E-Commerce giant, Amazon.com announced that it will increase the price of its premium subscription service, Amazon Prime, from $79 per year to $99 per year as of April 17, 2014. According to Catherine Clifford of Entrepreneur.com, Amazon's CFO stated that the company's hand was forced due to the increasing cost of transportation and increases in orders.
With Amazon posting negative earnings in 2 out of 3 of the previous quarters, this increase in price is appealing to shareholders. As the leader in E-Commerce, it seems that even Amazon.com has its own challenges.
Although bold, I predict with Amazon's increased focused in cloud services, Amazon will probably move out of E-Commerce all together. Currently, Amazon's cloud services is its most profitable division. In addition, with Wal-Mart planning to expand into E-Commerce, there might be a legitimate threat to Amazon.
Given an increased trend in consolidation in the North American market, it would not be surprising to see an acquisition by Wal-Mart for Amazon's E-Commerce division. In 25 years, I believe Amazon.com will fully be on the cloud.
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