Amazon keeps adding more and more to the Prime Benefits, but that’s not all. They strategically decided to go BIG with their TV streaming business, making expensive purchases and plans, such as an upcoming Lord of the Rings TV series. So the writing was on the wall that the Prime membership fee would go up.
And it is. Annual Prime membership fees will increase from $99 to $119. Discussion of the news organized nicely by Techmeme.
The $119/year membership fee goes in effect on May 11 for new members, and June 16 for renewals of existing subscriptions. You can cancel your existing subscription before it renews if you don’t want to pay this higher subscription fee.
If you want to get in at the $99 for the first year, as a new or previous Prime member, you can sign up for Prime Membership now for $99.
As far as I can tell, existing Prime members cannot manually renew their subscription ahead of time using the Prime account website. I don’t know if it’s possible to renew it ahead of time by talking/live-chatting to a customer service representative.
A near-20 percent price hike is steep. Jeff Bezos is pushing his luck making Prime an entertainment vehicle. A whole lot of people already paying $40 to more than $100 a month for bundled cable or satellite TV, high-speed Internet, with or without landline phone service — especially in two-paycheck households — don’t have the desire, time or money for another costly entertainment package. They mostly buy at Amazon for convenience and pay for Prime to get two-day shipping. When it comes to that, more and more lately it seems as though it’s two-day shipping if the planets align correctly, the weather is kind and a dozen other factors don’t make it three days or more. Wal Mart is coming after a big piece of Amazon’s action and has the heft and reach to be a tough competitor. Look for eBay and Rakuten to step up their games as well. A cheaper quick-delivery feature, one not padded with a lot of entertainment chrome trim lots of people don’t want and really don’t want to pay for, could be the competitive wedge those other retail giants are looking for.
(Note to Jeff Bezos, if he should happen by and see this: We’re not all fiction fans. Good nonfiction Prime book freebies are rarer than leap-year Februarys,)