$49 Minimum
The minimum order total required to get free shipping on Amazon was raised to $49 from the previous $35 threshold. Books still ship free with a $25 minimum order. And gift cards get free one-day shipping with no minimum.
Amazon Free Shipping
Around 3-years ago, Amazon raised the minimum from $25 to $35, and now it went from $35 to $49. Prime members continue to get free shipping with no minimum at all.
Another advantage to Prime is the shipping speed; Prime members get 2-day shipping, compared to the 5-8 business days shipping offered to non-Prime members.
Marketplace Items
Another change I noticed today while poking around is that around one year ago, Amazon made it easier to meet the minimum order threshold by including Marketplace items toward the amount. However, they’re no longer allowing that, and we now need $49 in items shipped from Amazon itself to get the free shipping benefit.
Once again, this change has no bearing on Prime members.
Final Thoughts
As Techcrunch notes, the higher minimum is clearly a push to Prime. Remember, though that they’ve made moves within the past couple years to make Prime more expensive, both by raising the cost from $79 to $99, and by making it harder to share Prime. Seems like they’re pushing up costs on both ends.
