Amazon Is Increasing The Cost Of Annual Prime Memberships From $99 To $119

Amazon is increasing the price of its Prime membership in the U.S. for the first time in four years.


The change, effective from May 11, will allow new subscribers pay $119 a year for the shipping and entertainment membership program, instead of the normal $99. The new annual fee would apply to current Prime members starting with renewals on June 16. Amazon last raised Prime’s fee in 2014, when it costed customers only $79 a year.


Prime is the most important lever in Amazon’s dominant online retail machine. Prime members make more purchases on Amazon than non-Prime members and spend more per year.  However, the program is incredibly expensive to fund by Amazon. The number of products available for free two-day shipping through Prime has grown from 20 million in 2014 to more than 100 million today. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos disclosed in his annual shareholders letter that Prime had more than 100 million members worldwide — a surprise unveiling since the company had never previously reported the number of Prime members.


Amazon CFO Brian Olsavsky mentioned on the call that “Amazon has invested heavily in its own logistics network to supplement UPS and FedEx deliveries and also to meet demands”.


Since the last increase, Amazon has also introduced a two-hour delivery service called ‘Prime Now’ that offers free speedy deliveries of a limited selection of groceries and other popular merchandise from Amazon and local merchants. Prime Now, today includes Whole Foods inventory in 10 U.S. metro areas.


Earlier this year, Amazon hiked the price of the monthly Prime plan in the   U.S. from $10.99 to $12.99 per month. Amazon also offers a standalone Prime Video subscription option, which for now, will remain at $8.99 per month. However, Amazon still offers a discount to students. The company will keep that unchanged at $59 per year for an annual Prime Student membership.


Amazon announced the U.S. price hike for Prime’s annual plan after smashing Wall Street expectations for Q1. It reported $51.0 billion in sales and net income of $1.63 billion — more than double the year-earlier period— sending shares to record highs in after-market trading.

Amazon’s earnings comes after Donald Trump’s Twitter-fueled attacks on the e-commerce giant a few weeks ago. His vague threats to make life difficult for Amazon, based on his claim that Amazon doesn’t pay its fair share of taxes as well as his untrue assertions about the company’s deal with the U.S. Postal Service, drove the stock down as much as 13% but shares have since rebounded.

- https://www.techbooky.com/amazon-prime-cost-increased/

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

How is Technology Changing Our Definition of What It Means to Be a Human?

Image
The addition of the technology in the life of the humans has affected their lives in more ways than humans can imagine. Now the humans find it hard to even imagine their lives without the existence of the technology. Spectrum Plans are loved by the majority of the residents of the United States because of the good and consistent quality at affordable rates. Where the use of the technology has changed many things about the humans, the public is wondering how the addition of the technology in everyday life of the humans has changed the definition of humans. The debate has been going on different social media platforms for a long time now. Here are some highlights of this hot debate. Connection and Freedom of the Speech With the help of the social media platforms, the majority of the individuals are connected to each other now even if they are living hundreds of miles away. The connection provides humans a chance to speak and share their ideologies and beliefs openly in front of the world
Read more

Microsoft Improves Office 365 Device Limits For Subscribers

Image
Microsoft’s Office 365 service has been a great deal for a long time, and it’s eventually getting better— Soon, Office 365 Home will let six users install an unlimited number of Office applications. In an announcement , recently made by Microsoft, currently the improvement for Office 365 users in which the Office 365 Home allows up to five users but now, what’s new is that Microsoft is raising this limit to six, so each Office 365 Home account gets an additional user. Office 365 is essentially a Microsoft Office subscription. While the family plan, named Office 365 Home, costs $100 per year. For that price, five (soon six) people can install the latest versions of Microsoft Office on their PCs, Macs, tablets, and phones. Each person gets 1TB of OneDrive storage too. Microsoft has made a few account changes that are taking effect immediately. After signing up for Office 365, all user accounts in your Microsoft Family will be automatically given access. You can manage your subscription
Read more

Instagram Adds Emoji Shortcuts For Quicker Comments

Image
If you can"t post comments without tossing in at least one emoji to make your feelings clear, you"ll be glad to know that Instagram has your back. After months of testing, Instagram has introduced an emoji shortcut bar on Android and iOS that offers quick access to your most-used icons when wading into a post"s comments. You won"t have to sift through your phone keyboard emoji selection when you want to send someone a heart touching emoji or tell them their new look is fire. The new shortcut bar is available in a post"s comments section. While typing a comment, you will be shown the set of your most-used emoji. Only the most-used emoji will be available in the shortcut bar. If you want to use a new emoji, you will have to sift through the keyboard manually. Now, you will also have new Superzoom effects to add to your Instagram stories. The new set includes a heart-filled fog with music, paparazzi camera flashes, fire with rock music in the background, a big re
Read more