Amazon justified the price increase in a nightly email to existing customers on Tuesday with “general and material cost changes due to inflation based on external circumstances beyond our control”.
The change applies “at the earliest when the next payment is due, on or after September 15, 2022,” it said. In the announcement on Tuesday, the world’s largest online retailer also pointed out that it was the first increase since 2017 and that the offer had been expanded in video streaming, among other things. In Austria, Amazon Prime was launched in 2014; back then it cost 49 euros a year.
Prime is an important customer retention tool for Amazon. The more than 200 million subscription customers worldwide get free shipping from Amazon and participating retailers on the platform, even without a minimum order value, and can also access video and music streaming, among other things. In February, Amazon announced a price increase from $119 (around €116) to $139 (€136) for annual payments in its home market of the USA.
Source: Nachrichten
