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Amazon has reported that it has reached 100 million Prime subscribers worldwide:
The big numerical reveal on Wednesday was Amazon.com Inc. finally spilling the beans on the number of Prime members (more than 100 million). It also disclosed another number that shows how much it relies on an army of people moving physical merchandise around the world: $28,446.
That's the median annual compensation of Amazon employees. Amazon reported this number for the first time under a new requirement that companies disclose the gap between pay for the rank-and-file and the person in the corner office. (Amazon Chief Executive Officer Jeff Bezos, the world's richest person, reported total compensation of $1.68 million last year. As in prior years, he didn't take a stock bonus, collected a salary of $81,840 and had $1.6 million in personal security costs that Amazon covered.)
However, there's still more work to be done for the company to reach more Americans:
But that figure only gives a surface-level view into the success and current challenges of Amazon's loyalty program — chief among them, how to keep growing in the country where Prime is the most popular and the biggest money-maker: Right here in the U.S. [...] As of August 2016, 60 percent of U.S. households with income of at least $150,000 had Prime memberships, according to research from Cowen and Company. Compare that with around 40 percent of households that made between $40,000 and $50,000 a year, and just 30 percent of those who earned less than $25,000.
[...] In 2017, Amazon unveiled Amazon Cash, a way for shoppers who don't have credit or debit cards to load money into their Amazon accounts by handing over cash at partnering retail stores. In the process, one roadblock to shopping on Amazon for those without bank accounts was lowered.
Two months later, Amazon introduced a 45 percent discount to the Amazon Prime monthly fee for those shoppers who receive certain forms of government assistance; the service cost them just $5.99 a month. And just this March, Amazon added Medicaid recipients to the group eligible for that discount.
Related: Amazon Prime... For Medicaid Recipients
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 20 2018, @05:40PM (1 child)
They used to go out of their way to get Prime orders delivered on time, or even early. Now, you are lucky if it ships by the promised (on the order screen, that "Want it [two days from now]? Order in the next 6 hours 43 minutes and..." part) delivery date. To make it even worse, they always use USPS for outbound delivery. USPS mail delivery is generally very good, the parcel side is awful. Their tracking numbers are a bad joke, often sitting at "package received from sender" for days. Their delivery timeframe is "may or may not be delivered this year, and you can not hold us to that". Amazon knows how bad it is, they use UPS for returns (so they have accurate tracking for stuff coming back to them).
I am a Prime member, at least until the 3 botched orders from this past weekend are settled out and refunded (no, no 'Chinabrand' stuff in any of them). Then I am canceling my Prime and done with Amazon. They have lost the ability to ship on time and refuse to use a reliable parcel service. The trying to shift sales to 'affiliates' when 'sold and shipped by Amazon' was specifically selected is just a bonus turd in the punch bowl.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Virindi on Friday April 20 2018, @05:48PM
They very rarely use USPS now in my area. Almost everything is delivered by their own people, "Amzl". Which makes the games they play with their definition of "shipping time" even more ridiculous (they define "2 day" as "2 days to your house after it leaves the nearest warehouse", which has little meaning when they are doing both sides of shipping).
Before Amzl, they mostly used a company called Lasership. I'm guessing that USPS now is more for rural areas?