Getting free delivery and movies rentals from Amazon will now cost more, as the online retail giant upped its Prime membership fee to $99.
The $20 increase is the first since the program was implemented nine years ago. Amazon is maintaining its $299 fee for Amazon Prime Fresh, but an Amazon Student membership will go up $10 to $49. The higher fee will not come into play until the users membership comes up for renewal.
Amazon Prime members receive free two-day delivery, access to 40,000 movies and TV shows, and the ability to use Amazon's Kindle bookstore of 475,000 titles as a library with book rentals.
The move is an obvious attempt to bolster the company's always struggling bottom line. The price hike was hinted at during Amazon's January earnings call when CFO Tom Szkutak said increased transportation costs could spur the company to increase the fee between $20 and $40. At that time, the company reported record sales, but once again relatively thin profits.
Amazon is advising its customers of the increase via email and in the note, its brings up the increased transportation costs associated with the growth of the program. In addition to more Prime members, Amazon claimed 1 million people signed on in December along, the number of items available from the site has skyrocketed from 1 million in 2005 to 20 million today.
Amazon left the membership fee for its new Prime Fresh program steady at $299. A Prime Fresh account includes free same-day and early morning delivery of orders over $35 that includes fresh grocery and other products found on AmazonFresh.com. So far it is only available in the Los Angeles, San Francisco and Seattle areas.
The company has been busy trying to find new potential profit centers. This is particularly obvious in the video space where the company said it is working with the world's leading consumer electronics companies, Hollywood studios and TV programmers, including Samsung, Warner Bros., Lionsgate, 20th Century Fox, Discovery and others to offer customers a premium 4K Ultra HD experience. In addition, Amazon Studios announced that it plans to shoot all 2014 full original series, including comedies and dramas, in 4K Ultra HD.
Amazon Studios also rolled out the new original series Alpha House and Betas to help attract more people to Prime.
