On the night of Monday July 25 to Tuesday July 26, Amazon notified Prime subscribers of a significant price increase: the e-commerce platform’s loyalty service package goes from 49 to 69.90 euros per year and from 5.99 to 6.99 euros per month, i.e. 43% and 17% increase.
“This change is linked to the increase in operating costs of Prime in France”, explains Amazon France in the email sent to Prime subscribers, which includes a free fast delivery service, but also series, films and sports competitions from Prime Video, music with Amazon Music, etc.
Asked about the details of the increases in expenditure, the company invokes in the first place the inflation of “fuel costs” deliveries and also that of “price of packaging” parcels, even if Amazon claims to make efforts to reduce the weight and volume of these to a minimum. The online sales platform had already invoked gasoline prices at the end of April to justify the 4% to 5% increase in its prices charged to sellers using its logistics services.
This Tuesday, Amazon France also specifies that it has “Much improved the quality of Prime’s service”, in particular by expanding the selection of products eligible for rapid delivery. For food shopping, express delivery has also been extended to 10 towns (in partnership with Monoprix) and collection by drive-through car to 75 towns (in partnership with Casino).
Added lots of content
Prime Video and Amazon Music’s entertainment offerings have also been bolstered, but the company is keen to ensure that this “had no impact” on the increase in the price of Prime. Prime Video has indeed added a lot of content: the Rolland-Garros tennis tournament, Ligue 1 football (accessible by subscribing to an additional channel at 12.99 euros per month or 89 euros per year, on promotion) … But also the future series from the Lord of the Rings or French productions to which the platform is now required to devote 20% of its turnover.
Amazon finally recalls that the price of Prime in France had not changed since its launch in 2008. It was also lower than in other European countries, where prices also increased on Tuesday: in the United Kingdom , from 7.99 to 8.99 pounds (about 10.60 euros) per month and from 79 to 95 pounds (about 112 euros) per year, in Germany from 7.99 to 8.99 euros per month and from 69 at 89.90 euros per year…
Nevertheless, the increase underlines the opacity of the costs and the pricing policy of Amazon and Prime. The company does not communicate its number of subscribers by country, confining itself to claiming “more than 200 million” of members worldwide. The Prime rate increases in France by 43% while inflation is not ” that ” of 7%, quipped on Twitter the former economist of the European Commission, Tommaso Valletti, believing that the increase illustrates the “market power” from the leader in e-commerce.
You have 21.36% of this article left to read. The following is for subscribers only.