Amazon Cuts Down on Prime Members Sharing Their Benefits

http://techcrunch.com/2015/08/03/amazon-cuts-down-on-prime-members-sharing-their-benefits/

by louieloop • 11 years ago

57 31 11 years ago

mikeash2• 11 years ago

No surprise. Prime was effectively $20/year if you could find four other people to share it with. The only shocking thing is that it took them this long to crack down on it.

aNoob7000• 11 years ago

I believe Amazon knew about all the sharing that was going on but waited until there was enough users hooked to pull the trigger. An example of another company where people share accounts is Netflix which I think will do something similar to Amazon in the near future.

mikeash2• 11 years ago

I could definitely see that. It can be really effective to sell something at a steep discount to get people hooked, then jack up the price. The problem is that people get upset when you jack up the price. By hiding the discount like this, you can avoid that. People taking advantage of it now will feel like they've just been caught doing something naughty and so will probably be less inclined to complain about it.

Navarr• 11 years ago

You pay an increase rate for simultaneous streams already. I don't think they'll crack down any more on it.

toomuchtodo2• 11 years ago

Reed Hastings mentioned recently they don't view Netflix account sharing as a big enough problem worth addressing:

http://www.businessinsider.com/password-sharing-isnt-a-probl...

timdorr• 11 years ago

It appears you can still share just your free shipping and create a "household" separately. I've have my friends on my Prime account separately from the Household with my wife.

Free shipping sharing is here: https://www.amazon.com/gp/primecentral

Household settings are here: https://www.amazon.com/mn/dcw/myx.html#/home/settings/paymen...

Someone12342• 11 years ago

I like some aspects of the new system, including sharing payment methods, and so on. For a typical marriage-like situation, it is wonderful not having to log over to my wife's account to gain other prime benefits (shipping was shared, but things like prime video were not). Now both of our accounts are flagged prime for all purposes as far as I can tell.

That being said, when my kids are older, it would have been nice if we could grant them this stuff also, and as far as I can tell that is not the case. Only the two adults get the prime, while the kids get just the shared digital library.

What's interesting is that Amazon has been doing nice things in the kids department like the "Amazon Allowance."[0] Effectively a parent can give a kid some money, and they can use it on Amazon however they wish. So not being able to grant the kids prime on their account effectively means that a lot of the allowance will wind up going to avoidable postage charges (particularly on smaller orders of sub-$25, which I'd imagine are things an allowance might be utilised on).

I almost don't wonder if Amazon shouldn't change prime in the following way:

- Prime postage is now tied to a physical address (not Amazon Account), regardless of sender (e.g. gifts are now prime eligible).

- The prime account holder gets a certain number of prime "credits" they can use to send prime packages to other physical addresses, like friends and relatives.

Effectively this means if you pay $100/year your address is now Prime flagged. So no matter who sends the item, it gets prime postage. So all household members, or people sending you gifts.

Such a change would be controversial, but it would solve the "household problem" since now whoever lives there gets the prime no matter what their relationship to the account holder or similar.

[0] http://www.amazon.com/b?ie=UTF8&node=11453461011

dpeck2• 11 years ago

I really hope they don't go to something like this. I realize I'm not the common use case but I am often ordering things to be delivered to my home, office, inlaws house, etc depending on where I'm going to be on its arrival date and where I need to actually use the item.

Eg in the last couple weeks:

We needed wanted programmable thermostats at the family vacation house, had those sent there so I wouldn't forget them.

Wanted some new pens at the office, had a few packs of Pilot G-2s sent to office.

Needed a new scale for the kitchen since my 10 year old one stopped working, delivered to home.

Kid was staying with grandma for a couple of nights and needed some more diapers, had those sent to her house.

Not all that uncommon for a week or two for me.

If prime locked down to a single address I would seriously consider dropping it and I've been a member and big fan of it pretty much since it launched.

bjwbell• 11 years ago

Shipping to multiple addresses is probably pretty common. I frequently send gifts to relatives using my prime account. I'd hate to lose free shipping for those items.

tracker12• 11 years ago

I tend to ship mostly to the office, since I live in an apartment, delivery to the door is unreliable and picking up at the office with limited hours is a pain...

YMMV, but agreed that multiple location options is really nice... also, makes sending gifts easier, when it goes where it needs to. I don't use the media stuff much, but I order a lot on amazon, via prime.

mrbill• 11 years ago

This. I spent a couple of weeks working from my mom's house in Oklahoma after she got out of the hospital, and being able to use Prime to order an office chair and a folding table (to use as a proper desk) to be delivered out in the boonies was a godsend.

thedufer• 11 years ago

Prime postage is now tied to a physical address (not Amazon Account), regardless of sender

This isn't going to go over well. If you think the original Amazon Household was abused, this would be a lot worse. I live in NYC in a small building (no doorman), so I get everything delivered to my office, as do most of my coworkers. If 49/50 of the people working on my floor dropped Prime because we get it from just one person, Amazon won't be happy.

brudgers2• 11 years ago

Prime is a sign that Amazon has to some degree given up on the simple business model of just selling stuff with a margin. It's gone from chasing Walmart to chasing Costco, and that's a much smaller market.

That's not to say it doesn't make business sense. The problem is that monetization is now tied to walking the fine line between positive experience and pissing people off...e.g. they have made Prime worse from the customer's perspective. New ways to suck is not a good kind of innovation.

hsitz• 11 years ago

You do realize that Amazon Prime started back in 2005, right?

vikramhaer• 11 years ago

I don't think 'selling stuff with a margin' was ever their business model. In almost every aspect of their business they act as a platform (platform to sell things to consumers, host photos/ music/ etc, watch/ listen/ subscribe to content, AWS). I feel like Prime's goal is to encourage customers to stay within the Amazon ecosystem and although its a revenue stream, it doesn't necessarily mean that 'monetization is now tied to walking the fine line between positive experience and pissing people off'.

res0nat0r2• 11 years ago

I've had Prime for a long time and was surprised to realize I could share shipping with up to 4 people. That just seems to be a big money sink for Amazon, so if they cut back on this I wouldn't call it sucking, I'd call it a smart business move IMO and wouldn't fault them for it.

jlgaddis2• 11 years ago

I didn't even know it was possible until I read this article. My girlfriend (who lives with me) just logs into my Amazon account when she wants to order something so that she get the free two-day shipping.

We have a Roku 3 with the Amazon Instant Video app as well. I've never watched anything through the Amazon app but she does occasionally (again, using my account).

Knowing his will make things a bit easier, I guess, although we had pretty much worked around it just by sharing my account. Had I known, though, I probably would have shared the shipping with my (and perhaps the girlfriend's) parents.

brudgers2• 11 years ago

I think your weren't using; won't miss case may be about as good as it gets in terms of customer satisfaction. It's hard to imagine a customer seeing the change as a new feature and getting excited. It's easy to imagine someone who sees the change as an unfavorable alteration of the value proposition.

randyrand• 11 years ago

Huh? I love prime. Never had issues with it. I have my own account though. I wonder how many people share prime.

skywhopper• 11 years ago

Prime hasn't let me share the Instant Video feature in a while, if it ever did, so I was sort of confused by this article.

jrs235• 11 years ago

I think in a few years they might limit the free shipping benefit even more. The free 2-day shipping will only be allowed for one, maybe two, shipping addresses. All other addresses would be ineligible. How many people buy for personal and business reasons (two separate shipping addresses) and for family and friends who reimburse the prime member offline (more shipping addresses)?

Amazon Cuts Down on Prime Members Sharing Their Benefits

Related Stories