The cost of joining Amazon Prime is rising. Before signing up, consider if you'll take advantage of the services it offers
Amazon announced today that it will raise the annual price of its Prime membership from $99 to $119. The new price takes effect on May 11 for new members and on June 16 for those renewing. The company says it will send an email to existing members with renewal details in May.
Amazon made the announcement during its earnings call, explaining that the new price is justified and pointing out that the last increase in its membership fee was in 2014. Recently, the company has expanded Prime Free Same-Day and Prime Free One-Day delivery to more than 8,000 cities and towns and plans to keep expanding. It has also increased the number of items eligible for free two-day shipping in recent years from 20 million to more than 100 million items.
Brian Olsavsky, the company's chief financial officer, said that the cost of Prime is high for the company, especially with the shipping options and digital benefits that it offers. The price hike comes a few months after Amazon increased the monthly membership cost by 18 percent, from $10.99 per month to $12.99 per month.
Earlier in the week, Amazon announced a new service—packages can get delivered to customers' cars—as long as they have a Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet, GMC, or Volvo made in 2015 or later. The cars also need to have an active OnStar or Volvo On Call account.
The new service is available to Prime customers in 37 cities and was created to help prevent package theft.
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6 comments:
Other companies like Walmart and Bestbuy are now offering free shipping and delivery and free deliver if you pick the item up at their store. I am a prime member, but I thing the price is a little steep.
I might decide to cancel my prime membership when it comes up for renewal this year. I thought a hundred was bad, but this is ridiculous!
This is what corporations do when they become arrogant and think they rule the marketplace. Like Comcast with their rates. I cut my cable because of this.
I am already debating...this solves my problem im dumping it
You poor people are funny. I spent more than the fee on just drinks last night.
Wow thats impressive. Wish i could be just like you. Tell us whats it like to be so wealthy.
What a gimmick! I can't believe anyone falls for it, unless they PLAN on many purchases from Amazon for a year. All Amazon Prime is, is prepaid shipping for shipments you may, or may not, order from Amazon. You either have to order enough to recover the prepaid costs, or you're just out the money to Amazon, for nothing. Bezos is laughing all the way to his private vault!
My friend has this and he does all my ordering for me and I get the stuff shipped right to me from amazon for free cuz he has it. I guess you can get stuff shipped to other addresses if you are a Prime Member.
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