PSA: Amazon Raising Prime Annual Price to $119

The issue with that is, eBay and Amazon are different entities with different levels of buyer protection.

Not only that, but eBay purchases aren't going to be "tax free" (which in fact they are not, but people aren't filing Use Tax) forever. Currently, legislative efforts are pressing towards every online retailer charging Sales Tax, and auction sites will be forced before long. I think that benefit is fleeting, plus if you get audited will get you in hot water anyway.

Overall, not much benefit to the ebay purchase, I think.

On topic, I won't cancel either. But I'm not going towards a $200 sub/year unless pricing in the Pantry gets better. Right now the pricing of spices etc is stupid.


Wait .... you're kidding right? I just clearly showed an example of saving $30 dollars. That's with one purchase. $30 is not a benefit? A handful more and Prime is free for the entire year. I don't know about you but free $120 prime seems like one hell of an advantage.

I'm thinking you might work for Amazon lol ... which would make sense.

eBay has buyer protection that favors the buyer ... heavily. Very heavily in fact. There are several advantages over Amazon with eBay. No tax and usually cheaper pricing. Of course everyone here can do as they please. I'm just pointing out a way to off-set Amazon prime costs.
 
Lot of you guys are using Amazon exclusively and at the end of the year you've over paid on items and tax to the tune of several hundreds of dollars to possibly thousands of dollars. My friend Chris and I figured he over spent $2,300+ last year VS what he could have spent on Newegg and eBay. $2300? That's a new PC or a Vacation. At the very least you guys are throwing away a brand new video card for free by just changing your shopping habits!

Here is one example - Samsung 850 EVO 1TB 2.5-Inch SATA III Internal SSD

eBay: $269 free shipping no tax

https://tinyurl.com/y8z98mao

Amazon: $279 + tax of around $22+ dollars, so around $300 dollars. That's a $30 dollars savings.

https://tinyurl.com/ycwaojt5

Except you still owe the tax, so you are risking buying off eBay to save $10.
If your state cracks down you will not only owe the tax, but also interest and penalties.

I buy a lot of stuff for the company I work for, usually small items like Mice, cables and SSD's
I buy off Amazon when they are cheaper than our other providers, which is most the time.
The 2 day (sometimes even next day) free delivery is an added bonus.

I'm not about to risk buying off eBay from some unknown company, and waiting a week or more for it to be shipped.
As for the no sales tax? Not if you are a company and get audited on a regular basis.
If we buy from someone who doesn't change us sales tax, then accounting pays the sales tax to the sate as required by law.
 
This is very easy to offset. Make sure that a certain portion of your purchases are done via eBay and Newegg. The savings on 3 or 4 items will cover this increase and even possibly the entire $120 dollars for Amazon Prime. The only very slight downside is that you will have to wait 3 to 7 days vs 2 or 3 days. Make sure you only buy from sellers that offer free shipping via first class postal. In case some of you didn't know, Amazon is not the cheapest game in town. Don't even get me started on Walmart. They are def not the cheapest player in town but that's an argument for another time.

Lot of you guys are using Amazon exclusively and at the end of the year you've over paid on items and tax to the tune of several hundreds of dollars to possibly thousands of dollars. My friend Chris and I figured he over spent $2,300+ last year VS what he could have spent on Newegg and eBay. $2300? That's a new PC or a Vacation. At the very least you guys are throwing away a brand new video card for free by just changing your shopping habits!

Here is one example - Samsung 850 EVO 1TB 2.5-Inch SATA III Internal SSD

eBay: $269 free shipping no tax

https://tinyurl.com/y8z98mao

Amazon: $279 + tax of around $22+ dollars, so around $300 dollars. That's a $30 dollars savings.

https://tinyurl.com/ycwaojt5
I guess 99.9999999% of what I buy on Amazon isn't SSDs or Video Cards. Yesterday, I literally priced out same day delivery for household goods vs my local grocers and Target (yeah they are all online too!) and Amazon was measurably cheaper on nearly all products besides paper towels and the Dove bath soap my wife has to have... with free same day delivery. So take into consideration the opportunity cost of time and realized costs of gas to run around to multiple stores...

Oh and you need to be paying Use Tax on that Newegg/Ebay purchase ;)
 
Not to mention the Amazon Visa card I just signed up for that pays another 5% back on all Amazon purchases.

One of the best benefits of prime. I buy al lot of stuff for work, and the 5% back pays for the cost of Prime.

If it was just stuff I buy for myself, I don't think I could justify the cost (especial the new $119 cost).
Lucky I renewed last month, so I don't need to think about this till next year.
 
This is how I feel. That whole "the cost of prime" bullshit after a nice massive earnings announcement just smacks of Martin Shkreli-esque price gouging.

Not really. Costs always go up on any service. As Amazon spends more and more on developing their own content or buying incredibly expensive licenses they're going to feel justified in charging more. Same for Netflix, same for Hulu, etc. Companies spending more means customers paying more.

Public school or private? Asking for a friend ..

I believe you need a school email address, ideally a .edu.

Wait .... you're kidding right? I just clearly showed an example of saving $30 dollars. That's with one purchase. $30 is not a benefit? A handful more and Prime is free for the entire year. I don't know about you but free $120 prime seems like one hell of an advantage.

I'm thinking you might work for Amazon lol ... which would make sense.

eBay has buyer protection that favors the buyer ... heavily. Very heavily in fact. There are several advantages over Amazon with eBay. No tax and usually cheaper pricing. Of course everyone here can do as they please. I'm just pointing out a way to off-set Amazon prime costs.

You showed two entirely different products genius. The 850 is not the same thing as the 860.

Bragging about not paying taxes is really stupid. You'd better hope you never get randomly audited or the IRS would hang you by your balls. If you live in a state with sales tax you are required to list those items in order to pay sales tax on them.
 
eBay has buyer protection that favors the buyer ... heavily. Very heavily in fact.

Which is one of the reasons I stopped selling on eBay, too many crooked buyers.

The only time I buy off eBay, is if I can't find the item elsewhere, and if the amount is low enough that it's not a big deal if I get ripped off.
 
Between Costco, Amazon, Ebay, Newegg and the local grocery store - pretty much all my shopping needs are covered.

Costco is a genius business. They never have anything you couldn't buy somewhere else, and they use some kind of retail black magic because I don't think they actually save you money. Every time I go there I'm happy to go there, and every time I go there I wind up spending at least $200, and every time I've gone there I can never remember what I bought.

And they pay there employees well, too. It's very clever, and everyone seems to be happy about it, and of course they have those big german sausages that they sell for a buck at their little food court. But there's something unnatural about how they make it work.
 
Makes me even less likely to rejoin. I need a new SSD and a spinner soon and a bunch of other things. I'll probably get the 1 month prime free for that order than drop it. If I could stream stuff it might be worth it...but the quality was never great (always took it too long to decide it could send me something better than 128x64 blocks of blur) not to mention my 22GB cap. Plus several times when I was watching a series it mysteriously left the prime free at I was getting near the end. And I've learned patience in my old age a few extra days in shipping is no big deal (I order a lot of my DVD/BD from the UK...takes 3-4 weeks but the savings is huge). Subscribe and save...useless I never want that much of something...my tastes and needs change.
 
Honestly, I only care about the shipping but even then if I have the option to get things instantly at B&M for the same price I will get it. The only other service I ever used from prime was to watch the Grand Tour, I'd rather just buy the series than have prime just to watch it. I have almost everything within 15 mins of home and almost all the stores I go to have a pickup option now or will have. I have found myself buying from Amazon less and less, I think I will drop prime in August when the time comes, I considered it with the last price hike, now with this one too its just not worth it to me.
 
Meh - I'll re-up just because it's a time and money saver for me. I hate going out to grocery shop or deal with brick and morter stores filled with idiot employees that just want to sell me useless shit I don't want or need.

I love knowing when I need something I just click some buttons and I don't have to worry about how much it costs or how long it takes to get to my door step. the 5% cashback year round on my amazon prime card makes the price increase a non issue for me.

$20 extra a year to keep prime , and still retain the ability to score my 300 dollars a year cashback I redeem every year. Worth it.
 
Gotta think this one over. Since the switch to USPS my deliveries suck, most of the time I have to go to the post office physical location to get the packages.

I don't watch the video or use the other services.

If I drop it, perhaps I'll quit buying all the crap I don't need to have at least 5 items in the monthly subscribe and save.
 
The convenience of same day delivery on so many items means that I will keep my subscription for now. If it hits ~$150+ I would probably cancel.
 
Just like the cable company, Amazon will keep raising prices little by little.
Just like the cable company, Prime includes everything, even the stuff you don't want. It's all or nothing, never a-la-cart.
Amazon has already crunched the numbers, so they know this price increase will net them more money overall. A few people will cancel, but most will keep it.
And the cycle continues.
 
$10 a month for 2 day shipping, video streaming, music, e-books, free apps, and a plethora of other benefits? No sweat!
 
$20 extra a year to keep prime , and still retain the ability to score my 300 dollars a year cashback I redeem every year. Worth it.
Except that is actually $119 per year, making your cash back only $181. And you don't need to be a Prime member to have the Amazon Visa. I have one, and am not a Prime member, and get nice "cashback" discounts for Amazon purchases. So you need to figure how much you actually save on shipping with Prime vs without Prime, and if the video service is worth it, because without Prime, you could have the entire $300 cash back.
 
Like most, I keep it because we do a lot of shopping thru it. Like most, we consider the video stuff meh at best. Like others, we'll keep an eye on this and see where the breaking point is.

The thing that worries me the most is that there's no real alternative. Sure, I shop Newegg and a number of other online places but none are quite like amazon. Seems like there's a niche to be filled with someone perhaps creating a site collating comparable alternative sites for similar or even better products. Take it a step further with unified credentials/payment/shipping so each user doesn't have to keep track of another dozen of them and I think we'd have a winner. Final icing on the cake would be to keep a total annual fee in the $50-75.

TBH I'm pretty sure we could start a betting pool for how many months it takes for Netflix to do the same.
 
Except that is actually $119 per year, making your cash back only $181. And you don't need to be a Prime member to have the Amazon Visa. I have one, and am not a Prime member, and get nice "cashback" discounts for Amazon purchases. So you need to figure how much you actually save on shipping with Prime vs without Prime, and if the video service is worth it, because without Prime, you could have the entire $300 cash back.

that's 300$ just from 5% prime purchases, I'm not counting all the 1% or 2% stuff like gas/groceries or bills I pay with it. I know the price change is now $120/year for prime, still totally worth it. I could ditch prime and only enjoy the 5% for 3 months out of the year with my Discover card, but then I'm missing out on an avg of 220 cashback based on avg volume per month purchased. not to mention the ass tons I save on shipping.

Amazon would have to raise the price to around $250/year before I started seriously considering dumping it, for me it saved me that much money/time/worry with the number of things I buy. I'm a single dude too - if I had a family to feed, it would save even me even more for the bulk deals they have for household/grocery stuff.
 
You all are not doing it right.

Order only single items.

Never multiple items.

That way it cost them more!
 
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What? Yall thought the discount for low income people getting Prime wasn't going to be paid for somewhere?

I order enough with over night shipping etc that what I would spend on shipping anywhere else still makes Prime the cheapest option.
 
Nothing can and will ever beat Amazon Now!

I would pay $500 and know other people who would too for Amazon Prime.
 
Gotta think this one over. Since the switch to USPS my deliveries suck, most of the time I have to go to the post office physical location to get the packages.

I don't watch the video or use the other services.

If I drop it, perhaps I'll quit buying all the crap I don't need to have at least 5 items in the monthly subscribe and save.
I complained about that (back when I had prime). They said they couldn't do anything about it (their software didn't allow it). But two months later they stopped USPS and went back to UPS for me. (And now sometimes when someone with prime orders for me I've found that if they order on Sun/Mon/Tue it comes UPS, otherwise it gets sent USPS)...my mail box is 5 miles away...UPS brings it to the door, so I hate places that uses USPS with no option to get UPS or FedEx.
 
I complained about that (back when I had prime). They said they couldn't do anything about it (their software didn't allow it). But two months later they stopped USPS and went back to UPS for me. (And now sometimes when someone with prime orders for me I've found that if they order on Sun/Mon/Tue it comes UPS, otherwise it gets sent USPS)...my mail box is 5 miles away...UPS brings it to the door, so I hate places that uses USPS with no option to get UPS or FedEx.

I prefer UPS and Fedex too.

If Amazon guaranteed UPS or Fedex delivery for small and large items I would easily pay $500 a year.

That or gave a option for shipping provider at checkout.
 
Just like the cable company, Amazon will keep raising prices little by little.
Just like the cable company, Prime includes everything, even the stuff you don't want. It's all or nothing, never a-la-cart.
Amazon has already crunched the numbers, so they know this price increase will net them more money overall. A few people will cancel, but most will keep it.
And the cycle continues.

Unlike the cable company you can get all of Amazon's services and products from numerous competitors. Unlike the cable company, Amazon understands they need to provide value and customer satisfaction or they will lose customers altogether, not just for prime.

So stop.
 
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And of course if you are judging prime based on your ability to buy a few big ticket tech items every year, yeah, don't use prime. Waiting more than 2 days is probably not that big of a deal to you and finding the absolute lowest price is.

However if you get dog food, baby formula, diapers, wipes, soap, paper towels, bath and shower stuff, batteries and such like I do. Well then Prime pays for itself 15 times over without even factoring in the convenience of not ever running out of stuff and having to run out and purchase in a desperate rush.
 
And of course if you are judging prime based on your ability to buy a few big ticket tech items every year, yeah, don't use prime. Waiting more than 2 days is probably not that big of a deal to you and finding the absolute lowest price is.

However if you get dog food, baby formula, diapers, wipes, soap, paper towels, bath and shower stuff, batteries and such like I do. Well then Prime pays for itself 15 times over without even factoring in the convenience of not ever running out of stuff and having to run out and purchase in a desperate rush.

Yep.

I only order one thing at a time. Even if I need to order more than one thing the same day.
 
You all are not doing it right.

Order only single items.

Never multiple items.

That way it cost them more!

We order single items pretty much at least once a week, my wife has gotten into Amazon and buys all kinds of nick nack crap there so that's a lot of the one off ordering. Then they have those sales, picked up an 2 TB SSD yesterday. So that's been like three one off orders alone this week.
 
I put all that stuff on subscriptions, once a m
Yep.

I only order one thing at a time. Even if I need to order more than one thing the same day.

I put them all on subscribe and save and forget about them. Tweak the frequency every now.
 
Unlike the cable company you can get all of Amazon's services and products from numerous competitors. Unlike the cable company, Amazon understands they need to provide value and customer satisfaction or they will lost customer altogether, not just for prime.

So stop.
You missed my point completely. Prime bundles multiple services under one umbrella. You buy Prime, you get everything Prime offers. You cannot choose to only get free shipping and not get the Movie/TV service.
 
And of course if you are judging prime based on your ability to buy a few big ticket tech items every year, yeah, don't use prime. Waiting more than 2 days is probably not that big of a deal to you and finding the absolute lowest price is.

However if you get dog food, baby formula, diapers, wipes, soap, paper towels, bath and shower stuff, batteries and such like I do. Well then Prime pays for itself 15 times over without even factoring in the convenience of not ever running out of stuff and having to run out and purchase in a desperate rush.

Prime saves me money right now....But even if it didn't I would still keep it because the cost (up to a point) is worth the convenience. Not having to go to the store, or any number of stores saves me time and gas that I can do with a few clicks, not to mention stuff or brands I can't even get local. But I also spend 10-15k a year with Amazon, often times a few orders a week for house hold items.
 
You missed my point completely. Prime bundles multiple services under one umbrella. You buy Prime, you get everything Prime offers. You cannot choose to only get free shipping and not get the Movie/TV service.

Guess I'm not sure of your point. Maybe it deserves a big "no shit"? Amazon, as a for profit company, did the math and knows they will make money. They lay out there what you get for $120 and by and large meet or exceed those expectations. You can then make the decision to pay $120, not pay $120 and still use Amazon or not pay $120 and not use Amazon. Also the sky is blue.

Who cares if its a la carte or not. You can always go elsewhere.
 
The justification they are looking for... Meh, it's only $2. In reality it's $119.

No, in reality it's $20 more per year. If you didn't already have/need Prime, I'm not sure why you would start now, so this matters most to folks who are re-upping.
 
Y'all pissing me off. SUBSCRIBE AND SAVE =/=PRIME. You do not need PRIME to subscribe and save.
 
Y'all pissing me off. SUBSCRIBE AND SAVE =/=PRIME. You do not need PRIME to subscribe and save.

https://www.amazon.com/b/ref=rcxsubs_details?ie=UTF8&node=15283820011

Save up to 15% off when receiving 5 or more products in a given month to a single address.

Prime members unlock 20% savings on subscriptions to diapers, baby food and more when receiving 5 or more products in a given month to a single address, compliments of Amazon Family.

Plus another 5% from Amazon cc. Prime nets me 10% subscribe and save.
 
As an Amazon Associate, HardForum may earn from qualifying purchases.
Maybe they will actually use some of this extra money to fix their horrible web page.

The search and even categories are so horrible that it takes forever to find something without having to first see pages upon pages of stuff totally unrelated to what I was searching for.
 
And of course if you are judging prime based on your ability to buy a few big ticket tech items every year, yeah, don't use prime. Waiting more than 2 days is probably not that big of a deal to you and finding the absolute lowest price is.

However if you get dog food, baby formula, diapers, wipes, soap, paper towels, bath and shower stuff, batteries and such like I do. Well then Prime pays for itself 15 times over without even factoring in the convenience of not ever running out of stuff and having to run out and purchase in a desperate rush.

All that is available at Costco or Google Express for the same or better price..
 
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