
Amazon Raises Annual Prime Price 20% to $119 - sndean
https://www.wsj.com/articles/amazon-raises-annual-prime-price-20-to-119-1524782720
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eganist
Nope.

• Prime Video is losing selection to "channels" that require extra payment _on
its own platform._

• Prime shipping is no longer certain to be two days.

• Those which _are_ assured to arrive within two days don't always do so, but
I never get a credit for that delay against my prime membership for a failure
to meet their SLA even though I'm supposedly covered with some sort of
guarantee.

• Prime shipping is no longer certain to source from Amazon warehouses.

• "Add-on items" — items that don't ship alone because they're too
small/cheap.

• "Prime Pantry" — select non-perishable everyday items which inexplicably
don't qualify for prime shipping even though variants of the same item may be
sold under regular Prime rules.

• _And worst of all:_ Amazon commingles Amazon-sourced with FBA merchandise.
I've had numerous issues with counterfeits from "sold by Amazon" listings in
the last two years because of this.

Disabled auto renewal. This broke the camel's back.

~~~
matte_black
You are forgetting one of the biggest benefits: The Amazon Prime VISA card
with 5% cash back on all Amazon and Whole Foods purchases.

If you are not using this card, you are leaving money on the table. This
benefit is easily worth an increase of 20 bucks a year. You will still come
out ahead.

~~~
opencl
Not everyone spends >$2200 per year on Amazon purchases. I do not come
anywhere near that.

~~~
matte_black
The great thing about Amazon is they have tons of whales. If you buy
_everything_ through Amazon it’s easy to end up with yearly spends north of
$10k

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tbatchelli
When thinking about the cost of Prime, you need to think also of the cost of
defaulting to Amazon for many purchases and not doing any price comparison. I
have found that now it's fairly common to find the same item significantly
cheaper elsewhere, but I just go with Amazon because of the convenience. But
this convenience has a higher cost than just Prime, imho

~~~
hrabago
I have noticed this with our purchases as well. Because of Prime, most of our
online purchases are Amazon-first. Only when they don't carry it do we check
elsewhere.

We recently cancelled because of customer service issues with Amazon, but we
are close to signing up again. I'm on the fence, but my wife just assumes
we'll be back on the wagon, that it's our 'default state'. It makes me wonder
whether that by itself is good or bad.

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WheelsAtLarge
I like the idea Prime but slowly and surely Amazon is pricing people out. At
$119 I have to think that it might not be worth being part of it. Do I really
order that much from Amazon that paying $119 ahead of any purchases is worth
it? I don't think so.

~~~
benburleson
Prime provides much more value than the order shipping benefit, which is part
of their reason for the increase.

~~~
ams6110
What value is that?

~~~
chrisseaton
Prime Video for example, which is their streaming video service, including
original content.

~~~
ams6110
Maybe for some. I never watch anything on it.

~~~
chrisseaton
Ok? Not every service has to be worth it for everyone does it? I don't spend
much money on skateboards to be honest but I don't see the need to ask
sarcastic questions about their business model just because it doesn't apply
to me.

~~~
desk_rabbit
Ok, let's imagine for a second that I offer a service. I will deliver any item
you want to your door in two days, and I will also supply you with as much
manure as you want.

Most people would like the first benefit more than the second. If you're a
farmer, maybe you want the manure, but to most people that "benefit" doesn't
apply. Is my average customer sarcastic in claiming that all my service offers
is two day shipping? No. That's just the only part of the service they would
ever care about.

I would bet that most prime customers are interested specifically in the
shipping, so to them the fringe benefits are irrelevant.

~~~
chrisseaton
Ok so you could say 'I don't see the value in Prime Video myself', rather than
asking 'what value', which makes people think you are genuinely asking a
question.

~~~
desk_rabbit
I'm not the person who made the original comment, just someone who found your
response silly.

~~~
chrisseaton
I'm using the generic 'you' as an indefinite pronoun.

~~~
desk_rabbit
Fair enough. Then I would say that when "I" said, "Maybe for some. I never
watch anything on it," "I" had already acknowledged that not everyone saw
things the same way as "me."

Again - I bet you that most people care about the shipping and nothing else.
That is an important fact when considering the value prime offers.

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eigen-vector
It makes sense if you compare to other contemporary subscription services.

Spotify is ~$120 per year Netflix is ~$110-$130 per year

Amazon Prime comes with a plethora of auxillary benefits like Amazon Video and
Music, Prime day deals, magazine subscriptions, and many more that I'm
probably leaving out. Considering all this, $119 per year doesn't seem like
all that much. It's still less than ten bucks a month.

~~~
tfehring
Prime Music is worthless because it's not comprehensive enough to replace a
better service like Spotify. Same goes for Prime Video - I haven't seen
anything worthwhile that isn't available on Netflix, unless you include titles
that you have to pay for separately anyway.

And I've never found anything worth buying on Prime Day - it seems like a
marketing gimmick crossed with an opportunity for Amazon to clear out the junk
at the back of their warehouses.

I like the convenience of Prime shipping, so I've tried to justify keeping it,
but I just can't. It might be worth it if PrimeNow had a better selection in
my area, or if Fresh were (1) available in my area and (2) not ludicrously
expensive. As it stands, I don't get my money's worth from Prime shipping, and
none of the other benefits seem to be worth using.

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genericone
From the comments so far, I just can't shake this feeling of being astroturfed
to support the price increase... Is it just me?

~~~
nickreese
I completely agree. The prime video library is junk and besides shipping our
household gets very little value out of prime.

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jonheller
It appears I'm the only person so far here who absolutely does not mind a
small increase in price for Amazon Prime.

\- I still get everything in two days.

\- I never get third party merchandise accidentally.

\- Amazon has, bar none, the best customer support and return experience of
any company I've ever ordered from. Most of the time they just tell me to keep
the product. If there were any issues at all, I just mention that and the
return is free. Otherwise I will pay the small return shipping cost if I just
decided I didn't like something.

Every now and then I have to visit a physical store for something and I wonder
how much of my life I've saved ordering from Amazon, especially after I signed
up for Prime which made it much more reasonable to buy pretty much everything
from there.

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robotmay
I not only cancelled my Prime subscription last year, but I also bugged the
hell out of Amazon customer support until they refunded me for the entire year
as well. Word of warning; they classify really inane things as a "use" of your
Prime service. 1 Amazon Music MP3 play == 1 parcel delivered. They have a
limit of how many times you can "use" your service and still be refunded. I
did eventually get a full refund, however.

Prime was great when it launched here in the UK, now it's so unreliable in
many places that it's completely worthless. The primary reason I used it (and
I used it from the very first day) was for the 1-day postage. I think it's 2
days in the US, but frankly our country is pretty tiny so it's not exactly
optimistic to do 1 day delivery when the Royal Mail can get me a parcel at 9am
in South Wales that was posted at 5pm in the Scottish Highlands the day
before.

I had a single parcel delivered on time in the past year, all the rest would
be at least a day late. I live on what is essentially a ring-road of Cardiff,
and it's insanely easy to deliver to me. There's one of the older Amazon
depots within about 45 minutes of my flat, and I think a new one over near
Bristol now.

My apartment block has banned Amazon's couriers from leaving parcels with the
concierge, because they would rock up, pretend to deliver parcels/eat their
lunch, then dump 30 parcels in the concierge office. So now they just dump
them outside doors, indicating when you aren't home. They can't even deliver
to the Amazon Lockers nearby within the delivery window, and the lockers are
nearly always full because we have so few other options.

I've spent the past few months actively seeking to purchase everything via
alternative vendors in the UK, and overall, I don't miss Amazon in the
slightest. Although eBuyer also sucks (no weekend customer services, wut).

I'm so glad Waterstones is back on form here too; it feels quite poetic to
ditch Amazon for its original purpose as a bookstore. Good riddance to them.

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InitialLastName
Open question: what are other options to Amazon? I don't live in an area that
has easy access to big box stores, so I order lots of what I use online. Who
provides a good service? I'm not a fan of Walmart either, and I'll happily use
Newegg for tech and Chain Reaction for bike parts, but for the generic
ephemera of everyday life I'm at a total loss. Suggestions?

~~~
tfehring
I've been using Target a lot lately and have been pretty happy with it. Free
2-day shipping on pretty much everything with their store credit card, with
the option to painlessly pick stuff up in-store if I need it the same day. (I
actually prefer this to PrimeNow since the selection is terrible in my area.)
Variety is nowhere near the level of Amazon's, but the quality control is way
better - I consistently get new, unopened items that match their descriptions,
which is more than I can say for Amazon.

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floatingatoll
Amazon’s KB article:
[https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=...](https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=202213110)

> Starting May 11, 2018, new members will be charged $119/year for an annual
> Prime membership and $59/year for an annual Prime Student membership.

> Starting June 16, 2018, existing Prime members with an annual membership
> will renew at a rate of $119/year. Prime Student members with an annual
> membership will renew at a rate of $59/year.

> Monthly Prime members continue to pay $12.99 per month. Monthly Prime
> Student members continue to pay $6.49 per month.

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zitterbewegung
I wish amazon would have a prime version of prime that would only show items
that aren’t fufilled by other companies. I would pay 30% more for that. I’m on
the fence on canceling prime already. The value ad is diminishing .

~~~
paulcole
I think you’d be amazed how few items are ONLY shipped and sold by Amazon
themselves. And if you only want to see Amazon’s offer, it’s not much better.

If it’s coming from an Amazon warehouse and has multiple sellers, you have no
way of knowing who supplied the product you’re receiving. Could be Amazon,
could be some random dude.

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masonic
Given how often Amazon has shipped me counterfeit merchandise, I should be
allowed to pay for Prime with counterfeit money.

~~~
fiter
With Amazon I feel confident that my credit card information will not be
stolen, but I do not have the same level of confidence about getting
legitimate products.

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sbov
Still worth it for me, especially with the Amazon Prime Rewards credit card.
Amazon is still usually the best price online, and 5% for Amazon purchases is
hard to beat.

~~~
augbog
Not to mention they made it so Whole Foods is 5% back as well but the thing is
Whole Foods is more expensive in general (probably more than 5% compared to
other grocery stores).

Hard to say if I'll stay but it feels like a lot of companies are doing this.
Netflix has done it as well... I feel companies are running out of ideas to
scale their business and so they just say, "Wait a fucking second... our
product is awesome! It's worth more!" I kind of wonder how long this will
last.

~~~
sbov
Yeah, I don't use it for Whole Foods. I already have an American Express blue
preferred cash back, which gets 6% on groceries. I only use the prime card for
Amazon, restaurants, and places that don't take American Express.

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neonate
The article is readable at [http://archive.is/pqSMw](http://archive.is/pqSMw).

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mycodebreaks
My main reason for shopping from Amazon is that I do not want to sign up
separately on many retailer's websites. E.g. target, best buy, Walmart, ...

If there is a single sign-on option which provides good enough data safety &
privacy, lot of my shopping will move away from Amazon to this virtual YC 2019
company.

~~~
skellera
I think thats what google is trying to do with their service but that would
not meet your privacy requirements.

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thomzi12
I actually quit Prime after moving to San Francisco — it felt hard to justify
when grocery stores and other shopping is blocks away. People forget about
walking, haha. I just don’t buy enough stuff to warrant the subscription.

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aviv
Prime is one of those expenses that I don't bother thinking too much about.
It's in the Cost of Living category for our household at this point.

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tootie
They should throw in a lighsail instance.

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sytelus
So I guess you must make 4 purchases per month to make this worth?

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meesterdude
offer less, charge more. Rinse/repeat every quarter.

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of
I don't have Prime and most packages still take only like 2 days to arrive,
even though Amazon estimates that free shipping time at 7-10 days. Maybe it
helps that I live in New York? Either way... lol, no way that I'd even pay for
the student version of Prime.

