Update (2/20 9:00am): The new shipping policy is now official. Traditional orders of $49 will ship for free while book-only packages require a $25 minimum.
Earlier today, Amazon briefly updated its shipping page to a new minimum shipping charge for non-Prime members. While the page was quickly reverted back to its previous version, it was up long enough to capture the details of the changes that may be coming soon…
The move happened early on Friday morning and was quickly cached by Google. This page was changed to reflect a new policy bumping the free shipping threshold from $35 to $49 on the site but was quickly removed. Another part of this change is that book orders of $25 would ship free, down $10 from the current minimum. There was not a formal announcement from Amazon in regards to any changes in its shipping policies. At this moment, the minimum still stands at $35.
So what does this all mean? Well for one, Amazon’s Prime membership becomes even more valuable if this change does come to fruition. By now you’re certainly familiar with the benefits: free two-day shipping, music/video streaming services, unlimited cloud backup, Prime Pantry and special access to promotions like Prime Day.
If Amazon does choose to bump the minimum to $49, free shipping on all orders will be particularly helpful for shoppers that frequently purchase low-priced items such as home goods. At $99 a year, Prime already offers substantial savings for avid Amazon customers. This move would only sweeten the deal.
This potential move by Amazon also opens the door for other popular online retailers to raise their own shipping minimums. Target currently offers free shipping on orders of $25+, while Best Buy’s sits at $35. If Amazon were to make the jump, it will be interesting to see what other sites do in response. We’ll continue to track this story as its develops and provide additional details when available.
Orders including $25 or more of eligible books qualify for FREE Shipping. All orders of $49 or more of eligible items across any product category also qualify for FREE Shipping.
You receive free shipping if your order includes at least $25 for books and at least $49 of all other eligible items. Any item with “FREE Shipping” messaging on the product detail page shipped by Amazon contributes to your free shipping order minimum.
You can get unlimited FREE Two-Day Shipping on eligible items with Amazon Prime. No minimum spend is required to qualify.
Canceling items, combining orders, or changing your shipping address, speed, or preference might affect your order’s free shipping eligibility.
- You can ship to a U.S. delivery address in the 50 states only.
- You can ship to APO/FPO addresses only when they have a U.S. zip code.
- You may find geographic shipping restrictions apply to particular products.
Note: Some items may not be shipped to Alaska and Hawaii using free shipping.
If your order doesn’t qualify for free shipping:
- The order may contain ineligible items.Note: Gift cards receive free One-Day Shipping but don’t apply to the $49 minimum.
- A special product, order, or handling fee may still apply.
- An eligible item that was canceled brought the total below $49.
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I bought into Amazon Prime in September. It has been nice. BUT, on a few occasions the 2-day shipping doesn’t get to me until 5 days later. I can pay more for one-day shipping but with 2-day it is a 5-day wait. I’ve also noticed many other companies have the same or better pricing and free shipping on like $20 orders. Amazon will have to offer a BIG incentive for me to keep Prime next year. so far, it has been nice but nothing Great.
You neatly ignore many of those free ship at $35 items had the shipping built into the base price, a slimy trick that Amazon can not hide when MSRPs are known. They simple lie and increase the MSRP.
Amazon Arkham Horror Dice list $11.99
Price: $9.56 & FREE Shipping on orders over $49.
Coolstuffinc list $9.95 price $6.49
fantasyflightgames list $9.95
So both CSI and FFG the manufacturer list MSRP as $9.95, Amazon inflates it to $11.99?
Check around you will find a lot more of these, you are stacking shipping the more items yo add to get to free shipping,
Having to get to $50 is rather sweet from Amazon if it’s a lot of items, guess they pocket the surplus, worst if you have Prime as not only do you pay for Prime but you repay again for shipping.
Prime and Amazon are for chumps.
The other shoe will drop later, and that is that the price of Amazon Prime will go way up, possibly doubling. They are losing money big time on free shipping, and need to stop the bleeding.
Why they increased the shipping from 35 to 49 on Sunday… They just lost me as customer I’ll get better deals on ebay now. 🙁
Better for frequent buyers, not so great for occasional shoppers such as myself.
I just spent over an hour speaking with Amazon call center people in the Philippines to express my disgust with the unannounced jump from $35 to $49 and requested that my Amazon account be closed as I would no longer purchase via Amazon. I did advise John, an Amazon person in the US that Amazon is doing the same thing Sears & Roebuck did, they priced themselves out of existence. Yes, the Sears store are still here, but they are owned by K-Mart who used to be the sleaziest and slimest stores before the now leader Wal*Mart hit town and started pumping out the cheap Chinese stuff.
Hello Joseph, I just spend a couple hours speaking with 2 different Amazon people in the Philippines and 1 in the US regarding the $14 increase for “free shipping”. Oddly enough, I was able to convince a nice lady in the Philippines that $14USD was equal to 600 Philippine dollars and was a substantial amount of money for her to put food on her table and feed her children. I was also able to convince her that I (and countless others) would no longer be placing orders via Amazon as other vendors (eBay, etc.) could provide the same product(s) at lower prices and we in no way wished her to lose her job and compromise her ability to feed her family, but we all have the same issues when it comes to money and food on our tables. Not that it will do any good, I did request to all 3 Amazon people I spoke with to pass these concerns on to their superiors and not to let Amazon do what Sears & Roebuck did. Yep, S & R priced themselves to the point of almost extinction, and lo and behold, K-Mart well known for its cheap quality low price products bought Sears. Nonetheless, I am done being an Amazon customer.
I thought for sure that I had left a reply to this post that I sent via Twitter. Could not find it.