From the very beginning, Amazon has been clear that following a free 30-day trial period, it would charge customers a $299 per year annual subscription to use its AmazonFresh grocery delivery service. In reality, users of AmazonFresh in many places kept having their free trial period extended so the annual membership didn't really mean anything - until now.
According to reports, Amazon has informed customers in New York, Philadelphia and Seattle that they will now have to pay the $299 fee to continue receiving the service. This came as something of a kick in the head to customers in Seattle, for example, who have been AmazonFresh customers going back to as early as 2007 without having to pay a subscription. Customers in other locations including Los Angeles have been paying the annual fee, which is being marketed as an upgrade to Amazon's Prime two-day delivery program that also includes perks such as streaming movies.
Photo: RetailWire
Prime customers who upgrade to Prime Fresh for AmazonFresh will have their memberships prorated. Orders over $50 will not include any additional delivery fees.
One of the interesting aspects of Amazon's move is that it adds a fee when the site faces increasing competition in the online grocery market from pure-plays such as itself in FreshDirect, Door to Door Organics, etc. and a host of traditional and organic grocers using services such as Instacart and Shipt to deliver orders to customers.
As would be expected, unhappy customers took to social media to vent their frustrations with Amazon over the news.
Jonathan Fay tweeted, "I was willing to overpay on groceries for the convenience, but paying an extra $300 for the right to overpay is ridiculous!"
Katy Hollinswurf wrote, "Well, @AmazonFresh lost our household as a customer today. $299 for prime and free delivery on orders OVER $50? Yeah... no thanks."