Amazon Prime prices are going up — $119 a year
Over 100 million items were eligible for Prime two-day shipping in the U.S. by the end of last year.
According to Anita Balakrishnan @ CNBC.com. http://www.cjchun.com
Amazon said this week it would raise prices on its premium subscription membership product, Prime, from $99 to $119 per year on May 11.
But while the price hike seems steep, the program has a lot of goodies added since the last price increase in March 2014.
A big one is Amazon's Prime Day discount day, a mid-summer sale that offers deals every 10 minutes and draws tens of millions of shoppers each year.
Benefits of the program, which started in 2005 and now has 100 million members, fall into 5 basic categories: shipping, shopping, streaming, reading, and various extras. They're all listed here and here and here for U.S. customers.
Free two-day shipping on some items to addresses in the contiguous U.S., with no minimum purchase.
Free same-day delivery by 9 p.m. on orders over $35, which usually must be ordered before noon and be headed for a residential address.
Free 2-hour delivery (Prime Now)
Free release-date delivery
Whole Foods delivery
Here's what Prime members get:
Prime Video: This service can also be purchased on its own, but Prime members also get unlimited streaming of movies and TV episodes.
Twitch Prime: Amazon bought video-game streaming site Twitch in 2014, winning a bidding war with Google that pushed the price tag to almost a billion dollars, according to TechCrunch. Prime members get discounts on physical games pre-orders and new releases, ad-free viewing on Twitch, some free exclusive content and a free Twitch channel subscription every month.
Amazon Kindle e-books book publishing
Prime Reading: This service allows you to borrow more than 1,000 books, magazines and comics, and doesn't require a Kindle (though you do need the Kindle app.) You're allowed to borrow 10 at a time for free.
Amazon Channels: You can stream HBO, Showtime and Starz for a discounted price ($4.99 a month to $14.99 a month) through Amazon.
Prime Pantry: Prime Pantry includes small, light objects like groceries and household items, (Amazon uses the example of a box of cereal). A single order is available to any Prime member for $7.99 shipping. Or, you can pay $4.99 a month for free shipping on orders over $40 (all the items in the order have to be Pantry products.)
Amazon Music Unlimited: The free version of Prime Music comes with over a million songs, but Amazon Music Unlimited includes tens of millions of songs, downloads, and unlimited skips.
— CNBC's Jillian D'Onfro contributed to this report.
I like prime, but a 20% increase seems steep. There's a lot of benefits, but does anyone use all of them? It might be better for the consumers if they broke the benefits up into different subscriptions. Then we could pay for only the services we use.
It's worth it if you consume their Prime Video and free shipping. Other add-ons I personally rarely use. But due to the volume of what my family orders, we are willing to pay, but I know many others may hit the money wall and will find other ways like Jet, Walmart pick-up, et al.