Amazon pushes Prime by limiting free shipping to orders over $49
If you want to qualify for free shipping on your next Amazon order, you might find that you have to stick a few extra items in the basket. The online retailer is upping the threshold for free shipping from $35 to $49.
US customers who do not pay for Amazon Prime will have to shell out an additional $14 if they want to avoid shipping costs... unless they are buying books, that is. To qualify for free shipping on books, a spend of just $25 is needed, but the increase is part of a push to encourage more people to sign up for Prime.
The price hike is quite significant -- no less than a 40 percent increase. Amazon is starting to make Prime ever-more attractive; you don’t need to do a great deal of shopping for the $99-a-year service to make sense, particularly if you tend to buy lower cost items. Amazon explains:
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. With free shipping, your order will be delivered 5-8 business days after all of your items are available to ship, including pre-order items.
Amazon has been gradually adding more and more value to Prime so that in addition to two-day shipping and access to Prime Music and Prime Video, subscribers in some zip codes qualify for even faster deliveries. The minimum order threshold increase demonstrates that Amazon is starting to see that free shipping has taken too big a bite out of its profits, and it's determined that people will pay one way or another.
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