by being a prime member.
My Amazon addiction is bad.