
Amazon's minimum order size for free shipping is now $35 - blackjack48
http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html/?docId=1001427161
======
codegeek
I am amazed at how amazon remains doing business with so low margins or no
profits. We love amazon at my house and being Prime members, we are almost
ordering everything under the sun from Amazon that we possibly can. Here is
why we love it:

\- The reviews are actually useful. I just bought a 70 inch TV through amazon
and the critical and helpful reviews really helped me get going with settings
on the TV that would have taken hours to research on google otherwise.

\- Shipping is superfast. Most items are delivered within a day or two with
prime.

\- Btw, if you are a parent of a baby, then check out Amazon Mom. It is free
with Prime membership and gives you further discounts if you subscribe to
ordering baby stuff like formula, diapers etc. on amazon. Also we compared the
prices and it is almost impossible to beat amazon for these things as well.

\- No need to go drive to a store. Sometimes I need to buy $10 item for which
I might end up spending $2 on gas.

\- Easiest returns if the need arises.

\- Not to mention that Amazon prime gives you access to lot of great videos,
movies, shows etc as a bonus.

One drawback with prime is that not all items are Prime eligible. Specially
what they call "add on items"

~~~
Spooky23
> Also we compared the prices and it is almost impossible to beat amazon for
> these things as well.

Huh? Where did you look?

For formula, diapers, wipes, etc. Amazon didn't come close to Target, even
without coupons. Amazon was like $23 for diapers that were $19.99 at Target.
I've been a prime member forever, and _wanted_ to use Amazon, but it easily
cost 10-20% more, even with automatic ordering. Combine Target retail or sale
prices with coupons and the 5% credit card discount and it was an unbeatable
combo.

~~~
simplemath
Costco. Even if all you bought at Costco was formula and diapers, you'd more
than subsidize the $50 membership over the course of a year vs. what you'd pay
basically anywhere else.

Of course the economy of scale applies to that membership fee. Scaling across
more kids makes a better value prop.

~~~
vtbose
Selection. The brands we are used to is not always offered @ Costco. However,
it seems to be much easier to subsidize membership costs with Costco, than
with Amazon Prime.

~~~
aroch
There isn't _that_ much variation in diaper and formula across brands...

~~~
jasonlotito
In diapers? Yes, there is.

As for Formula? You can't just change to whatever is cheapest that week.

~~~
aroch
Meaningful change in diapers? Not really.

Then stock up, and seriously? Their shelf stocking doesn't work that way. Any
SKU ordered (other than food stuffs and specialty seasonals) are stocked for,
at least, one month in any given location before long term stocking is decided
on

~~~
jasonlotito
> Meaningful change in diapers? Not really.

My experience is otherwise. Maybe in your experience through multiple brands
is that they are all the same, but your experience is equally limited.

The simple fact that my experience says otherwise, however, does disprove
yours.

> Then stock up

On diapers?

I can't believe you have children and would "stock up" on diapers. Kids grow.

------
xn
The "no minimum order size" statement about Prime is a bit disingenuous. Many
low-cost items are now Add-On Items
([http://amzn.to/1a4NFBI](http://amzn.to/1a4NFBI)), meaning that Amazon will
only ship them in an order of at least $25.

Prime has become a bit less useful over the past year due to the introduction
of Add-On Items.

~~~
andrewvc
Well, I agree that it's somewhat less useful. There is an upside though, as
shipping things has an environmental impact and people probably shouldn't be
wasting a box + shipping on a missing cover for a food processor.

~~~
300bps
You're going to love how Walmart ships boxes of crayons then:

[http://imgur.com/a/g4Hi5](http://imgur.com/a/g4Hi5)

~~~
meepmorp
Just. Wow.

------
whalesalad
I abuse Amazon Prime to no end. I live in the boonies and don't have a car so
they're actually my lifeline. Bought a pack of 50 machine screws the other day
and including the free 2-day shipping to my door it was only $1.35.
Unbelievable.

But I am glad Amazon is raising prices. I don't want them to falter and hope
they continue what they're doing. I'd be screwed without em.

~~~
Lost_BiomedE
The deal is even better if you are living in Hawaii. It is not 2 day delivery,
but it is fast.

~~~
whalesalad
I used to live on Oahu and back then Amazon Prime wasn't as friendly down
there, but glad to see it's caught up.

------
agamble
The only side effect this will have is that it will push more people into
buying Prime. Great comments in the other Amazon thread about how they're
really playing the long game [1].

Personally, I think Prime is a serious USP for Amazon that is often
overlooked. It's pretty controversial among analysts (from what I understand)
with some claiming it's causing explosive growth [2] yet with others
unconvinced it's sustainable [3].

Definitely a company to watch over the next 10+ years though...

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6591509](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6591509)

[2] [http://news.investors.com/technology/030513-646807-amzn-
prim...](http://news.investors.com/technology/030513-646807-amzn-prime-
memberships-will-boost-profitability.htm)

[3] [http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2013/04/26/prime-is-
ki...](http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2013/04/26/prime-is-killing-
amazons-profit.aspx)

------
cm2012
Our company sells a lot on Amazon yearly - the split of sales using Prime, the
$25 free shipping, or nothing is about 33% each. I wonder how that will
change.

------
specialp
When Amazon first introduced Prime I was able to get any of their products
next day regardless of what warehouse they were in. I live in NY and
occasionally some stuff would come next day air from say Arizona at probably a
large loss for Amazon. Recently though they took the 3.99 next day option away
from items that they do not have located in my warehouse (PA). Then the 2 day
items do not ship directly from the other warehouses, they must have trucks
going from KY to PA and then UPS takes final miles. Previously I would get 2
day items direct from other warehouses.

So I think they are transitioning to a system where they maintain stock in
every warehouse, and every warehouse is within 2 days UPS ground to everyone
in USA. If you ship things to Amazon for Fulfilled by Amazon they want you to
ship to at least 3 warehouses. Prime is a major reason I buy everything from
Amazon. Often I can find goods at lower prices from other retailers online but
the free second day shipping that is always on time cannot be beat.

So this latest super saver shipping change I think is Amazon basically making
shipping free due to its superior distribution system. Paying UPS for to door
delivery from nearby warehouses for all these items is most likely less money
than it costs stores for rent and other costs associated with brick and
mortar.

------
hk__2
Anybody knows how much it was before?

~~~
prax2
$25 USD

~~~
hk__2
Thanks.

------
JumpCrisscross
" _This is the first time in more than a decade that Amazon has altered the
minimum order for free shipping in the US._ "

The BLS's Transportation Services urban CPI has increased 29% since August
2003, or 2.6% annually. Amazon would need to have offered the free-shipping-
for-orders-over-twenty-five deal for the last 13.3 years, or since before June
2000, for this threshold increase to be on par with inflation.

~~~
bgilroy26
Inflation accounts for ~2/3 of the increase

~~~
JumpCrisscross
At least 72.5%. That assumes the $25 threshold was set exactly a decade ago.

------
javindo
Amazon UK used to be no limit but it's now £10 limit. However, this can be
bypassed slightly by adding any media item (for example CD/book/DVD).

A lot of people had fun finding the cheapest piece of media, I think someone
found a warehouse full of 10p cassette tapes at one point being sold by a
company and handled by Amazon, thus giving people 10p shipping for orders
under £10.

Regardless, if you have 4 friends you can split the cost of prime up to 5 ways
(yourself + 4 friends) for next day. In my experience, at least, this has
worked even delivering to different addresses. You have to list them as family
members, 3 of my "family" are housemates and a fourth lives down the road.

~~~
caw
The only downside with splitting the membership is that only the primary Prime
account gets the free streaming and books for Kindle. Still a good deal
though.

~~~
clarkdave
I can't speak for streaming or free books, but I'm a secondary on a Prime
account and I can rent books through the Kindle Owner's Library (in the UK).

------
swalsh
As a prime member, I didn't even realize there was a minimum... Anyways, if I
need to buy something I usually buy it on amazon both because its cheaper, but
also i love seeing the box on my porch :D

~~~
BillyMaize
There definitely is something to getting a package to open all the time
instead of going through a checkout line at the store, sometimes it feels like
Christmas every week!

------
blisterpeanuts
Sales taxes are going to bite into their business. My state (Massachusetts)
has forced them to charge sales tax starting some time later this year, and
that's bound to affect sales.

Tax-free New Hampshire is 45 minutes away from Boston, and I suspect that once
the sales tax kicks in, all those malls and outlets up north are going to see
an uptick in business.

In fact, probably that's why they're squeezing the shipping now, because of
this impending hit that they know they're going to take, until people become
resigned to the tax.

~~~
hyperbovine
For a $2000 plasma, maybe. But you're going to drive 45 minutes to avoid
paying $7 in taxes on a pair of shoes? I really doubt that. The scenario you
outline would be true if people did a large amount of shopping once a month,
but Amazon customers are now accustomed to making hundreds of little purchases
throughout the year.

~~~
blisterpeanuts
Probably you're right, and actually in the case of shoes I would patronize my
local running shoe store because they're awesome people (also, most types of
shoes are not taxed in Mass. so it's not the best example :).

But it might alter our shopping behavior and start being more disciplined and
saving up lists of stuff to get, and then the trip starts to become
worthwhile. (It doesn't hurt that I have a Prius now, 50 mpg/22kpl).

------
timsayshey
Maybe they are just trying to push more people over to prime

~~~
gtaylor
I'm feeling even better about getting Prime now. It seems like we order stuff
almost daily now instead of running to the store. We've more than paid back
the $75 in free shipping less than halfway into the 12 month cycle.

~~~
timsayshey
Yeah, we've been using it for a year. We justified it by switching the $8/mo
from netflix to amazon. The streaming isn't as robust but it gets the job done
:)

------
sudomal
There has been similar changes in their European operations some months back.
Many items are no longer covered by complementary postage. Deliveries also
seem to take longer to 'ship' (that might be my imagination though). I think
it's all related to Prime, them trying to make a subscription service look
more valuable by disabling the alternatives.

~~~
eterm
Yup, a few months back amazon uk went from "free shipping for everything" to
"Ah, only if you spend £20" (I think? perhaps £25) which is how it used to be
way back in the day with their "super saver" delivery.

I'm amazed it actually took Amazon so long after the demise of Play.com to do
this. (Play.com were a serious competitor for games/music but had a tax
loophole closed on them.)

~~~
andrewaylett
£10 now, which isn't _so_ bad. I'll usually wind up manually combining orders
to get above threshold, but sometimes it does mean that I won't order from
Amazon at all.

------
phaer
fun fact: The comments here read like reviews on amazon itself, suspiciously
positive ;)

------
eliben
Good for them. This and the other similar change they did recently ("add on
items" for Prime so that you don't end up ordering $1.5 items with free 2-day
shipping) makes me believe Amazon will be more profitable and survive in the
long term. I find Amazon extremely useful and love their customer support.

------
jebblue
I tried Prime, found on my first order (as a Prime user) of several small
items that none qualified for free shipping so I guess they weren't in the "15
Million items" category, yet those were the ones I needed. So I canceled. If
the free shipping worked out, we would go for it and probably drop NetFlix
even though they have a better choice of shows and we got hooked on their
House of Cards series. We probably would keep both. Until I feel that their
Prime membership will support us when we need to buy something we will remain
non-members of Prime.

We still spend several hundred to several thousand dollars per year, Amazon
makes shopping so easy.

------
akilism
my amazon prime pays for itself every year just off my dog food purchases.
30lbs bags of food dropped at my door can't beat it.

------
adolgert
Is there a significant ethical difference between purchasing from a store or
from a large online retailer? In one case, shipping to the store is bulk, and
employees may make low wages, but they interact with other people. For a
retailer Amazon's size, warehouses run on people who read orders from handheld
devices and are timed for retrieval speed per box filled. Then shipping is
done per parcel. How have you decided what's the right behavior to encourage
with your dollars?

~~~
blisterpeanuts
I suppose the same question could be asked about all those saddle makers and
horse breeders when the age of the automobile arrived.

Online retailing is a great innovation; it makes sense, it's convenient, the
selection is 1000x better, the service is excellent (at least at Amazon), and
it saves people having to drive somewhere. The reviews and comments are
useful, the related items and "what people bought" sidebars are handy.

By contrast, retailers have lost their edge. They hire low wage non-
specialists, often high school students or other non-professionals who would
rather be doing something else for a living.

So when you go to a store to purchase a gadget or article of clothing or book,
your chief human interaction experience is distressingly often with a bored,
under-motivated person who hates his job and hates you too.

I treasure the exceptions to the above rule, the dedicated doing-it-for-love
guy or gal who really knows their stuff, like the extremely knowledgeable
handyman guys and gals at the local hardware store--which is why I still
patronize my local Ace whenever I can. Except they sometimes have a teenager
who doesn't know where anything is, who doesn't scan my frequent buyer card,
who can't offer me any advice whatsoever, who screws up the price. That kind
of morbidly useless experience drives me (and millions of others) to redirect
my money to smart, helpful businesses like Amazon.

The way of the world, I suppose.

~~~
adolgert
Maybe more apt a comparison would be a choice between custom-built automobiles
and those from factory lines. At the time, there was fear that working in
factories was dehumanizing. The ethical question is resolved politically, by
having labor unions so that workers have some control. From the undercover
reporting articles on Amazon's warehouses, there aren't labor unions.

Amazon does provide a lot that stores don't, but now you're asking what is the
outcome of your choice for yourself, not for others. There is a lot of that
same focus in the comments here.

Counterexamples of people who work in stores and don't enjoy their jobs are
perfectly valid. I would focus, though, on what my choice of where I spend
money offers as an opportunity to others. The opportunity in the warehouse
depresses me. The opportunity in the store seems pretty OK.

I, too, want what Amazon has to offer, and those who can pay taking what is
offered them is the way of the world, but I still have to make my own choice.

------
WalterBright
Not only is Amazon price competitive, saving the 2 hours going to the store
and back is a huge deal.

Amazon has eliminated about 90% of my non-food shopping.

~~~
a3n
For me, I wonder if that saved 90% of non-food shopping would actually be an
increase in overall shopping. "Sure, I spend $90 out of $100/mo shopping at
Amazon, but before I joined Prime I only spent $40 total."

It's the same reason why I don't belong to Costco, it's just an encouragement
to buy things that I normally couldn't be bothered to get up off my ass for.

~~~
WalterBright
I don't shop at Costco because the long checkout lines kill any price
advantage.

~~~
blisterpeanuts
Yes but don't forget all the yummy free samples! The free samples make up for
the long lines (lunchtime has shorter lines anyway)

------
mcescalante
What was the minimum order size before? I've had Prime for a number of years
and can't recall.

~~~
BrianEatWorld
$25 was the previous threshold for "Super Saver Shipping".

------
IBM
What great timing considering the other post. AMZN "buys" growth with their
shipping expenses, and if they want to become profitable something has to
give, and this is it. Their attempts to become more profitable will come at
the expense of revenue growth.

~~~
guruz
I wonder if their affiliate program ("Amazon Associates") is next?

------
yvishyar
In a decade it amazon has raised the minimum order by $10. Given that Amazon
is a pure data driven company, we can guess this is the inflation cost which
turn out to be 3.4% as per US Gov data the inflation for last decade is 2.29%

I would rather believe amazon than the govt

~~~
VLM
Its not so much a matter of belief as the gov reported inflation rate is tied
to innumerable fedgov dependents via cost of living allowance raises and so
forth.

So the truth of the matter is the .gov is willing to pay its dependents 2.3%
more, unfortunately inflation rate is somewhat higher, then again their cost
of shipping is not necessarily numerically equal to the aggregate average
inflation rate of every product for everyone purchased everywhere.

There is the obvious data gathering issue that amazon can't signal 6 sig figs
of inflation accuracy, for marketing reasons it probably had to be rounded to
the nearest $5, probably rounded up.

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elwell
Don't scare me like that! I thought you meant for Amazon Prime members too.

------
netcan
Wow. Amazon must read HN.

We just decided on another thread that free shipping should start at $35.
Great job.

;)

~~~
josefresco
Link?

------
marincounty
I stopped Prime because I was buying stuff I didn't need. If someone comments
under me, "Oh, I just order household items"; I guarantee this board has been
sprinkled with paid commenters.

