When we signed up for Prime about three years ago it was $70, now its $100 I think. When thinking about Amazon think about the long haul. Bezos is all about the long haul. So yes, you make good points.

You're first hit is always free.

If that happens, I wouldn't blame it on Amazon. The evolution of online shopping has meant that I no longer need to rely on the expertise of someone at a store to give me product and purchasing advice; I can go online and crowdsource information, getting non-biased reviews. I can also find better crafted products that are higher quality and better suited to my needs. By the time I go into a store today, I know what I want already; it's either already been selected, ordered, or I have it on hold there.

Stores need to evolve with this -- make sure that their employees aren't so indifferent to a customer's questions and have answers about what they're selling, giving real advice and expertise that goes beyond what you or I can find by crowdsourcing. The model and experience has to change. The Amazons of the world have driven this necessity by offering something different in a world that shops differently and values a more modern experience; in more niche spaces, places like Competitive Cyclist, Prima Coffee, B&H Photo & Video, Gustin, D' Artagnan, etc. have done this in their respective spaces online. It's up to brick & mortars to decide to evolve or not. I see it in some local spaces -- the local coffee shops that offer a far better experience than a Starbucks, niche grocers like a cheese store, farmer's markets improving, local crafts & furniture/cabinet makers doing well, local bike shops doing great by offering a service-first approach, etc. Those places get it, but the Sears & Macy's of the world will get decimated if they don't adapt. I'm not sure that's a bad thing.

More on the Amazon front: Sears is now going to start selling its Kenmore brand appliances on the online retail giant's website.

This is a big change, because Sears -- along with several other notable brands, including Nike -- had resisted selling their products directly through the Amazon system.


"Sears Holdings Corp. SHLD 10.60% said Thursday it will start selling its Kenmore appliances on Amazon, loosening its grip on one of its historic product lines and becoming the latest big American brand to capitulate to the online-retail giant.

News of Amazon’s move into appliances, one of the categories it hasn’t deeply penetrated, rippled through the industry. Investors dumped shares of big appliance sellers that have been benefiting from Sears’s retreat. Lowe’s Cos. tumbled; Home Depot Inc. HD -4.09% and Best Buy Co. BBY -3.93% fell 4% apiece.

Amazon’s rapid growth has displaced traditional stores and left even powerful brands unable to ignore it. Nike Inc., one of the biggest holdouts, recently decided to start selling directly to Amazon."


Sears to Sell Kenmore Brand on Amazon - WSJ


All within Prime, nothing outside Prime, nothing against Prime. (Classical reference ;-)

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"Politics is just show business for ugly people."

Amazon sent around a billion packages last year with a buck and a half subsidy from the USPS for all of them... let's remove that subsidy and shore up the finances of the post office instead of making Jeff the richest man in the world

Something from the CBS Marketwatch website on the effective $1.46 subsidy Amazon is receiving from USPS:

Why the U.S. Postal Service gives Amazon special delivery - MarketWatch

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"Politics is just show business for ugly people."

I may be a bit thick here, but I'm lacking understanding of details in the article. It states that USPS cannot price parcel below its actual cost of delivery. Yet it also states that Amazon's deliveries have filled the gap caused by a drop in first class volume, which didn't have the pricing restrictions. Aren't Amazon packages parcel deliveries? If they are, how are they being sent at a loss to USPS? The only thing I can connect is that those are possibly being classified, unfairly, as first class deliveries? And if that's the case I'm further confused -- how can USPS deliver two day Prime packages as anything but parcel? First class delivery times aren't guaranteed.

Any ideas?

I'm clueless. But I've never gotten a Prime package via USPS. It's always been through some other delivery source, including Lyft drivers.

Maybe Amazon's "regular" shipping times comport with USPS First Class delivery times, for starters? I'm still not clear on this 'effective subsidy', though.

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"Politics is just show business for ugly people."

It has to do with the allocation of overhead. When they originally did the formula for packages was ~5% of their business so thats what went in the formula. Now that it's 20 to 25 percent and the formula hasn't changed there is an effective subsidy.

They deliver to the post office by you and then the post office does the last mile delivery

That CBC article about deliveries to the far north being more effective then gov't subsidies made me think (insert joke here) - the problem with that logic is that the deliveries are being made by Canada Post - a federal gov't body that loses money in the populated south, so it probably hemorhages tax dollars doing deliveries to these remote 'fly in on a bush plane' communities. Effectively this is still a big govt subsidy.

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Remember - It's important to be comfortable in your own skin... because it turns out society frowns on wearing other people's

I thought this article was interesting, and it seemed pretty strange that the USPS would benefit by losing money on each transaction, so I dug a bit into it. This article explains it isn't as simple as that, and not surprisingly there are benefits to USPS working with Amazon.

http://fortune.com/...tal-service-subsidy/