Shop til you drop: Canadians spared from Amazon Prime price increase

Amazon.com is hiking the price of its Prime membership, but in an email to BNN Bloomberg, the company confirmed the increases will only to apply to Americans.

Amazon.com Inc. is hiking the price of its Prime membership, but in an email to BNN Bloomberg, the company confirmed the increases will only to apply to Americans.

In a press release on Thursday, the e-commerce giant announced it will raise the price of its monthly Prime membership in the U.S. to US$14.99, from US$12.99; and the annual fee is going up to US$139, from US$119.

The changes take effect on Feb. 18 for new Prime subscribers in the U.S. and at the time of renewal after March 25 for existing members. 

Amazon said the Prime price increase, the first hike since 2018, is due to higher wages and shipping costs. 

Those inflationary pressures were apparent in the company’s fourth-quarter results. 

Operating income was halved to US$3.5 billion from US$6.9 billion a year earlier, and it swung from US$31 billion in free cash flow a year ago to an outflow of US$9.1 billion in the most recent quarter.