Amazon:
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.
This is the first price increase in four years but, like all price increases, it undoubtedly won’t sit well with some Prime members.
I’ve been a Prime member since it started. I have no problem with the increase. For me, just the shipping piece of Prime is worth it.
I wish they’d unbundle the shipping premium from the video streaming, but I certainly understand why that’s so unlikely.
At this point paying for 2 day shipping from Amazon is a racket. They have so many warehouses spread out that just about everything out to be able to be delivered in 2 days with standard shipping. It’s fine if you get value from all the other perks, but for shipping I think it’s a scam. There are a lot of retailers who offer competitive pricing and free 2 day shipping if you look around. Besides when I had Prime on several occasions items I bought that were listed as Prime and in stock took longer than 2 days to be delivered. Each time they gave me an extra month of Prime for the delay but I’d have rather had the item on time.
Yup, I bought a couple of DVD sets, picked free shipping, estimated at a week (ordered on Friday, due to arrive the following Friday), but arrived on Monday.
Yeah but most people who like Prime say they like it for the shipping, I don’t hear too many people jazzed about the other perks. The fact that there is a mammoth warehouse less than 10 miles from where I live but as a non-Prime customer it can take 7-10 days for delivery seems just a bit extortive.
I wasn’t too thrilled about the price increasing…
We use their video streaming as well. Not as often as Netflix, but at this point I wouldn’t want to be without either.
I agree on Amazon’s improved shipping logistics and how that devalues Prime, but the fact that Amazon bundles so many other services with Prime seems like an acknowledgement of this.
I’m pretty sure they delay shipment on non-primes to boost prime membership adoption.