Amazon’s (Positive) Free Shipping Policy Change

February 2, 2015 By Jonathan Ping 4 Comments
My Money Blog has partnered with CardRatings and may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on this site are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. MyMoneyBlog.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers. All opinions expressed are the author’s alone.

Amazon has made a subtle change to their free shipping on orders over $35 policy (for users that don’t pay extra for Amazon Prime). Via LA Times and krutis of FW.

There are now more than triple the number of items you can use to meet Amazon’s minimum $35 order for free shipping, making it easier to fill up your shopping cart and qualify for free shipping. Find eligible offers by looking for items with “FREE Shipping” listed on the product detail page.

azfreeship

Previously, in order to get free shipping on orders over $35, they all had to be fulfilled by Amazon (meaning they are shipped out of an Amazon warehouse). Usually these products were also eligible for Amazon Prime subscribers (who could buy it without any minimum purchase size). Now, any product from any merchant that offers “FREE Shipping”, even if they ship it themselves, counts toward the $35 requirement. According to Amazon, adding these third-party folks effectively triples the number of items available.

This isn’t a huge change, as you could probably already buy those non-Amazon-warehoused items with free shipping by themselves, but it is handy to know as now combining certain things together can help you meet the $35 minimum.

Filed Under: Deals & Offers
Last updated: February 2, 2015
My Money Blog has partnered with CardRatings and may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on this site are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. MyMoneyBlog.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers. All opinions expressed are the author’s alone, and has not been provided nor approved by any of the companies mentioned.

MyMoneyBlog.com is also a member of the Amazon Associate Program, and if you click through to Amazon and make a purchase, I may earn a small commission. Thank you for your support.

User Generated Content Disclosure: Comments and/or responses are not provided or commissioned by any advertiser. Comments and/or responses have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by any advertiser. It is not any advertiser's responsibility to ensure all posts and/or questions are answered.

Comments

  1. clocks says
    February 2, 2015 at 6:29 pm

    So does this make Prime worth less? I originally got Prime for the streaming, but it seems like almost anything of value is also on Netflix. Thus far I have not liked any of the Prime Original series.

    Reply
    • Jonathan Ping says
      February 2, 2015 at 6:38 pm

      I would say it makes not getting Prime a little easier, but you still have to buy $35 of stuff every time. Those free Prime trials are really good at getting you used to just adding whatever you want in a cart and checking out. Sometimes searching for filler items to get to $35 made me feel like I was spending more money for no real reason either. Mostly, Amazon just made the free standard shipping so darn slow that it took forever to get here, so the 2-day shipping on Prime felt so much faster.

      The only thing I use Amazon Prime Instant Video for is… Sesame Street for my kid. 🙂

      Reply
  2. Michael says
    February 3, 2015 at 6:56 pm

    Prime is getting to be less and less about 2 day shipping. When I first had prime, they would refund anything over 2 days in shipping. Just 2 weeks ago, I had an item on Prime shipping and it took almost a full work week to get to me. Contacting customer service was fruitless. 2-day shipping with Prime is a marketing gimmick now, one I will be sure to remember when my renewal period comes and goes without a moments hesitation. Their Prime videos are like watching old cable TV, some gems from yesteryear and a bunch of new crap not worth the time investment!

    Reply
  3. K Johnson says
    February 8, 2015 at 1:19 pm

    Good news: The file cabinet I wanted to buy wasn’t covered for free shipping either thru Amazon Prime or $35+ minimum purchase…
    Bad news: The file cabinet is now eligible for ‘free shipping’ but price is now more than the original cost + original shipping cost combined 🙁

    Reply

Speak Your Mind

*