Saturday, January 20, 2018

Amazon Raises Price of its Prime Membership



An indication of accelerating price inflation?

Amazon has announced it has raised the price of its monthly Prime membership for the first time since 2014.

The fee for those who pay monthly will rise from $10.99 to $12.99, with the annual price remaining at $99. The price rises are immediate for new members and will take effect in a month for existing members.

 -RW

2 comments:

  1. I pay by the year so Im glad my fee doesn't go up

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  2. To even consider price inflation the annual fee would have needed to increase.

    The goal of amazon prime is to get people to order more stuff or forget they signed up and not order much at all. The first subsidizes the shipping through the volume ordered and the later is pure profit.

    The month to month increase is quite obviously to discourage people from signing up for one or two months then canceling after they've ordered stuff and then sign up again for another couple of months and repeat the process. My guess is they did not see that behavior happening or under estimated how often it would occur.

    I don't think even $13/month is high enough to keep people from abusing a month to month prime subscription option. I am surprised it even exists. However the math might work out for them.


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