Roughly one year after raising the free shipping minimum to $49, Amazon has reversed course and lowered the threshold back down to the original amount at $35. This is the first time that Amazon has lowered the free shipping minimum, likely due to Walmart recently starting to offer free 2-day shipping on all qualifying orders over $35. There are more than 2 million items eligible for that promotion on Walmart.com.

Amazon’s free shipping threshold for book orders has remained unchanged at $25. Amazon didn’t announce the shift back to the lower minimum, only updating the shipping details page over President’s Day weekend.

Interestingly, this move still doesn’t make Amazon competitive on speed since free shipping takes about five to eight days for a package to arrive. Alternatively, both Walmart and Best Buy offer free two-day shipping on $35+ orders. To receive two-day shipping, customers have to subscribe to Amazon Prime first. Competitors appear to be offering the same two-day shipping perk, just without the $99 yearly subscription fee.

Of course, Amazon Prime offers more perks than just two-day shipping on millions of items. Some of those perks include:

• Access to streaming content on Amazon Instant Video and Prime Music.
• One book download a month on the Kindle Lending Library.
• Unlimited cloud storage for photos, 5GB for all other files.
• A 20 percent discount on video game preorders.
• Discounts on baby items for new parents, including 15% off diapers.
• Prime Pantry access for bulk orders.

You can find more details about the value of Amazon Prime in our article: Is Amazon Prime Worth $99 Per Year?

Amazon drops free shipping minimum back to $35