Amazon Stock (AMZN) Still a Buy Despite Slamming Door on Millions of Prime Users

Amazon just told millions of Prime users to take a hike—and Wall Street cheered.

The e-commerce giant's controversial move to purge inactive accounts and tighten membership criteria sparked outrage among consumers but sent shares climbing nearly 3% in after-hours trading. Because nothing makes investors happier than watching companies squeeze more blood from fewer stones.

Prime Purge: Cleaning House or Cutting Cord?

Amazon's aggressive account cleanup targets users who haven't made purchases in over a year—a move analysts call 'ruthlessly efficient.' The company maintains this strengthens the Prime ecosystem, though critics argue it's just corporate speak for 'we want higher spending members only.'

Wall Street's embrace of the strategy reveals the brutal mathematics of modern retail: sometimes losing customers actually improves the bottom line. It's the kind of cold calculus that would make Gordon Gekko proud—greed is good, especially when it's dressed up as 'strategic optimization.'

Despite the customer backlash, AMZN continues to outperform analyst expectations, proving once again that in today's market, being hated by consumers is barely a speed bump on the road to record profits.

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Amazon Prime is to end the program, which allowed millions of Americans to receive free shipping without paying for a subscription, on October 1. The aim is to tempt these users into paying for Prime membership instead.

Prime Perk

The Invitee program has been running for 16 years. It allows Prime subscribers to extend their free shipping perk to up to four other adults across the country, each shopping through their own accounts. Although new enrollments stopped in 2015, existing participants were allowed to keep the benefit.

It is estimated that tens of millions of people may be using Prime shipping without paying for it, though Amazon itself hasn’t disclosed official figures.

Consumer Intelligence Research Partners (CIRP) estimates U.S. Prime usage at around 197 million people, while paid memberships likely range between 140 million and 160 million.

Now Amazon wants these users to sign up to Prime with a discounted one-year membership of $14.99. That’s understandable given the important of Prime to the overall business.

Good things don’t last forever, however. The price will then jump back to the regular $14.99 monthly fee.

Spending Pressure

The company, it appears, is steering users toward Amazon Family, previously called Amazon Household, which lets two adults living at the same address and up to four children share Prime benefits. Unlike the Invitee program, this requires shared payment methods, though individuals can choose their own at checkout.

It comes at a challenging time for the high profile Prime service. Last week reports suggested that despite doubling its Prime Day discount sales event to four days this year, sign-ups in the U.S. failed to meet last year’s total and even the company’s own target.

The report said that internal company data showed that the online giant registered 5.4 million U.S. sign-ups over the 21-day run-up to Prime Day and its four-day sales event from July 8 to July 11. That was around 116,000 fewer than for the same period a year earlier and 106,000 below the company’s own goal, a roughly 2% decline for both metrics.

Back in July, Amazon said its latest Prime Day drove $24.1 billion in online spending from July 8-11, a 30% increase from the summer 2024 sales event.

Is AMZN a Good Stock to Buy Now?

On TipRanks, AMZN has a Strong Buy consensus based on 44 Buy and 1 Hold ratings. Its highest price target is $300. AMZN stock’s consensus price target is $264.13, implying a 13.69% upside.