Amazon tests cheaper Prime subscription

Amazon is testing a light-version of its Prime subscription service. The e-commerce giant hopes that the discount formula can be a worldwide success in these times of economic pressure.

Lowering the threshold

In India, Amazon is trying to make its Prime subscription service more accessible to a larger part of the public. “Prime Lite” gives access delivery within two days and to the streaming platform Prime Video, TechCrunch reports. Rather than the 1499 rupees (17 euros) for a full membership, the light version costs just 999 rupees (11 euros) per month.

Amazon looks to lower the threshold towards Prime membership for customers with smaller budgets worldwide, and that is not a coincidence: the amount of relevant data that Prime users happily provide to Amazon is worth its digital weight in gold. Moreover, Prime members spend twice as much on Amazon as non-members.

In India, there may also be another motive behind the test: stealing customers from its local rival Flipkart, which is owned by worldwide rival Walmart. The struggle between the two is fierce: Flipkart has the better position in India, leading to Amazon letting 1 % of its Indian workforce go in order to save money on the cut-throat (but huge) market.