Amazon no longer offers free shipping for Prime members

Recently, Amazon sent a group email to inform all Prime members that the free delivery service from Whole Foods Market, which was originally exclusively for members, will end in October! From then on, Prime members will need to pay a delivery fee of about US$10 when placing such orders.

Previously, Whole Foods Market provided Prime members with a free 2-hour home delivery service. Members within the delivery range could place an order online and the supermarket would deliver the relevant products to customers nearby. In the middle of last year, Whole Foods Market expanded to areas such as Rhode Island, Detroit, Boston, and Chicago. The number of orders delivered has tripled compared to 2019, and the corresponding equipment purchase and maintenance costs are also increasing. An Amazon spokesperson said this is one of the reasons for canceling free delivery for members.

Prime users can still enjoy free Whole Foods Market delivery until October 25. After the deadline, members will need to pay delivery fees to purchase Whole Foods Market products. However, Amazon also stated that the fee change is merely an adjustment to the Whole Foods Market business and will not affect other rights of Prime members. Members will still enjoy free delivery services for fresh food and other products purchased from Amazon Fresh.

Consumers across the United States are paying more for food and daily necessities. According to the latest data from the Consumer Price Index released by the U.S. agency, grocery prices in the U.S. market have risen by 3% this year, which is the main indicator of inflation. This represents the soaring prices in the United States. During the same period, the price of food in offline restaurants rose by 4.7%.

What’s even more interesting is that in foreign media surveys, online shopping has always been considered by consumers to be unaffected by price increases. This is actually very abnormal. Generally speaking, inflation will lead to a general increase in costs and prices in society. American consumers can fully feel the pressure of inflation in offline supermarkets, but this inflation increase will not rise to online shopping products. The only possibility is that the sellers of online shopping products have borne the cost increase and have not passed the price increase on to the end products. This statement is not familiar to everyone. Isn’t it the crazy internal competition of our Chinese sellers since the epidemic!

Since the beginning of this year, a strange atmosphere has been spreading among Amazon sellers. It is obvious that the whole world has stopped work or reduced production due to the epidemic, daily necessities and department stores can only be mass-produced in China, and overseas orders are flying into China like crazy. Why do people still feel that they can't make money?

Let me put it this way, if all the factories in our country belong to the same enterprise, then this enterprise will directly monopolize the upstream of the world consumer market, and consumers all over the world cannot do without daily necessities. At this time, we can raise prices as much as we want.

But the fact is not so. We have countless factories of all sizes. For the same product, if you want to make 10 yuan, another one only needs to make 6 yuan, and another one will make it for 4 yuan. If this continues, as long as there is one factory willing to make small profits but quick turnover, it will be difficult for others to raise prices. Coupled with the surge in overseas orders, the cost will only be lower in the case of large-scale production, and the profit can be spread even less. It is becoming more and more inward-looking and more and more difficult to do. This is the current situation of domestic foreign trade. And this situation only feeds shipping companies and logistics freight forwarders, allowing American consumers to smoothly survive inflation, and they shamelessly say that "online shopping products have not been affected by price increases." Isn't this just Chinese sellers covering the bottom line? Rounding it off, we are losing our own money. If we feed American consumers and donate prices, we will really be " cross-border philanthropists, donating money and materials ."

In June, we called on everyone to "raise prices for the country". From the aspects of tariffs and currency exchange rates, we analyzed that price increases are the country's requirements for our industry and a major strategy that benefits the country and the people. Many sellers have begun to realize the importance of price increases. According to Adobe's analysis of retail website visits, online commodity prices in August rose by 3.1% compared with the same period last year, and grocery prices rose by 1.64%. The average annual price growth rate before 2019 was only 0.51%. It can be said that from last year to this year, the price increase of e-commerce products is 6 times that of the past!

Even Amazon is giving up free shipping and raising prices for consumers in disguise. What reason do you have not to raise prices? Moreover, raising prices and refusing to lower prices does not mean that products cannot be sold. Many small and medium-sized sellers can maintain a profit margin of about 15% to 30%. With a high profit margin, they can make money by doing a 10% or 10% discount event, which can be said to be a very comfortable range.