Prime Hike Gives Amazon Warchest for Fight Over Postal Costs

President Donald Trump has been laying into the Seattle-based online shopping firm in recent weeks for what he says is a deal with publicly-owned USPS which effectively lumps much of the cost of thousands of daily deliveries onto U.S. taxpayers.

Trump has said that if USPS raised parcel rates, Amazon would face $2.6bn in extra cost, although equity analysts who follow billionaire Jeff Bezos’ company estimate a much lower number and say the deal may actually be keeping USPS afloat.

Several said that Thursday’s move by the company to raise Prime fees to $119 a year from $99 starting June 16 would not faze many of Prime’s estimated 60-65 million U.S. members.

“The incremental $20 membership fee could result in an incremental $1.2bn to $1.3bn of revenue which should more than offset any rational USPS price increase,” Deutsche Bank analyst Lloyd Walmsley said.

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