Amazon Testing Instant Discount For ‘No Rush Shipping’

One of the benefits of Amazon Prime is free two day shipping. This is actually a loss leader for Amazon and they try to offer members discounts for choosing no-rush shipping instead. Typically, they offer a $1-3 digital goods credit or a $5.99 Prime Pantry credit (which basically just offsets the shipping fee; you can only use one of these credits per Prime Pantry order). Recently they added a $3 Amazon credit as an option sometimes.

DansDeal has able to find that some items are now offering an instant discount instead. You can see an example of this here. The discount seems to stay constant regardless of where you’re shipping the item but different items offer different discounts. Personally I much prefer an instant cash discount instead of a digital good credit, prime pantry or even the $3 Amazon credit. I’m much more likely to select no rush shipping, even if I am just saving $1-2.

At the moment this seems to be restricted to items sold and shipped by Amazon and bigger (more expensive to ship) items seem to have bigger discounts attached. Fingers crossed this gets pushed out across the board. As always remember to read our guide to saving money on Amazon.

Hat tip to DansDeals

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Pete
Pete (@guest_422183)
June 17, 2017 01:10

I bet they are trying to compete with walmart.com’s discounts they sometimes offer for picking up in store. amazon.com has lost some of my business lately just because of the sheer amount of stacking you can do on walmart.com. Discounted gift card from raise + shopping portal + ship to store discount can make a huge difference if you have a walmart nearby.

Matt
Matt (@guest_422020)
June 16, 2017 17:56

Isn’t this just a stealth devaluation of prime, though? How do we know the new discounted price isn’t the old two day price?

Abey
Abey (@guest_421983)
June 16, 2017 15:50

In other news:
amazon is buying whole foods for 13.7B

scott
scott (@guest_421974)
June 16, 2017 15:32

I always take advantage of the credit and then I always find I still get my order within 2 business days.

Dan
Dan (@guest_421941)
June 16, 2017 14:24

I’ve done the prime pantry discount a couple times and it has been a pretty good deal as long as you find 5 qualifying products to make it ship free but yeah I would much rather have the instant discount.. of course Amazon has likely been avoiding this so that they could push people to use their other services, but if it saves them money I’m sure they’ll do it eventually.

Bob
Bob (@guest_421899)
June 16, 2017 13:17

I really hope this becomes widespread. Pantry credits are worthless for me, but discounts I will use 90% of the time.

Evan
Evan (@guest_421847)
June 16, 2017 11:51

That’d be great. I just had $5 credit for digital purchases and another $5 for pantry that expired before using them. I didn’t bother having them reinstated cause I don’t really have use for them. I still only see pantry credit for now though.

Michael H
Michael H (@guest_421822)
June 16, 2017 11:12

It works for Jet.com / Walmart..

I look forward to it.

Matt
Matt (@guest_421818)
June 16, 2017 11:08

Prime Pantry and Digital credits are pretty much worthless to me, but a discount is much more attractive. I would accept that more often than not.

NinjaX
NinjaX (@guest_421817)
June 16, 2017 11:04

im waiting for the Whole Foods credit. i would be down…