Don’t Fear Raising Prices. Amazon Prime Increase Shows Why Great Value and Service Help When You Raise Prices

Amazon Prime is $79 a year and it’s been that way for several years.

Amazon Prime provides free shipping on zillions of items that Amazon.com sells and it provides free movie streaming on zillions of movies.

Amazon announced today that is raising its prices to $99 - up by $20.

A $20 a year price increase is not a significant increase for Amazon Prime’s target market. That works out to about $1.67 a month.

There are rumbles of folks complaining about the price increase and here’s where the lesson for your small business comes in to play.

(What are your tips and thoughts on small businesses raising prices? Share them in the comments below)

  1. Offer great service that transcends just price.
  2. Offer great value (free shipping, free movies, etc) and you can always justify a fair price.
  3. When you have to raise prices, explain the price increase. In an email to me and other Prime members this morning, Amazon explained it’s price increase.

If you offer value backed by great customer service you don’t have to fear raising prices.

I’d rather have Amazon.com Prime be $20 more per year than for it to shut down or slack in service.