Amazon Raises the Free Shipping Minimum

This week Amazon made a major change that will affect how much a buyer will need to spend to qualify for free shipping. If you are a Prime member this will not affect you. Prime members pay $79 a year and receive free two day shipping on millions of items and other perks with their membership. If you are not a Prime member you may be frustrated by the increase. It seems like everything is going up these days!

This price change comes just ahead of the busy holiday shopping season. No surprise here! The minimum order size needed to get free shipping has been raised from $25 to $35 – quite a big jump I think. Why have they done this? My guess is they are hoping to move more people into a Prime membership. I am a Prime member and love the free two day shipping, free movies and shows I receive with the membership. This change won’t affect me as a consumer. I shop enough on Amazon to make it a great value.

But I am also a seller on Amazon and the price change may well work to my advantage. Some products I source for Amazon I may be able to raise the price to enable people to get the free shipping without buying additional products. Consumers will often pay extra to get the free shipping. I use to do this all the time myself before I became a Prime member. This will be on a case by case basis, as I want to be sure the products provide great value at the new price point. If I am bundling products, adding an extra item for the higher price point will benefit the buyer, but will also likely increase my margins. However, I will be keeping tabs on what is selling and the price points.

If you are selling on Amazon keep the new change in mind.