Amazon’s Secret Price Rise

   

Through the various new developments for Amazon including Amazon Go and Now services, many customers are not noticing discreet price hikes by Amazon. They might be offering discounts for Whole Foods shopping by Prime members but are increasing the membership costs discreetly.

The Prime Pantry experienced a $2 price hike, without giving much attention to this change for members. This means that Prime members will now pay a flat shipping rate of $7.99 per box through using Amazon’s dry grocery service.

Amazon is focusing on price hikes this year through the expansion of Amazon through the acquisition of Whole Foods, compensating for the creation of the new Amazon Go stores. In April they announced that prime membership cost increased to $119 from the former rate of $99. The initial price for the Prime service was $79 in 2014 and is only increasing through Amazon’s growth.

Users that have noticed the price hike are looking to get their products from other retails to avoid the extra surcharge of the Pantry service. This hike is actually driving Prime users to other websites for dry grocery goods.

Jet.com offers a $0 annual fee for membership along with free shipping for order $35 or over. Another popular online dry grocery option is through Brandless that requires no paid membership and offers free delivery on orders over $39, not to mention all items cost $3.

Boxed.com offers their service with no annual membership fee, offering free shipping on orders over $49 and offers bulk quantity sizes for their products. Most of these website do not have the wide variety of Amazon’s stock but they offer the deals on shipping, leaving many to see which will win – variety or price.

Amazon’s Prime service will also be developing the video and music streaming service through Prime, many users didn’t like these platforms because they were more limited compared to the competition streaming service, Netflix.

For more on the changes behind Amazon’s expansion check out the video above.

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6 years ago
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