Amazon raises free shipping minimum to $49, books still $25

Likely an attempt to push more customers into subscribing to Prime, Amazon has raised the free shipping minimum from $35 to $49. This is second time that Amazon has raised the free shipping threshold, the last occurring during late 2013 when Amazon shifted from $25 to $35.

One product category is currently exempt from the new $49 free shipping minimum. Non-prime customers that order books will be able to get free shipping if their order meets a $25 minimum.

Of course, increasing the free shipping minimum should increase the number of people that subscribe to Amazon Prime. According to a report released in January, roughly 46 percent of U.S. households have at least one member that’s subscribed to Prime.

At $99 per year, Amazon Prime includes a variety of perks that extend beyond free two-day shipping. Those 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?

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3 Comments

1. 

   John

   February 23, 2016 at 10:32 am

   despite this lovely advertisement, this just makes me use amazon less and less. if there was something smaller i needed, i used to just add a few other small items i wanted to get to the minimum shipping. that obviously got harder when it moved to $35. now that it’s $49, i’m probably only going to be buying small things as add-ons to larger items i buy, which only happens once every several months.

   Reply
   • 

     John

     February 23, 2016 at 1:29 pm

     also, as opposed to the actual title, i prefer how the title is abbreviated on the front page: “Amazon raises free shipping minimum to $49, boo…”

     Reply
2. 

   shadow

   February 22, 2016 at 6:06 pm

   They must be pretty damn desperate to force people onto Prime…

   I wish they could just at least give us separate plans ie. one plan for shipping and the other for streaming. I don’t use their streaming service at all so I’m paying extra for nothing.

   Reply