Amazon raises minimum bill value for free shipping

" The move by Amazon comes in a bid top push more of its customers to subscribe to its Prime service. The Prime service of the e-commerce giant offers significantly faster delivery and lots of other perks.""

American electronic commerce and cloud computing company Amazon has raised the free-shipping limit to $49 for non-Prime members.The move by Amazon comes in a bid to push more of its customers to subscribe to its Prime service. The Prime service ofthe e-commerce giant offers significantly faster delivery and lots of other perks.The move also means that it may be ableto cut its shipping cost down and escalate its profit margins, Techcrunch reports.Headquartered in Washington, Amazon is the largest Internet-based retailer in the United States.

Amazon started as an online bookstore, later diversifying to sell DVDs, Blu-rays, CDs, software, video games, electronics, apparel, furniture, food, toys and jewellery.The company also produces consumer electronics notably, Amazon Kindle e-book readers, Fire tablets, Fire TV and Fire Phone and is the world's largest provider of cloud infrastructure services.

The retailer didn't explain why it upped the minimum order price. But it's certainly one way to push people to buy an Amazon Prime subscription. In its notice, Amazon even took the opportunity to promote Prime, a $79-per-year service that offers unlimited free two-day shipping on products and the streaming of more than 40,000 movies and TV shows.

"The service is so popular that more than a year ago we began shipping more items with Prime than with free shipping," Amazon said in its notice.


People who like to buy from Amazon but don't typically order $35 worth of merchandise may now feel the need to plunge into Prime, like it or not.


Amazon buyers will now have to tally up $35 worth of items before they qualify for free shipping.

The retail giant has posted a notice on its Web site alerting customers of the increase. And now when you add an item to your Amazon cart, the site tells you how much more you must spend to reach $35 to avoid paying for shipping.

The new price is a $10 increase over the prior $25 minimum, which was in place for the past decade. Amazon also noted that during the same time it's selected millions of more items that by themselves are available for free shipping.

Amazon Raises Free Shipping Minimum, Hoping to Drive Prime MembershipsPosted by Paul AusickIf.... you are not a member of Amazon.comInc.?s Prime club, you are going to start paying more for shipping costs on non-book goods ordered from the online marketplace. Without so much as a whisper in anyone?s ear, the company has raised itsfree-shipping threshold from $35 to $49 for non-Prime customers. Amazon did give a break to book buyers the minimum order size in order to qualify for free book shipping is still $25.And if you order $25 worth of books as part of a total order, the whole order ships free.

Not too much of surprise here. The company?s fulfillment costs jumped by nearly 23% year over year in the fourth quarter of 2015, and rather than make a change to its Prime subscription fee, which Amazon raised from $79 to $99 effective in April 2014, the company has decided to make non-Prime members eat the loss. That serves two purposes: "it increases the value of Prime to its existing subscribers and, Amazon hopes, it helps drive Prime" memberships Unlimited free two-day shipping is Prime?s whole reason for existence, although a mountain of free stuff has been added (like instant video and streaming music).Amazon is testing the point at which it takes in more revenue from higher shipping minimums and lower Prime membership costs. Amazon stock traded up about 4.3% just before the noon hour Monday, at$558.11 in a 52-weeks range of $365.65 to$696.44. The consensus price target is$741.97.