It is nice to get back in the swing of things. We had a wonderful visit from our friend and caught up on everyone’s family. It was good to see her. But now it is time to get back to blogging.
How many of you were shocked to hear that Amazon Prime is raising it’s annual membership by 25%? I know I was.
Prices go up all of the time but 25%? Are they kidding us. Especially since their profits have been huge. It seems on the surface to be pure greed.
One of the reasons they are doing this I am sure has to do with Toys R Us going out of business. Amazon is a huge supplier of toys, games, and books. Toys R Us was their biggest competition and now they have put them out of business. How many other businesses carry a huge supply of toys? Walmart has some and so does Target but a very small selection compared to Toys R Us. Now Amazon doesn’t really have competition in that market. Competition keeps prices down. How long will it be before they raise the prices on these items now that they have no competition?
They also got a lot of pressure from their shareholders because of barely breaking even or even losing money sometimes on prime shipping.
My membership renews the end of June, one of the first ones to do so. But I am not sure that we will renew. Here in New York, we are charged sales tax on our membership. So that $20. costs 8% more in sales tax. Our membership of $ 119. will really cost us $ 128.52.
Hubby and I had a long discussion about this increase last night. Hubby brought up a good point. He asked me ” How many of the packages you sent in the past year needed to be at their destination in 2 days? Could they have easily taken 5 to 10 and not affected anything? I am thinking long and hard on this these questions.
Since Amazon ships for free if you have an order of $35.00 or more, could we think ahead on buying birthday gifts, home supplies and OTC meds, etc. and make our orders $35.00?
Could we use free to store shipping at other local stores like Walmart and Home Depot, etc. and save that way? On packages that have to be shipped for a birthday, are we willing to pay a little bit in shipping to get them there?
As my grandchildren get older, gift cards become the things that they want so that they can buy what they want. This could be a solution.
I have a Kindle but the books that are free have become almost non existent. Because of this some friends are now buying books off of Amazon. I could wait longer to receive these books if I can’t find them at the library or it’s book sale next weekend. I do like the feel of a book in my hand. My Kindle rarely gets used except when I travel. I know this has little to do with Amazon Prime but it is another example of how they try to hook you and then raise the prices.
Yes, my Amazon Prime membership includes other things like movies and music, but we rarely use these. Even though we no longer have Netflix, I haven’t watched one movie in ages on Amazon Prime. I am just not a TV watcher and Hubby just likes his sports. So are these extras that I didn’t ask for when I first joined really worth it to us? Not really!
The other pet peeve that I have with them is that at least 15 packages that I got through Amazon Prime this year were late by 1-3 days. It got very annoying! It made me question what I was really paying for.
The other thing that I am thinking about is how long will it be before Amazon puts all stores out of business and we have no real competition. That is a very scary thought! No competition means they can charge whatever they want.
So as I ponder what I will do come June when it is renewal time, I am going to seriously look at my options including all of the ones I mentioned. I am also going to look at shopping locally and helping to keep some these long time stores in business.
I would love to know what any of my readers who are Amazon Prime members are going to do and what alternatives you see. Please leave your thoughts on this in comments.
Also I have a new challenge that I will post about on Monday that I am going to be doing for the month of May.