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Monthly Amazon Prime membership fees are about to increase

90 points by el_duderino 9y ago

untog 9y ago
Amazon has done what many others dream of: I basically forget that I'm paying for Prime every year. And I perceive that it gives me enough value that I don't mind, but I've never actually checked how many orders I place each year vs. the delivery cost for them if I didn't have Prime. By comparison, Google sends me an e-mail every month reminding me how much I'm paying for Google Play Music. I don't mind it, but I wonder if it affects their retention rates to do that.
- firstplacelast 9y ago
  I had felt the same for the past 10 years (wow!). But the past year I have been thinking about unsubscribing because I end up with so much knock off crap that breaks OR the item I order gets delayed for a month before the seller cancels the order (bc the item was likely stuck in China - yet the shipping estimate was originally 2days). Anyway, have been debating cancelling the last several months and this headline was the impetus I needed.
- takeda 9y ago
  I actually quit it, because most of the times I'm perfectly fine waiting extra time, and am ok with holding certain items in my cart until I accumulate $25 to get a free shipping. They seem to artificially add delays to processing to discourage me, but I don't really order anything that I need immediately. Not having prime also prevents me from impulse buying. Also, majority of things that you purchase on regular basis, such as cleaning supplies, vitamins etc are often much cheaper in local store and are less likely to be knock offs.
  - kaspm 9y ago
    I'm not sure if they're artificially adding delays or just prioritizing Prime orders over yours, that has always been my assumption.
    - takeda 9y ago
      Feels like artificial, because they give a week time range and they ship it around the end of that range. The actual shipping then takes about 1-2 days. If they use their own shipping, which they do on Sundays then the product is delivered on the same day they shipped.
      - kaspm 9y ago
        Right, but I'm saying the processing (picking and packing process that occurs at the warehouse) before shipping is not first-ordered, first-picked. They've developed a prioritization process for picking which take items ordered _later_ via prime and picks them first. I suppose you could call that "artificial" delays but that's what I think is happening.
        takeda 9y ago
        I have trouble understanding what you're saying here: > They've developed a prioritization process for picking which take items ordered _later_ via prime and picks them first. What I meant to say is that with prime the order is shipped within hours, when without it takes days and it seems to be calculated toward the end of of the time range, but still so it will arrive before the deadline. Actually any items that are not fulfilled by Amazon are delivered much faster when you don't have prime. When you do it is the reverse, which feels suspicious. Yes, there's no way for me to completely prove, but statistically without prime items arrive at the later date of the spectrum given, but they also never late than the date given. This could be explained that when deadline approaches they start treating my order as if it was higher priority, but then that would still prove my point.
        thisacctforreal 9y ago
        His hypothesis is that Amazon will ship prime items first, even when the prime order is placed after non-prime orders. Non-prime items won't see similar shipping priority until near the end of their deadlines. It's to minimize prime-order shipping latency as much as possible. Incenticizing prime is a happy side-effect.
  - Someone1234 9y ago
    If you don't mind waiting longer and have Prime, they often offer a "refund" credit. I currently have $5 in digital credits for items I didn't mind waiting a week for on Prime. Only downside is that the incentive rotates and some of them are simply terrible (prime pantry, women's fashion, and home services for example).
    - aidenn0 9y ago
      a lot of incentives are terrible, and you can't use two of them on the same order. If I could delay 2 or 3 orders and then get a free digital movie by stacking the credits, I'd do it a lot more often.
      - banderman 9y ago
        For digital movies/music the credits do stack.
    - sp00ls 9y ago
      The problem I have with that is that the delivery time often goes past the week mark. If I'm going to wait over a week to receive the item I might as well just order from somewhere like banggood which also has free shipping and is usually a dollar or 2 cheaper. I don't really care about Amazon pantry or free digital downloads so that incentive doesn't provide any value to me.
    - Chaebixi 9y ago
      In my experience, that "credit" is really just a promotion for some other service they're pushing. Now all the ones I could get are for prime pantry, which I'm never going to use.
  - cortesoft 9y ago
    Depending on your life situation and where you live, not having to go to the store for those regular purchases is a huge deal. I love Amazon subscriptions. Never having to think about buying all those staples, and just having them show up at the right time every month is worth a little extra money, which is at least partially offset by the subscription discounts.
  - dawnerd 9y ago
    I'd say just order from jet. Can often find the same things for same price or cheaper - especially with coupons. I'm letting my prime expire this month because I got tired of all the low quality junk spamming the search results and not being able to easily tell whats the real product. The other day was trying to find a ge zwave switch and the same one is listed multiple times with prime shipping at different prices all sold by amazon. So like, which one is the real, most current one? Just spent the extra couple bucks and bought it at home depot instead. All those other extras they throw in are just junk to me. Apart from The Grand Tour there's nothing on prime video I care about, have never used their music much because the interface is an absolute joke (same with video). Prime Now is nice but for some reason my area doesn't get restaurants despite being in the Portland Metro. So just looking at shipping costs, I think I've at best broken even. Rarely get things in two days anyways. Usually takes them 3 days.
- wil421 9y ago
  I just load up my cart and when something is needed right away I buy Prime for the month. Sometimes I forget but usually I cancel right away. My amazon activity is much less than it used to be. Too much cheap and down right counterfeit products. The 2 day Prime shipping is great...but it’s been taking forever to just get my stuff shipped out.
- jumpkickhit 9y ago
  Prime is just a sunk cost. You think, "Hey, I have prime!" and order from Amazon. "I was going to anyway" you think. You stop price checking. Amazon is far from the cheapest place to order things now. Depending on the item of course. Next time price check an item before just grabbing it on Amazon, I did. Saved over 40% by doing so.
- esturk 9y ago
  That's actually egregious. I was trialing the Amazon cloud service and it rolled over to a 60$ charge without any notification. And when it renewed a 2nd year, it also didn't send a notification. The Google method of sending a yearly notification is the idiomatic and proper way of selling a service. The Amazon way is the scumbag way because that's how they charge you without you knowing.
antirez 9y ago
Never understood why prime is so cheap in Europe. In Italy is 20 euros, and was 10 a few years ago. Sure, prime video here has a very weak offer, but still free shipment for 20/year is a good deal.
- jrowley 9y ago
  Probably greater density -> cheaper shipping. Also they probably are working to lock people in initially with low prices and hike prices overtime once they are dependent (monthly scheduled shipments, etc)
  - antirez 9y ago
    Yep locking was my best guess...
    - nashashmi 9y ago
      The comfort you never needed.
- icebraining 9y ago
  It varies quite a bit; it's 50€/year in Belgium/Netherlands/Luxembourg, and 70€/year in Germany/Austria, for exemple.
- samsonradu 9y ago
  Terrible offer for Prime Video in Europe indeed, but also very cheap as standalone, around 3EUR/month. I’m not sure what the long term plan is. I’d assume they will add live streaming content (football, olympics etc)? That’s what really brings people in front of the screen.
- aurelienb 9y ago
  Other comment are right but you also forget about salary (which are lower, so purchase power is smaller)
  - 9y ago
donarb 9y ago
Except, nothing new if you pay yearly, still $99 a year.
- nunez 9y ago
  I didn't even know you could pay per month for it.
- skinnymuch 9y ago
  I’m betting when they added monthly prices their plan all along was to push people to pay yearly as it’s cheaper. But the price difference must’ve not been enough. Now it is pretty significant so it’ll probably do the job they originally wanted from it. Obviously that’s not the only reason for them adding monthly. Just one reason in my opinion.
pascalxus 9y ago
Thanks for the heads up! They just passed my value threshold and I'm making sure to set my auto-reknew to off. I have plenty of patience to wait a week for packages.
ibdf 9y ago
It's still worth it. The amount of money saved with shipping, and the comfort of last "minute" shopping is priceless. Plus you get a few extra things like storage, movies, and music. This past week I paid $12 for ground shipping at another site and was reminded about how much shipping added to the price of the product. Update: Also forgot about the convenience of using Amazon lockers.
- Angostura 9y ago
  For me, it's cheaper to simply pay for the quick shipping when I really need it
  - gms7777 9y ago
    For me as a chronic overthinker, having the cost of shipping paid up front definitely decreases decision fatigue and saves me time. If I want something, I don't end up thinking about whether I really want the item quickly, or if I should add another item to get to the free shipping minimum, or if I should just go to the store instead of ordering online. Having it paid up front then is completely worth it for me, even if it were slightly more than I'd pay for shipping otherwise.
    - vageli 9y ago
      > If I want something, I don't end up thinking about whether I really want the item quickly, or if I should add another item to get to the free shipping minimum, or if I should just go to the store instead of ordering online. Having it paid up front then is completely worth it for me, even if it were slightly more than I'd pay for shipping otherwise. Your conclusion to me is an odd one; maybe you wouldn't have ended up making those purchases were you forced to give them more thought which would save you _more_ in the long term.
- nashashmi 9y ago
  Comfort is the premium you pay for. What is sleazy about this is that before I never needed such a thing and now I do. But I also don't order as much I did. So I might cancel.
tvanantwerp 9y ago
Especially now that Amazon owns Whole Foods, the vast majority of my disposable income is theirs. It would be very difficult for them to make Prime no longer worthwhile for me.
- TearsInTheRain 9y ago
  That doesn't at all scare you? Is there anything that they could be doing with your data or money that would make you think twice about using prime?
  - dsacco 9y ago
    > Is there anything that they could be doing with your data or money that would make you think twice about using prime? Realistically speaking, probably not, no.
    - bcaulfield 9y ago
      +1 for straight up honesty. I'm the same way, wish I were more on top of stuff like this, but don't have time.
  - Spivak 9y ago
    The only thing I think he should be afraid of is what to do in the case of prices increases or service shutdowns. They are probably mining his data to sell him more things but that seems like it's welcome.
    - user5994461 9y ago
      The thing you should worry are your little sisters and nephews who have low skill jobs and might end up at Amazon. They have terrible work conditions.
  - casefields 9y ago
    It is a little concerning but legal minds are starting to put together the scholarship that will most likely be needed to pursue an anti-trust case against Amazon. Amazon's Antitrust Paradox: https://www.yalelawjournal.org/note/amazons-antitrust-paradox https://www.yalelawjournal.org/note/amazons-antitrust-parado...
AlexB138 9y ago
From many conversations, and my personal experience, the reliability of prime for two day deliveries has gone way down. It's generally a day or two before the item even ships in my region. Amazon is also failing to handle rampant knock-offs mixed in with legitimate products. It seems pretty brazen to increase the cost of Prime in light of those issues, even if it is only the monthly subscription. I'm sure it won't actually hurt them since they have such a strange-hold on online retail, and even with these issues they do still offer the best service by far, but it really seems like Amazon needs some competition.
- reificator 9y ago
  Denver Metro here, I don't think Amazon have missed a two day window in at least a year. I've only had two misses in over three years of having a Prime sub.
- matte_black 9y ago
  I personally don’t even track my delivery times. I order things off amazon so quickly that most of the time when I get a package I had forgotten what I ordered, let alone exactly when I ordered it. It’s nice that packages come in two days but I often don’t really need something that fast so I don’t pay attention. I will continue paying happily for Prime.
  - rando444 9y ago
    I'm failing to see how your anecdote about how you're happy to pay for something you admittedly don't care about is relevant.
    - zhjansbnas 9y ago
      Amazon, when considering whether to raise the price of prime, probably gathered a lot of information about how consumers would respond. Matte_black’s experience mirrors my own. When I order something from Prime with 2-day shipping, it’s sometimes late, and sometimes shows up the next morning. It’s fast enough on average that I feel the price is easily worth it. If I really need something ASAP I’ll pay the extra few dollars for the one-day shipping (which would cost a lot more without Prime). They’d have to raise the price a lot more to lose me as a customer. If there are a lot of customers like me and matte_black, it makes sense for them to raise the price. By the way, if you do complain about late packages, they will give you a month of free Prime for each complaint or even put $10 as a credit in your account. So if it’s worth your time to complain, you could get Prime for free. It’s kind of like cloud provider who breaks SLA.
ThrowawayIP 9y ago
I cancelled my Amazon Prime membership about a year ago and haven't looked back. I end up spending less money per month on things that I really don't need and my house is no longer filled with endless cardboard boxes.
- praneshp 9y ago
  > my house is no longer filled with endless cardboard boxes. You can throw in in the trash, you know :) Cancelling Prime is probably good for the same reason I shouldn't have gotten a Moviepass. I now have one less thing blocking me from watching a mediocre movie.
  - michaelper22 9y ago
    Trees were killed to make those boxes in the first place (do they have 100% recycled boxes yet?). Better to not order than to dump or even recycle the boxes.
    - megaman22 9y ago
      Trees grow back faster than you might think. Especially the species and grades that go into papermaking. Nobody is cutting down old-growth forest and putting it into pulp. Unless they are a complete idiot - there's no money in it; it's been a while since I was doing my father's logging invoices, but his margins on spruce and fir or hardwood pulp were razor thin, after accounting to stumpage to the landowner and operating expenses. It was largely a way to get rid of the stuff that needed to be cut, but that he couldn't convince anyone to scale out for veneer or saw logs. A huge part of the pulpwood was also blowdowns, storm damage, and disease or insect culls.
    - praneshp 9y ago
      > Better to not order than ... Sure, but trees are not a good reason for that. I'll try to edit and add a better citation[0], but making cardboard boxes is more efficient than going into forests and cutting down trees. [0]: http://www.internationalpaper.com/company/regions/north-america/sustainability-in-north-america/meet-a-tree-farmer http://www.internationalpaper.com/company/regions/north-amer...
ProfessorLayton 9y ago
While I’m not sure I get $156/year worth of value from Prime, or even $99, I share my account with 2 other close family members, and together we place enough orders for it to be worth it. Same with Costco etc. — so as long as These services remain easy to share, the price increases are aren’t too bad.
- Lammy 9y ago
  That’s the only reason I haven’t canceled. I’m grandfathered into the old style membership sharing instead of the new household style sharing.
- skinnymuch 9y ago
  I think the new way is to only allow two other people in your household. So for people who cancelled and rebought Prime or got Prime in the last few years, they don’t get your perk. I too am lucky to be grandfathered in. But can’t really say it is a current Prime benefit anymore.
wbond 9y ago
Walmart, Jet.com and Target offer free 2 day shipping if you order $35, $35, or $25 respectively. It so happens in my area, all three use Fedex ground, which tends to be more reliable than UPS. Additionally, most items that cost less than $6-8 each tend to be significantly cheaper at Walmart or Target, or you can by a single item rather than a 3-pack, which is a common Amazon strategy. If you buy a decent number of higher price items, Amazon tends to have a price advantage, so the $99-per-year Prime subscription is worth it. However, you will throw a bunch of money away if you are buying a handful of small-ticket items from Amazon on a regular basis.
- Shank 9y ago
  The biggest thing is probably convenience. Even Amazon regularly reminds me of this, by saying I saved > 50 trips to the store for 1-off items that I've ordered on Prime. From shipping speed to not having to go blunder around a store looking for an item, Prime makes sense. It makes even more sense if you comparison shop. With Amazon, you can pick the _exact right item_, whereas a big box store like Walmart or Target will only stock a few options at best, 0 at worst. I was looking for a specific light bulb at Home Depot the other day. Didn't find it. Went to Lowe's. Didn't find it. Ordered the exact item from Amazon while walking out of Lowe's. I only went to stores for the time convenience (I obviously needed it urgently), but they failed for lack of stock. That's what Amazon offers to me -- instant availability of a huge range of items, and ridiculously fast shipping on the smallest of those items.
  - wbond 9y ago
    I agree that shopping at physical stores tends to be a waste of time, with poor selection. I am referring to shopping at walmart.com, jet.com and target.com, which tend to have many of the exact same small-ticket items as amazon.com, but at cheaper prices and without a subscription for 2 day free shipping. It seems they tend to ship the items from a local store, and thus can use low-cost ground shipping and get it there in two days.
  - dingaling 9y ago
    I don't know what Amazon USA is like nowadays but the UK site has reclassified many smaller items as 'Add-ons' which can't be ordered individually, even with Prime. The items seem to vary but range from rulers to multipacks of soap, duct tape, packs of pens, USB sticks and even once a big exercise ball that I was considering. Nowadays I usually go straight to eBay for small items and pay the Royal Mail postage for them.
mnarayan01 9y ago
[Obsolete; new HN title is fine]
- mulmen 9y ago
  That’s exactly what the title says.
  - quicklyfrozen 9y ago
    The actual article title starts with 'Your'.
cranjice 9y ago
I've stopped shopping at amazon, but the prime subscription I expected to expire annoyingly auto-renewed itself. There seems to be an (intentional?) lack of prime account management features. The only user facing options seem to be "cancel now" or "email me right before auto-renewal". I don't see a way to simply turn off automatic renewal. On the other hand I think prime was a useful influence on other e-commence sites. Shipping times have become dramatically shorter in recent years. So, thank you Amazon for forcing your competition to ship faster while allowing your own site to become overrun with fake reviews and crappy knock-off products!
roma1n 9y ago
Recently Amazon upped its minimum order for Prime Now (2 hr delivery) -- used to be 20 euros, now it's 40. I cancelled my subscription because of that, but the customer service was courteous and refunded the unused months fairly quickly.
georgeecollins 9y ago
Until I read this article I didn't even realize I could get Prime monthly. Back in the day when it started it was a one time fee, $70? I paid it, and Amazon has been charging me since then. Like all subscription services, you are supposed to deiced once and forget about it. I worry about the concentration of power in the hands of Amazon. But I love my Kindle and I love Prime.
- Shank 9y ago
  > Until I read this article I didn't even realize I could get Prime monthly. It's relatively new, only added in April, 2016: https://www.wired.com/2016/04/amazon-prime-now-available-month-without-shipping/ https://www.wired.com/2016/04/amazon-prime-now-available-mon...
tptacek 9y ago
It’s still the best deal in all of retail ecommerce.
- yorby 9y ago
  Walmart.com has free two-day shipping on orders of $35 or more and there is no subscription fees.
  - HeyLaughingBoy 9y ago
    Walmart doesn't include Video & Music streaming. Amazon video alone is worth it for me.
kregasaurusrex 9y ago
I've wondered why Amazon Prime charges tax in my state for what's essentially a yearly membership club fee. My guess is that since it's bundled with streaming services etc it counts as being entertainment even though I don't use those features.
- skinnymuch 9y ago
  That would be my guess too. And that is pretty lame for the, I’m guessing, majority of subscribers who don’t use their other features.
jinfiesto 9y ago
I pay for Prime yearly, so this does not affect me. However, in the last couple years, the quality of service has decreased dramatically. When Prime first rolled out, it used to be that I'd receive my packages on day 2 like clockwork. These days, I'm lucky if I receive packages in 4 or 5 days. Additionally, with inventory co-mingling, Amazon has become a dumping ground for counterfeit and damaged products. I've wasted so much time this past year sending stuff back (sometimes repeatedly) because I've received something that was damaged (usually not during shipping) or clearly fraudulent. The upside of course, is that Amazon's customer service remains top notch and any issues that I have are ultimately resolved to my "satisfaction." It'd be nice if I didn't have to spend so much time in chats with Amazon customer service.
- owlninja 9y ago
  Opposite here, I'm receiving most packages same day (evening) at this point.
ryanianian 9y ago
Many people in this and other recent threads talking about counterfeit items...please be aggressive about reporting these to customer service! It's only happened to me once, and customer service just refunded the ~$50 purchase without even asking me to send it back. A few days later I saw the seller was no longer on Amazon, so I suspect this is something Amazon is starting to take more seriously. Amazon really needs to do a better job of clearly showing which products are sold by third-parties and how well-vetted those third-parties actually are. I've not seen anyone say that a "Sold by Amazon" product is counterfeit. This said... I've come to rely less and less on Prime for actually meeting its 2-day promises. Most of the time I don't care when it shows up, but when I do care, I've lost all faith that Amazon will actually pull through so I end up just buying locally. If volume is the issue, they really could incentivize the "no rush" shipping more than the hokey $5 credit things.
- jlardinois 9y ago
  > I've not seen anyone say that a "Sold by Amazon" product is counterfeit. I've had it happen to me with Levi's, and word of mouth tells me this is a problem in general with big name clothing.
  - skinnymuch 9y ago
    How obvious was the counterfeit? I’m worried That I’m oblivious enough to not notice something is counterfeit and just think the product is bad quality.
    - jlardinois 9y ago
      I was certainly fooled the first one or two times it happened; my initial thought was that Levi's provided the worst of its production to Amazon. The jeans were cut and sewn poorly, covered in sawdust, and fell apart within months. It's only upon doing further research that I realized they were counterfeit, and that many people have had this problem.
fooey 9y ago
I wish Amazon Prime would break itself up into packages instead of raising their rates every 6 months as they throw more and more crap under the umbrella It annoys me greatly that I'm subsidizing Prime Video when I have zero interest in using it
- skinnymuch 9y ago
  Can you afford to pay yearly? Seems like they are trying to get people to pay yearly. They have really only raised that price once 3 or so years ago (otherwise they did a $5 increase).
exabrial 9y ago
I rarely get two-day deliveries anymore, with the fee increase, I'm likely to terminate the service :/ I only ship about one item per month on Amazon, not worth the $13/mo
KerrickStaley 9y ago
Is Prime still worth it? Many items on Amazon Prime are more expensive than buying at local retailers, and competitors like Walmart, Costco, and Jet (now part of Walmart) offer cheap, fast shipping, often with lower prices. I'm planning on cancelling my Prime subscription when it goes up for renewal since I rarely use it (it would actually be cheaper to pay for 2-day shipping every time).
- nunez 9y ago
  Same-day arrival is a godsend for me, which is why I keep paying for it. I don't care about their Music or Video options, though it's handy to have with Echos around the apartment.
remusrm 9y ago
I've just canceled my prime this Monday. I kept it only for the Grand Tour Show. I did also notice that the shipping took longer than what they state and most items I had to return since they were not as described. After that I received an email asking me if I am happy with service since I returned 2-3 items.
wkearney99 9y ago
I'm fortunate to live close to one of their distribution centers. I regularly get things same or next day. When I use other resellers online it takes upwards of a week to get things. For the few situations where they're less than amazon, their shipping fees and shipping times lose the sale. Fedex seems to go out of their way to sit on packages. UPS, on the other hand, seems to go to extra lengths to get packages through their system as quickly as possible, regardless of shipping type. As in, things ordered UPS Ground regularly get here in 2 days. Fedex, though, when they say a week, it'll damned well be 7 days.

90 points by el_duderino 9y ago

Amazon has done what many others dream of: I basically forget that I'm paying for Prime every year. And I perceive that it gives me enough value that I don't mind, but I've never actually checked how many orders I place each year vs. the delivery cost for them if I didn't have Prime. By comparison, Google sends me an e-mail every month reminding me how much I'm paying for Google Play Music. I don't mind it, but I wonder if it affects their retention rates to do that.

firstplacelast 9y ago
I had felt the same for the past 10 years (wow!). But the past year I have been thinking about unsubscribing because I end up with so much knock off crap that breaks OR the item I order gets delayed for a month before the seller cancels the order (bc the item was likely stuck in China - yet the shipping estimate was originally 2days). Anyway, have been debating cancelling the last several months and this headline was the impetus I needed.
takeda 9y ago
I actually quit it, because most of the times I'm perfectly fine waiting extra time, and am ok with holding certain items in my cart until I accumulate $25 to get a free shipping. They seem to artificially add delays to processing to discourage me, but I don't really order anything that I need immediately. Not having prime also prevents me from impulse buying. Also, majority of things that you purchase on regular basis, such as cleaning supplies, vitamins etc are often much cheaper in local store and are less likely to be knock offs.
- kaspm 9y ago
  I'm not sure if they're artificially adding delays or just prioritizing Prime orders over yours, that has always been my assumption.
  - takeda 9y ago
    Feels like artificial, because they give a week time range and they ship it around the end of that range. The actual shipping then takes about 1-2 days. If they use their own shipping, which they do on Sundays then the product is delivered on the same day they shipped.
    - kaspm 9y ago
      Right, but I'm saying the processing (picking and packing process that occurs at the warehouse) before shipping is not first-ordered, first-picked. They've developed a prioritization process for picking which take items ordered _later_ via prime and picks them first. I suppose you could call that "artificial" delays but that's what I think is happening.
      - takeda 9y ago
        I have trouble understanding what you're saying here: > They've developed a prioritization process for picking which take items ordered _later_ via prime and picks them first. What I meant to say is that with prime the order is shipped within hours, when without it takes days and it seems to be calculated toward the end of of the time range, but still so it will arrive before the deadline. Actually any items that are not fulfilled by Amazon are delivered much faster when you don't have prime. When you do it is the reverse, which feels suspicious. Yes, there's no way for me to completely prove, but statistically without prime items arrive at the later date of the spectrum given, but they also never late than the date given. This could be explained that when deadline approaches they start treating my order as if it was higher priority, but then that would still prove my point.
        thisacctforreal 9y ago
        His hypothesis is that Amazon will ship prime items first, even when the prime order is placed after non-prime orders. Non-prime items won't see similar shipping priority until near the end of their deadlines. It's to minimize prime-order shipping latency as much as possible. Incenticizing prime is a happy side-effect.
- Someone1234 9y ago
  If you don't mind waiting longer and have Prime, they often offer a "refund" credit. I currently have $5 in digital credits for items I didn't mind waiting a week for on Prime. Only downside is that the incentive rotates and some of them are simply terrible (prime pantry, women's fashion, and home services for example).
  - aidenn0 9y ago
    a lot of incentives are terrible, and you can't use two of them on the same order. If I could delay 2 or 3 orders and then get a free digital movie by stacking the credits, I'd do it a lot more often.
    - banderman 9y ago
      For digital movies/music the credits do stack.
  - sp00ls 9y ago
    The problem I have with that is that the delivery time often goes past the week mark. If I'm going to wait over a week to receive the item I might as well just order from somewhere like banggood which also has free shipping and is usually a dollar or 2 cheaper. I don't really care about Amazon pantry or free digital downloads so that incentive doesn't provide any value to me.
  - Chaebixi 9y ago
    In my experience, that "credit" is really just a promotion for some other service they're pushing. Now all the ones I could get are for prime pantry, which I'm never going to use.
- cortesoft 9y ago
  Depending on your life situation and where you live, not having to go to the store for those regular purchases is a huge deal. I love Amazon subscriptions. Never having to think about buying all those staples, and just having them show up at the right time every month is worth a little extra money, which is at least partially offset by the subscription discounts.
- dawnerd 9y ago
  I'd say just order from jet. Can often find the same things for same price or cheaper - especially with coupons. I'm letting my prime expire this month because I got tired of all the low quality junk spamming the search results and not being able to easily tell whats the real product. The other day was trying to find a ge zwave switch and the same one is listed multiple times with prime shipping at different prices all sold by amazon. So like, which one is the real, most current one? Just spent the extra couple bucks and bought it at home depot instead. All those other extras they throw in are just junk to me. Apart from The Grand Tour there's nothing on prime video I care about, have never used their music much because the interface is an absolute joke (same with video). Prime Now is nice but for some reason my area doesn't get restaurants despite being in the Portland Metro. So just looking at shipping costs, I think I've at best broken even. Rarely get things in two days anyways. Usually takes them 3 days.
wil421 9y ago
I just load up my cart and when something is needed right away I buy Prime for the month. Sometimes I forget but usually I cancel right away. My amazon activity is much less than it used to be. Too much cheap and down right counterfeit products. The 2 day Prime shipping is great...but it’s been taking forever to just get my stuff shipped out.
jumpkickhit 9y ago
Prime is just a sunk cost. You think, "Hey, I have prime!" and order from Amazon. "I was going to anyway" you think. You stop price checking. Amazon is far from the cheapest place to order things now. Depending on the item of course. Next time price check an item before just grabbing it on Amazon, I did. Saved over 40% by doing so.
esturk 9y ago
That's actually egregious. I was trialing the Amazon cloud service and it rolled over to a 60$ charge without any notification. And when it renewed a 2nd year, it also didn't send a notification. The Google method of sending a yearly notification is the idiomatic and proper way of selling a service. The Amazon way is the scumbag way because that's how they charge you without you knowing.

antirez 9y ago

Never understood why prime is so cheap in Europe. In Italy is 20 euros, and was 10 a few years ago. Sure, prime video here has a very weak offer, but still free shipment for 20/year is a good deal.

jrowley 9y ago
Probably greater density -> cheaper shipping. Also they probably are working to lock people in initially with low prices and hike prices overtime once they are dependent (monthly scheduled shipments, etc)
- antirez 9y ago
  Yep locking was my best guess...
  - nashashmi 9y ago
    The comfort you never needed.
icebraining 9y ago
It varies quite a bit; it's 50€/year in Belgium/Netherlands/Luxembourg, and 70€/year in Germany/Austria, for exemple.
samsonradu 9y ago
Terrible offer for Prime Video in Europe indeed, but also very cheap as standalone, around 3EUR/month. I’m not sure what the long term plan is. I’d assume they will add live streaming content (football, olympics etc)? That’s what really brings people in front of the screen.
aurelienb 9y ago
Other comment are right but you also forget about salary (which are lower, so purchase power is smaller)
- 9y ago

donarb 9y ago

Except, nothing new if you pay yearly, still $99 a year.

nunez 9y ago
I didn't even know you could pay per month for it.
skinnymuch 9y ago
I’m betting when they added monthly prices their plan all along was to push people to pay yearly as it’s cheaper. But the price difference must’ve not been enough. Now it is pretty significant so it’ll probably do the job they originally wanted from it. Obviously that’s not the only reason for them adding monthly. Just one reason in my opinion.

pascalxus 9y ago

Thanks for the heads up! They just passed my value threshold and I'm making sure to set my auto-reknew to off. I have plenty of patience to wait a week for packages.

ibdf 9y ago

It's still worth it. The amount of money saved with shipping, and the comfort of last "minute" shopping is priceless. Plus you get a few extra things like storage, movies, and music. This past week I paid $12 for ground shipping at another site and was reminded about how much shipping added to the price of the product. Update: Also forgot about the convenience of using Amazon lockers.

Angostura 9y ago
For me, it's cheaper to simply pay for the quick shipping when I really need it
- gms7777 9y ago
  For me as a chronic overthinker, having the cost of shipping paid up front definitely decreases decision fatigue and saves me time. If I want something, I don't end up thinking about whether I really want the item quickly, or if I should add another item to get to the free shipping minimum, or if I should just go to the store instead of ordering online. Having it paid up front then is completely worth it for me, even if it were slightly more than I'd pay for shipping otherwise.
  - vageli 9y ago
    > If I want something, I don't end up thinking about whether I really want the item quickly, or if I should add another item to get to the free shipping minimum, or if I should just go to the store instead of ordering online. Having it paid up front then is completely worth it for me, even if it were slightly more than I'd pay for shipping otherwise. Your conclusion to me is an odd one; maybe you wouldn't have ended up making those purchases were you forced to give them more thought which would save you _more_ in the long term.
nashashmi 9y ago
Comfort is the premium you pay for. What is sleazy about this is that before I never needed such a thing and now I do. But I also don't order as much I did. So I might cancel.

tvanantwerp 9y ago

Especially now that Amazon owns Whole Foods, the vast majority of my disposable income is theirs. It would be very difficult for them to make Prime no longer worthwhile for me.

TearsInTheRain 9y ago
That doesn't at all scare you? Is there anything that they could be doing with your data or money that would make you think twice about using prime?
- dsacco 9y ago
  > Is there anything that they could be doing with your data or money that would make you think twice about using prime? Realistically speaking, probably not, no.
  - bcaulfield 9y ago
    +1 for straight up honesty. I'm the same way, wish I were more on top of stuff like this, but don't have time.
- Spivak 9y ago
  The only thing I think he should be afraid of is what to do in the case of prices increases or service shutdowns. They are probably mining his data to sell him more things but that seems like it's welcome.
  - user5994461 9y ago
    The thing you should worry are your little sisters and nephews who have low skill jobs and might end up at Amazon. They have terrible work conditions.
- casefields 9y ago
  It is a little concerning but legal minds are starting to put together the scholarship that will most likely be needed to pursue an anti-trust case against Amazon. Amazon's Antitrust Paradox: https://www.yalelawjournal.org/note/amazons-antitrust-paradox https://www.yalelawjournal.org/note/amazons-antitrust-parado...

AlexB138 9y ago

From many conversations, and my personal experience, the reliability of prime for two day deliveries has gone way down. It's generally a day or two before the item even ships in my region. Amazon is also failing to handle rampant knock-offs mixed in with legitimate products. It seems pretty brazen to increase the cost of Prime in light of those issues, even if it is only the monthly subscription. I'm sure it won't actually hurt them since they have such a strange-hold on online retail, and even with these issues they do still offer the best service by far, but it really seems like Amazon needs some competition.

reificator 9y ago
Denver Metro here, I don't think Amazon have missed a two day window in at least a year. I've only had two misses in over three years of having a Prime sub.
matte_black 9y ago
I personally don’t even track my delivery times. I order things off amazon so quickly that most of the time when I get a package I had forgotten what I ordered, let alone exactly when I ordered it. It’s nice that packages come in two days but I often don’t really need something that fast so I don’t pay attention. I will continue paying happily for Prime.
- rando444 9y ago
  I'm failing to see how your anecdote about how you're happy to pay for something you admittedly don't care about is relevant.
  - zhjansbnas 9y ago
    Amazon, when considering whether to raise the price of prime, probably gathered a lot of information about how consumers would respond. Matte_black’s experience mirrors my own. When I order something from Prime with 2-day shipping, it’s sometimes late, and sometimes shows up the next morning. It’s fast enough on average that I feel the price is easily worth it. If I really need something ASAP I’ll pay the extra few dollars for the one-day shipping (which would cost a lot more without Prime). They’d have to raise the price a lot more to lose me as a customer. If there are a lot of customers like me and matte_black, it makes sense for them to raise the price. By the way, if you do complain about late packages, they will give you a month of free Prime for each complaint or even put $10 as a credit in your account. So if it’s worth your time to complain, you could get Prime for free. It’s kind of like cloud provider who breaks SLA.

ThrowawayIP 9y ago

I cancelled my Amazon Prime membership about a year ago and haven't looked back. I end up spending less money per month on things that I really don't need and my house is no longer filled with endless cardboard boxes.

praneshp 9y ago
> my house is no longer filled with endless cardboard boxes. You can throw in in the trash, you know :) Cancelling Prime is probably good for the same reason I shouldn't have gotten a Moviepass. I now have one less thing blocking me from watching a mediocre movie.
- michaelper22 9y ago
  Trees were killed to make those boxes in the first place (do they have 100% recycled boxes yet?). Better to not order than to dump or even recycle the boxes.
  - megaman22 9y ago
    Trees grow back faster than you might think. Especially the species and grades that go into papermaking. Nobody is cutting down old-growth forest and putting it into pulp. Unless they are a complete idiot - there's no money in it; it's been a while since I was doing my father's logging invoices, but his margins on spruce and fir or hardwood pulp were razor thin, after accounting to stumpage to the landowner and operating expenses. It was largely a way to get rid of the stuff that needed to be cut, but that he couldn't convince anyone to scale out for veneer or saw logs. A huge part of the pulpwood was also blowdowns, storm damage, and disease or insect culls.
  - praneshp 9y ago
    > Better to not order than ... Sure, but trees are not a good reason for that. I'll try to edit and add a better citation[0], but making cardboard boxes is more efficient than going into forests and cutting down trees. [0]: http://www.internationalpaper.com/company/regions/north-america/sustainability-in-north-america/meet-a-tree-farmer http://www.internationalpaper.com/company/regions/north-amer...

ProfessorLayton 9y ago

While I’m not sure I get $156/year worth of value from Prime, or even $99, I share my account with 2 other close family members, and together we place enough orders for it to be worth it. Same with Costco etc. — so as long as These services remain easy to share, the price increases are aren’t too bad.

Lammy 9y ago
That’s the only reason I haven’t canceled. I’m grandfathered into the old style membership sharing instead of the new household style sharing.
skinnymuch 9y ago
I think the new way is to only allow two other people in your household. So for people who cancelled and rebought Prime or got Prime in the last few years, they don’t get your perk. I too am lucky to be grandfathered in. But can’t really say it is a current Prime benefit anymore.

wbond 9y ago

Walmart, Jet.com and Target offer free 2 day shipping if you order $35, $35, or $25 respectively. It so happens in my area, all three use Fedex ground, which tends to be more reliable than UPS. Additionally, most items that cost less than $6-8 each tend to be significantly cheaper at Walmart or Target, or you can by a single item rather than a 3-pack, which is a common Amazon strategy. If you buy a decent number of higher price items, Amazon tends to have a price advantage, so the $99-per-year Prime subscription is worth it. However, you will throw a bunch of money away if you are buying a handful of small-ticket items from Amazon on a regular basis.

Shank 9y ago
The biggest thing is probably convenience. Even Amazon regularly reminds me of this, by saying I saved > 50 trips to the store for 1-off items that I've ordered on Prime. From shipping speed to not having to go blunder around a store looking for an item, Prime makes sense. It makes even more sense if you comparison shop. With Amazon, you can pick the _exact right item_, whereas a big box store like Walmart or Target will only stock a few options at best, 0 at worst. I was looking for a specific light bulb at Home Depot the other day. Didn't find it. Went to Lowe's. Didn't find it. Ordered the exact item from Amazon while walking out of Lowe's. I only went to stores for the time convenience (I obviously needed it urgently), but they failed for lack of stock. That's what Amazon offers to me -- instant availability of a huge range of items, and ridiculously fast shipping on the smallest of those items.
- wbond 9y ago
  I agree that shopping at physical stores tends to be a waste of time, with poor selection. I am referring to shopping at walmart.com, jet.com and target.com, which tend to have many of the exact same small-ticket items as amazon.com, but at cheaper prices and without a subscription for 2 day free shipping. It seems they tend to ship the items from a local store, and thus can use low-cost ground shipping and get it there in two days.
- dingaling 9y ago
  I don't know what Amazon USA is like nowadays but the UK site has reclassified many smaller items as 'Add-ons' which can't be ordered individually, even with Prime. The items seem to vary but range from rulers to multipacks of soap, duct tape, packs of pens, USB sticks and even once a big exercise ball that I was considering. Nowadays I usually go straight to eBay for small items and pay the Royal Mail postage for them.

mnarayan01 9y ago

[Obsolete; new HN title is fine]

mulmen 9y ago
That’s exactly what the title says.
- quicklyfrozen 9y ago
  The actual article title starts with 'Your'.

cranjice 9y ago

I've stopped shopping at amazon, but the prime subscription I expected to expire annoyingly auto-renewed itself. There seems to be an (intentional?) lack of prime account management features. The only user facing options seem to be "cancel now" or "email me right before auto-renewal". I don't see a way to simply turn off automatic renewal. On the other hand I think prime was a useful influence on other e-commence sites. Shipping times have become dramatically shorter in recent years. So, thank you Amazon for forcing your competition to ship faster while allowing your own site to become overrun with fake reviews and crappy knock-off products!

roma1n 9y ago

Recently Amazon upped its minimum order for Prime Now (2 hr delivery) -- used to be 20 euros, now it's 40. I cancelled my subscription because of that, but the customer service was courteous and refunded the unused months fairly quickly.

georgeecollins 9y ago

Until I read this article I didn't even realize I could get Prime monthly. Back in the day when it started it was a one time fee, $70? I paid it, and Amazon has been charging me since then. Like all subscription services, you are supposed to deiced once and forget about it. I worry about the concentration of power in the hands of Amazon. But I love my Kindle and I love Prime.

Shank 9y ago
> Until I read this article I didn't even realize I could get Prime monthly. It's relatively new, only added in April, 2016: https://www.wired.com/2016/04/amazon-prime-now-available-month-without-shipping/ https://www.wired.com/2016/04/amazon-prime-now-available-mon...

tptacek 9y ago

It’s still the best deal in all of retail ecommerce.

yorby 9y ago
Walmart.com has free two-day shipping on orders of $35 or more and there is no subscription fees.
- HeyLaughingBoy 9y ago
  Walmart doesn't include Video & Music streaming. Amazon video alone is worth it for me.

kregasaurusrex 9y ago

I've wondered why Amazon Prime charges tax in my state for what's essentially a yearly membership club fee. My guess is that since it's bundled with streaming services etc it counts as being entertainment even though I don't use those features.

skinnymuch 9y ago
That would be my guess too. And that is pretty lame for the, I’m guessing, majority of subscribers who don’t use their other features.

jinfiesto 9y ago

I pay for Prime yearly, so this does not affect me. However, in the last couple years, the quality of service has decreased dramatically. When Prime first rolled out, it used to be that I'd receive my packages on day 2 like clockwork. These days, I'm lucky if I receive packages in 4 or 5 days. Additionally, with inventory co-mingling, Amazon has become a dumping ground for counterfeit and damaged products. I've wasted so much time this past year sending stuff back (sometimes repeatedly) because I've received something that was damaged (usually not during shipping) or clearly fraudulent. The upside of course, is that Amazon's customer service remains top notch and any issues that I have are ultimately resolved to my "satisfaction." It'd be nice if I didn't have to spend so much time in chats with Amazon customer service.

owlninja 9y ago
Opposite here, I'm receiving most packages same day (evening) at this point.

ryanianian 9y ago

Many people in this and other recent threads talking about counterfeit items...please be aggressive about reporting these to customer service! It's only happened to me once, and customer service just refunded the ~$50 purchase without even asking me to send it back. A few days later I saw the seller was no longer on Amazon, so I suspect this is something Amazon is starting to take more seriously. Amazon really needs to do a better job of clearly showing which products are sold by third-parties and how well-vetted those third-parties actually are. I've not seen anyone say that a "Sold by Amazon" product is counterfeit. This said... I've come to rely less and less on Prime for actually meeting its 2-day promises. Most of the time I don't care when it shows up, but when I do care, I've lost all faith that Amazon will actually pull through so I end up just buying locally. If volume is the issue, they really could incentivize the "no rush" shipping more than the hokey $5 credit things.

jlardinois 9y ago
> I've not seen anyone say that a "Sold by Amazon" product is counterfeit. I've had it happen to me with Levi's, and word of mouth tells me this is a problem in general with big name clothing.
- skinnymuch 9y ago
  How obvious was the counterfeit? I’m worried That I’m oblivious enough to not notice something is counterfeit and just think the product is bad quality.
  - jlardinois 9y ago
    I was certainly fooled the first one or two times it happened; my initial thought was that Levi's provided the worst of its production to Amazon. The jeans were cut and sewn poorly, covered in sawdust, and fell apart within months. It's only upon doing further research that I realized they were counterfeit, and that many people have had this problem.

fooey 9y ago

I wish Amazon Prime would break itself up into packages instead of raising their rates every 6 months as they throw more and more crap under the umbrella It annoys me greatly that I'm subsidizing Prime Video when I have zero interest in using it

skinnymuch 9y ago
Can you afford to pay yearly? Seems like they are trying to get people to pay yearly. They have really only raised that price once 3 or so years ago (otherwise they did a $5 increase).

exabrial 9y ago

I rarely get two-day deliveries anymore, with the fee increase, I'm likely to terminate the service :/ I only ship about one item per month on Amazon, not worth the $13/mo

KerrickStaley 9y ago

Is Prime still worth it? Many items on Amazon Prime are more expensive than buying at local retailers, and competitors like Walmart, Costco, and Jet (now part of Walmart) offer cheap, fast shipping, often with lower prices. I'm planning on cancelling my Prime subscription when it goes up for renewal since I rarely use it (it would actually be cheaper to pay for 2-day shipping every time).

nunez 9y ago
Same-day arrival is a godsend for me, which is why I keep paying for it. I don't care about their Music or Video options, though it's handy to have with Echos around the apartment.

remusrm 9y ago

I've just canceled my prime this Monday. I kept it only for the Grand Tour Show. I did also notice that the shipping took longer than what they state and most items I had to return since they were not as described. After that I received an email asking me if I am happy with service since I returned 2-3 items.

wkearney99 9y ago

I'm fortunate to live close to one of their distribution centers. I regularly get things same or next day. When I use other resellers online it takes upwards of a week to get things. For the few situations where they're less than amazon, their shipping fees and shipping times lose the sale. Fedex seems to go out of their way to sit on packages. UPS, on the other hand, seems to go to extra lengths to get packages through their system as quickly as possible, regardless of shipping type. As in, things ordered UPS Ground regularly get here in 2 days. Fedex, though, when they say a week, it'll damned well be 7 days.