from Hacker News

Amazon to increase fee of prime from $99 to $119 in U.S

by lechiffre10 on 4/26/18, 9:50 PM with 62 comments

  • by ntsplnkv2 on 4/26/18, 10:13 PM

    I just cancelled my Prime membership that was $99 a year. I got a lot of use out of it, and from a customer perspective, Amazon is really great-easy returns, quick shipping, good customer service.

    Reasons: * The increase in "fake" reviews, or even bad reviews (seriously, 1 word responses like "great") turned me off. Was I getting something good? or something that was boosted?

    * The price of convenience was too high and it made my spending habits worse. Being able to quickly jump on an impulse and buy something was something at times I didn't control.

    * The other services aren't as good as their competitors. The video library isn't great and I have cable already anyway. Amazon Music isn't great.

    * The value isn't as good anymore. Their prices aren't cheaper than their competitors (e.g. Walmart). I can get free shipping anywhere now. The speed isn't as valuable as it once was to me. Certainly not at a price increase. What value has Prime added to me to justify the price increase?

  • by dvt on 4/26/18, 10:09 PM

    What I find really interesting is that as far as product and pricing strategy goes, starting low and raising prices is regarded as a big no-no. The argument being that customers (especially consumers, e.g. non-business clients) respond very negatively to raising prices, especially after getting used to price X. And yet Amazon has continued to hike up the price of Prime and people don't seem to be leaving.

    Why? Does Prime really have no competitors? Are people "locked in" the Amazon ecosystem (akin to Facebook/Instagram)? Even though I could never work for Amazon as a "worker bee" (engineering or otherwise), I think Jeff Bezos and the people he surrounds himself with are absolute business geniuses.

  • by stirlo on 4/26/18, 10:05 PM

    At what point will customers start to say “maybe paying for shipping/driving to the store” isn’t that bad?

    This is a 50% increase in price since Prime got started and if you’re not getting something delivered every fortnight probably costing you more. Let alone the fact that amazon has been shown to use their reputation as a cost leader (in electronics, books, etc.) to increase the price of everyday items so the same basket can cost you less in Walmart.

  • by igetspam on 4/26/18, 10:15 PM

    I've been looking for a good reason to ditch Amazon and a 20% hike in their service price is as good a reason as any. With a few exceptions (like diapers), I rarely need something immediately. The courier companies they've been using can't seem to stop stomping across my lawn and through my planters, no matter how many times I scream at them or complain to Amazon. Prime Video has only a couple things worth watching and I already have a Netflix account. I just set the reminder to let me know three days before renewal, so I can cancel.

  • by pavon on 4/26/18, 10:53 PM

    Does anyone know why shipping speeds of 3-4 days are typically not offered? You see overnight, 1-day, 2-day shipping and then beyond that is 5 days or longer.

    My most common time frame for delivery is that I order something over the weekend, and would like to have it by the next weekend. This is counted as being ordered by COB Monday, so with Amazon 2-day shipping it will get here by Wednesday, but with the old 5-day shipping, more often than not I wouldn't get it until the next Monday, which is too late. Then Amazon pushed this out to 5-8 days. In Amazon's case you could argue it is an intentional decision to boost prime subscriptions, but most other online retailers have similar delivery options.

    I feel bad making people bust their asses to get a package to me ASAP, only to have it sit around for days without me using it, and wish a middle ground was available.

  • by martinald on 4/26/18, 10:11 PM

    I don't really buy much from Amazon these days. I think it has a perception of good value more than it actually is. (I'm in the UK).

    1) I can usually find nearly all of 'big ticket' items (TVs, laptops etc) on a competitors site for the same price or less, with fast shipping and extended warranty.

    2) For random low value stuff eBay is often cheaper usually and doesn't have any shipping limits.

    3) Amazon is absolutely horrible to browse with the amount of junk and fakes now, the signal to noise is way too low to try and compare products in a category.

    The only thing I find them consistently good for and buy from ironically is books, what they started with.

    Prime Now in London would be good but the UI is atrocious. It is basically unusable, there are so many glaring errors and features missing I don't know where to start. Different stores have different 'baskets', but it shows you products from all stores. So you end up with £12 in your amazon basket and £28 in your morrisons basket which means you can't order either as there is a £40 minimum order per 'store'. If they cancel your order for whatever reason (maybe one item was out of stock) you have to add everything by hand one by one, there's no readd to cart button. It's totally crazy for an ecommerce company to be SO BAD at UI.

  • by avar on 4/26/18, 10:33 PM

    I signed up for an Amazon Prime trial a couple of monthly ago, after not using Amazon in a while. Was generally happy with it, but then ordered a kitchen appliance that broke after using it once.

    Left the most boring and respectful review you can imagine, just stating the facts, how it was used, and that it broke after using it as instructed in the manual.

    The review was removed within a couple of hours for breaking some non-specific policy, while similar reviews that end on a positive note are shown prominently.

    I don't want to use Amazon after that. They're clearly just cultivating a review echo chamber optimized for conversion.

  • by idoh on 4/26/18, 10:18 PM

    Amazon ...

    ... ‘Earth’s most customer-centric company’

    ... 'There are two kinds of retailers: those folks who work to figure how to charge more, and companies that work to figure how to charge less, and we are going to be the second.'

    Amazon used to be this way, but it seems like they are drifting quite a bit!

  • by donarb on 4/26/18, 10:21 PM

    Wait, the price is still $99 per year if you don't pay by the month. The price raise is only for those who were paying $10.99/month and will be paying $12.99/month.

  • by merinowool on 4/26/18, 10:33 PM

    I had prime for couple of years until things started going downhill (mainly not available next day or weekend delivery), but what's broke camel's back was disrespectful attitude of customer "service". I can handle a lot, but not this. It's been couple of months now and I can see I saved a lot of money by not buying things on impulse, or buying cheaper elsewhere.

  • by Invictus0 on 4/26/18, 10:04 PM

    At this rate, how many packages would you have to order for Prime to be a good deal, assuming you use none of the other Prime services?

  • by lutorm on 4/26/18, 10:15 PM

    Hmm, combined with Amazon's increasing tendency to just not want to ship Prime stuff to Hawaii, it might be time to get out.

  • by atomical on 4/26/18, 10:05 PM

    Should people pay to shop? If I buy a product from Jeff Bezos shouldn't he try to ship it to me as fast as humanly possible? If you don't have prime you end up waiting twice as long. Isn't that bad service?

  • by dewiz on 4/26/18, 10:15 PM

    Anyone knows if movies bought on Amazon streaming video require a subscription to be watched, eg on Roku and similar apps? I’m thinking of deleting Prime and wonder what will happen to movies I bought on Amazon platform

  • by ausjke on 4/26/18, 10:09 PM

    now this is getting close to the point that i check out walmart etc more often, then again, amazon is deeply rooted in online purchases these days already, sigh

  • by oh-kumudo on 4/26/18, 10:02 PM

    Guessing it is related to USPS reform plan...?

  • by zeeveener on 4/26/18, 9:59 PM