
Amazon Prime To Cost $99 A Year - czstrong
http://techcrunch.com/2014/03/13/amazon-prime-to-cost-99-a-year/
======
codegeek
For a heavy amazon user such as myself, not much difference. Still very happy
to continue using amazon. The math is simple. We probably have 5-10 shipments
on average a month coming in. Most of it is for our kids (newborn/1 year) and
includes subscriptions for milk, diapers etc. Just recently, my wife added
another subscription for stuff like toilet paper, napkins. Without amazon
prime, you might end up paying $3-5 on average. So that's almost $30-50 _per
month_. So over a year, you might pay almost $500 in shipping if you use
amazon like we do. So really a no-brainer. Not to mention the _super fast_
shipping (many times next day) and hassle free returns for the most part.

I hate driving to a store just to buy household items that require no brain or
thought process. Actually wait, I lied. I have even bought my TV, computer
desk on amazon recently. So our visit to the "stores" is now pretty much
limited to grocery. If I could, would buy everything online. Thanks Amazon
Prime, you have a long term member. Please continue to do the great things
that you do. Really waiting for the amazon grocery delivery service /fanboy

EDIT: I got curious and checked my last 6 months order history [0]. We had 73
orders in just last 6 months. For entire 2013, we had 85 orders.

[0] [http://imgur.com/5IvQtQG](http://imgur.com/5IvQtQG)

~~~
mhb
I'm considering whether it's worth it. I thought that, for orders over $25,
shipping was free anyway. With the amount of ordering you do, wouldn't there
be little advantage to having Prime, especially if you tried to aggregate your
items?

~~~
dbpatterson
Just as a side note, the over $25 shipping is the slowest they can find. So if
it is all books, it is media mail (which is _really_ slow), and otherwise it
is whatever the slowest that UPS does (3-5 days), vs two day shipping on
everything.

~~~
tzs
And if the slowest they can find is not slow enough, they will insert a delay.

It used to be that when you ordered something with free shipping, they shipped
it fairly quickly, so how long it took you to get it mostly depended on the
speed of the carrier. I would often get free shipped items in one or two days
if they came from the Amazon warehouse in my city.

Then they changed that. If I ordered something with free shipping that was
going to ship from the warehouse in my city, they would wait several days
before shipping it, and then the carrier would deliver it in one or two days,
just ensuring that the item would not arrive earlier than the advertised
arrival window.

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wdewind
While I would always wish to pay less for something, this is fine with me.
Prime is still such an amazing value for me, and Amazon has created so much
good will with me by being so awesome for so long that my reaction to this was
basically to shrug and say "what took so long?"

~~~
amykhar
Agreed. And, they haven't raised the prices in years.

~~~
lsaferite
Yeah, I checked the BLS site about the inflation from 2005-2014 and they are
just about on track to follow inflation. And if you consider they didn't
adjust in that entire period then the slight amount over inflation is
warranted (IMHO).

[http://data.bls.gov/cgi-
bin/cpicalc.pl?cost1=80&year1=2005&y...](http://data.bls.gov/cgi-
bin/cpicalc.pl?cost1=80&year1=2005&year2=2014)

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JohnTHaller
The value proposition for Amazon Prime has sunk quite a bit in the last year.
More and more products have multiple listings: one that's not Prime eligible,
and one that is Prime eligible but costs more. So, that two day free shipping
isn't free. Plus, living in NYC, a large percentage of the two day free
shipping items just get sent USPS anyway, so I'm not getting anything extra.

Amazon's Prime video service is similarly less of a value than it should be.
Unlike competing services like Hulu and Netflix, you can't watch Amazon Prime
videos on your Android phone or tablet (who cares, it's just the #1 mobile OS,
right?). Amazon's logic is to force you to use their proprietary tablets that
are based on Android but don't support Google's app store or Google's
services, meaning that a whole array of Android apps aren't compatible,
including big ones like Google Chrome and Firefox.

I'm ditching Amazon Prime at the end of my term in two months as a result.

~~~
jamesbritt
I've watched prime videos on my asus tablet just by using a browser. Seems to
work fine.

~~~
JohnTHaller
They work to varying degrees within the mobile browser. But the app, which
does a better job of displaying and caching the video as you play resulting in
a better image, is only available for iOS and Amazon's gimped Android tablets.

------
uptown
While I don't mind the Prime price-hike, I've begun noticing that Amazon's
prices are also increasing quite-dramatically. Cereal that used to cost $10
now costs over $18. Dog biscuits used to cost $11 are now over $22. Yet if you
compare Amazon's prices to Walmart, you can get these items close to Amazon's
old prices with $5 shipping (or free shipping over $50). I know there's been
considerable discussion about Amazon being able to "flip the switch" on
profitability, and maybe this is what we're seeing ... but even if many
consumers are trained to just "go to Amazon" for their shopping needs, if
prices rise by 100%, they're likely to seek discounts from competitors. I
definitely have.

~~~
icefox
Same here, and without the carrot of "free shipping" it is much easier to just
place an order elsewhere now.

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sephronius
I'm surprised they did not change the cost to $97 so that the cost would still
be a prime number.

------
tptacek
Prime could cost $199 and I still wouldn't have to think before subscribing.

~~~
desireco42
Pretty much same here and from what I hear, others feel the same.

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silviorelli
In Italy Prime costs just 9,99€. That's just a little more than a single
shipment. [http://www.amazon.it/gp/prime](http://www.amazon.it/gp/prime)

~~~
puzzlingcaptcha
Wow, that's great. In France and Germany it's 49€

~~~
darklajid
In Germany it used to be less and was only just increased - due to the
addition of the media services (Prime Instant Video or whatever it is called).

I'd guess that Italy doesn't offer access to that so far, so the price
difference isn't thaaaaat big.

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gdulli
I can't understand the idea of paying for shipping (whether it's annual or
per-shipment) when there's an option to get it for free. If I decided I
couldn't wait a few extra days to get the things I order, I feel I'd be
crossing a line of giving in too much to consumerism. Taking away impulse
buying is one of the better things about shopping online.

And the streaming services combined don't match what I get with cable, so I
found Prime hard to justify at the previous price point.

~~~
untog
_If I decided I couldn 't wait a few extra days to get the things I order, I
feel I'd be crossing a line of giving in too much to consumerism._

What about when, you know, you need something urgently? Last time I took a
long trip I ordered a backup battery for my cellphone three days before I
left. It was either use Amazon Prime or go to a store and pay twice as much.

~~~
lsaferite
This is one reason I love Prime. I frequently find myself ordering something I
need for a trip at the last minute.

Another instance was when our son needed to move from the carrier to a real
car seat. We ordered the new one late one night. The next day before noon it
was on our doorstep. And that was the 2-day shipping option.

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joesmo
The quality of this service is hit and miss. Sometimes they use a reliable
carrier like UPS, other times they send things via USPS so they can be stolen.
With this price increase, and their inability (I've asked multiple times) to
determine what carrier they will ship with and ship with a reliable carrier,
this has become a liability now that I wish I had not renewed. It's amazing to
me that Amazon would ship anything of value with such an unreliable carrier as
USPS.

~~~
lsaferite
I would dispute the unreliability of the USPS based on my own anecdotal
evidence. (FedEx/UPS was always iffy based on the driver)

But, assuming USPS is totally unreliable and packages go missing a lot, have
you ever had Amazon NOT either refund or replace the item?

I ask because I 'received' a package via UPS with a GoPro and when I got home
it was not there. I reported to Amazon and they shipped one out overnight to
replace the missing item. That's just one of multiple instances of Amazon
having an amazing policy regarding shipping and returns.

~~~
joesmo
No, Amazon has been great about refunding packages so far. Of course, the
packages stolen or opened by USPS in the last couple of weeks don't cost a
lot. I doubt they would be this gracious with say a Macbook or other high
price item, regardless of what their policy might be. USPS steals and opens
packages. Period. This has been the case for decades. They also do not respond
to any complaints.

~~~
lsaferite
Do you have any facts to back up that allegation or is it just you opinion?

I've only lost a few package via USPS in my entire life and none of them
recently.

I find myself far more likely to lose a package via UPS or FedEx.

~~~
joesmo
My (and others') packages being stolen is not my opinion--it is a verifiable
fact.

------
theboywho
The settings page to opt out of Amazon Prime is disabled.

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pidg
In the UK, Amazon have just raised the cost of Prime from £49 to £79, and
bundled in their (failing?) LoveFilm movie streaming service to excuse it.

A lot of people I know (including me) are cancelling as a result - not due to
the cost, but more the brazenness of it.

~~~
moron4hire
Probably not actually a lot of people. Most likely most people will continue
their subscriptions. And if you haven't cancelled already, I'd be surprised if
you actually did, even with what you said. It's just human nature. You'll put
it off. You'll forget about your rage daycamping. And 6 months from now, when
you accidentally look at your credit card statement, you'll say to yourself "I
really should cancel Prime" and go back to playing Flappy Bird instead.

------
nathanb
Most of the conversation here seems to be around shipping costs and speed. But
there are a number of other perks to Prime. Here are the ones that I use:

* Streaming video: not all the stuff I want to watch is on Prime, but when it is, it saves me a few bucks

* Lending library: ditto, for books. If I care deeply about permanently owning a book, I'll buy the physical copy.

* Kindle First (get a free book every month one month before its release): the books are not exactly destined to be timeless classics, but free reading material is nice and it helps me discover new authors

Any other important Prime perks I'm missing? The shipping plus the above go a
long way toward justifying the cost, to me at least.

------
ludicast
Still worth it to me. The quick free shipping is great and the streaming
educational kid's tv is a godsend. Plus for a family there are considerably
more packages coming down (tools, toys, etc.).

Seems like they crunched the numbers and realized that if $79 was worthwhile,
$99 would be too. Those who wouldn't find $99 worthwhile probably wouldn't be
using it anyway.

Still do think customers should be grandfathered when at all possible.

------
zengr
My activity has dropped on amazon significantly in the last 1year. The prices
on amazon.com have gone up, I always find something cheaper else where online
including shipping. And now this, just cancelled my subscription.

------
scottcanoni
This makes Newegg even more attractive with their $50 a year premier plan. If
you mostly buy computers or electronics (which I assume most of HN readers
do).

~~~
josefresco
Prime these days is less about fast shipping and more about the bundled
streaming/media services.

~~~
xur17
Amazon's streaming video is useless to me. It doesn't work on any of my
devices (android, linux, or chromecast), while Netflix does.

I made 2 online movie rentals within the past few weeks, and both times I
checked amazon, but then remembered that it doesn't work on my devices, and
ended up getting it from Google Play. They're missing out on purchases, and
getting people used to using other services - not a great way to set yourself
up for the future...

~~~
dnissley
Yeah, I can't quite figure that out. Is their kindle business really so
valuable that they are willing to cannibalize their media services?

Just doesn't seem to make sense to race for device adoption in a world where
everybody else seems to be racing for broader platform adoption.

I guess I've never been all that impressed with their offering in this area
though, especially video, so maybe they're simply recognizing that it isn't as
valuable.

