Amazon free shipping now $49

[Dave Lehnert]

Don't look now but Amazon raised its minimum order for free shipping to $49. (Non prime members)

[Matt Day]

A far cry from the $25 a few years ago. Business models change!

[Myk Rian]

Ebay keeps looking more and more attractive.

[Brian Henderson]

A good reason to get Prime then. I get everything with free 2 day shipping and since they put in an Amazon warehouse right by my house, I can get a lot of it with free one-day shipping. I can't wait until they start delivering via drone, I can get it in an hour.

[Frederick Skelly]

Im not sure that their free shipping is so great anyways. Ive noticed the last two times Ive used it that a package which normally takes 4 days to arrive when Im paying for shipping, doesnt even leave their warehouse until about 5 days and doesnt arrive until 10 days. YMMV.

Smells like they are nudging regular customers toward buying Prime, rather than giving them free shipping.

Fred

[Chris Padilla]

I was shocked to receive a package from Amazon...on a Sunday! I am a Prime member and that was way cool. They said it would be delivered on Sunday and it surely was!

Prime has gone up, too. I think I had it for $99 and most recent was $119 or $129. I'm not sure if it is quite worth it but we'll kick it around for a year and see....

[Dave Lehnert]

I am not a Prime member but also have received packages on Sunday. Most of my shipments are also received quick. I think the last was only 3 days.
Amazon use to be my go to place, but I am buying more now from Wal-Mart on line. Free shipping to store ($50 min)and it is across the street from work. I like the fact that expensive items are not sitting on my front porch all day.
At Christmas I purchased a digital camera. Walmart was cheaper and they had it in store. I clicked buy now with store pick-up. It was ready for pick up and back home in around 90 min. (No drone needed)
I can see where Prime is a good value for some but I am not a big movie person and I may go months before I order on-line. I buy local If I can find it.

[Greg R Bradley]

I think when looking at the big picture, free shipping on $49 is still a really good deal. Even at that, they are probably not making any money on most items shipped for free at $49 and are probably looking at the long run to make a profit. Prime is a very good deal for me, but not for everybody at $119 per year. The free movies alone are worth it for me and the free freight on the couple thousand dollars of product that I buy is the icing on the cake. Of course, if you don't watch the movies and only buy a couple hundred per year then that is different.
In the big picture, Amazon is still not making any money as a company and will need to raise their prices or drive most other players out of business to make any money - unless they start moving their own freight and take advantage of the stupidity of Fedex, UPS, and the USPS...........

[Mac McQuinn]

For books, I've been using barnesandnobles.com a lot since late last year. Free shipping at $25 and if you're a B&N's member it's free.....membership fee is $25 a year. I feel their shipping is very quick and I'm impressed by their packaging, my books arrive in new condition as expected.
Mac

[Matt Schroeder]

Has anybody found a reliable third party comparison of prime and non-prime prices? With the Amazon dynamic pricing model it seems easy to manipulate the pricing at the individual level possibly making the "free" shipping not quite so free. Seeing a large number of price searches on items across the spectrum from different accounts (both prime and non-prime) could be enlightening. How many times have you looked at a price and found it different when you returned, or a friend says they got one price but when you check you see something else?

[Bill McNiel]

Apparently my wife has Amazon Prime. I found this out when I purchased a Freud stick & cope set of bits. I placed the order around 8:00 PM and received the bits at 10:00 AM the next day. A friend of mine who works at Amazon explained to me how this was possible. Amazon has an agreement with the US Post Office in 40 metropolitan areas, covering about 70% of Zip Codes in the US, that if they get the package to the local PO before 4:00 AM the PO will deliver it that morning. Impressive.

[Brian Elfert]

I thought Prime is still $99. I just checked Amazon.com and to upgrade my account to Prime was listed at $99.

The USPS also delivers newspapers same day for people who live outside of the normal delivery area. The newspaper companies truck newspapers to Post Offices all over the place overnight and the newspapers are delivered the same day with the normal mail delivery. (The difference is newspapers are not delivered via USPS on Sunday.)

[Dave Lehnert]

I thought Prime is still $99. I just checked Amazon.com and to upgrade my account to Prime was listed at $99.

The USPS also delivers newspapers same day for people who live outside of the normal delivery area. The newspaper companies truck newspapers to Post Offices all over the place overnight and the newspapers are delivered the same day with the normal mail delivery. (The difference is newspapers are not delivered via USPS on Sunday.)

I was reading someplace you can pay by the month at $9.99

[Judson Green]

i just got a dehumidifier delivered on Sunday (USPS) with the free shipping and im not a prime member. and even returned an item for free, just had to drop it of at a ups store.

gotta love amazon

[Judson Green]

funny this reminds me of when i was purchasing a hair trimmer. Target had it in the store but wanted $2 more for it than target online, which was going to be fulfilled by the target store i was in, so i bought it on line and waited 20 minuets.

[Greg R Bradley]

I was reading someplace you can pay by the month at $9.99
I believe that is correct, $99 per year or $9.99 per month. Also they now charge tax on the price so I last paid $106.92 total for a year.

[Rich Engelhardt]

Prime is $99 a year.
Roughly 6 months ago it was $119.
We had a free one month trial we took advantage of to get a rush delivery w/out having to pay shipping on it.
When the trial expired, we were told we just had to pay $119 to get Prime for a year.

We declined it mainly because Amazon isn't the good deal they were in the past.
Amazon prices are no longer the lowest you can find & now that they charge tax on everything, there's no advantage there. Plus the lead times are excessive.

We do more ship to store stuff now than we do Amazon.
The prices are lower and the lead time is about half.

Sears is outstanding for their service in ship to store. Best by far of any and all of them.
With Sear's background in catalog sales, that's pretty much to be expected though.

I was blown away last year by the selection of items Sears stocks. We bought a set of 4 dining room chairs for my mother in law.
We ordered them online, got a confirmation within 2 min. of the order and an email within 5 min telling us they were in stock at the local Sears and ready for pick up.
We took the confirmation to Sears, keyed the number in, and in under 2 min., the stock person brought them up from the back room.

[Brian Henderson]

Im not sure that their free shipping is so great anyways. Ive noticed the last two times Ive used it that a package which normally takes 4 days to arrive when Im paying for shipping, doesnt even leave their warehouse until about 5 days and doesnt arrive until 10 days. YMMV.

Smells like they are nudging regular customers toward buying Prime, rather than giving them free shipping.

Fred

Of course, they want to encourage you to pay for shipping so they don't have to. It takes longer, on average, to get a free package than one you paid for. Still, back when I was using free shipping, I always got my packages far sooner than they said I would.

[Brian Henderson]

funny this reminds me of when i was purchasing a hair trimmer. Target had it in the store but wanted $2 more for it than target online, which was going to be fulfilled by the target store i was in, so i bought it on line and waited 20 minuets.

Walmart does the same thing, their online prices are often cheaper than the in-store prices. I've used their online purchasing before but it is generally a pain in the butt and it takes hours and hours to go through. Last time I used it, I bought an office chair for my daughter, ordered online and it took them 6 hours to process the order, walk out onto the floor, pick up the chair and e-mail me to pick it up. I wish they'd just price-match their own website, but I've been told that the website is a different company than the stores are.

[Brian Elfert]

I thought Amazon only offered Prime by the month for a few months and then dropped it back in 2012 or 2013? I would love a monthly option if you could cancel after just a month. I am sure Amazon realized that people would sign up for a month, order a bunch of stuff, and then cancel. (That is exactly what I would do.)

[Daniel O'Neill]

Walmart does the same thing, their online prices are often cheaper than the in-store prices. I've used their online purchasing before but it is generally a pain in the butt and it takes hours and hours to go through. Last time I used it, I bought an office chair for my daughter, ordered online and it took them 6 hours to process the order, walk out onto the floor, pick up the chair and e-mail me to pick it up. I wish they'd just price-match their own website, but I've been told that the website is a different company than the stores are.
... I've had WalMart price match their own website. I purchased an XBox 360 controller in store for the online price. I wonder if the guy made a mistake. With prime going up I may shut it off but I really like the unlimited picture backup and free shipping as it's hard for me to get to some of the woodworking stores. Most are about 45 min away which is hard to squeeze out except for Sundays.

[Scott Donley]

This is just great :( Now everything I will want will be 48.99 instead of 34.99. :rolleyes:

[Shawn Pachlhofer]

if you have Prime...you can "share" it with other family members, even those that are not in the same household.

So I shared with my wife and my mother.

[Dave Lehnert]

Walmart does the same thing, their online prices are often cheaper than the in-store prices. I've used their online purchasing before but it is generally a pain in the butt and it takes hours and hours to go through. Last time I used it, I bought an office chair for my daughter, ordered online and it took them 6 hours to process the order, walk out onto the floor, pick up the chair and e-mail me to pick it up. I wish they'd just price-match their own website, but I've been told that the website is a different company than the stores are.

At walmart a new printer cartage I need is $11.00 cheaper if ordered on line. Air filter for my car was like $15 vs $24 in store. Case for my new camera was around 1/2 price. All items stocked in store.
Sears does the same thing. Im sure they do it to try and draw in new customers. They have trained me if im in store shopping and see something I like, Don't buy it till you get home to see the on-line price. Most often I just say to myself "I don't need it" and lost a sale.

[Chris Padilla]

if you have Prime...you can "share" it with other family members, even those that are not in the same household.

So I shared with my wife and my mother.Sweet! I just set this up with my wife. Cool. Thanks for that info, Shawn. :)

[Harry Hagan]

I've always wondered how UPS and FedEx can afford to ship Amazon stuff for FREE and still stay in business???

One of life's mysteries, I guess.

[Brian Henderson]

... I've had WalMart price match their own website. I purchased an XBox 360 controller in store for the online price. I wonder if the guy made a mistake. With prime going up I may shut it off but I really like the unlimited picture backup and free shipping as it's hard for me to get to some of the woodworking stores. Most are about 45 min away which is hard to squeeze out except for Sundays.

I have no idea, I've been told the same thing by numerous people at different times. Maybe it's your Walmart doing it wrong? Regardless, Amazon is faster, easier and frankly better than anything Walmart can do, so I'll only go that route when I absolutely, positively have to have it right now. I can wait two days, and with an Amazon fulfillment center in my back yard, most things are next day for free. Walmart just can't beat that.

[Brian Henderson]

At walmart a new printer cartage I need is $11.00 cheaper if ordered on line. Air filter for my car was like $15 vs $24 in store. Case for my new camera was around 1/2 price. All items stocked in store.
Sears does the same thing. Im sure they do it to try and draw in new customers. They have trained me if im in store shopping and see something I like, Don't buy it till you get home to see the on-line price. Most often I just say to myself "I don't need it" and lost a sale.

The local Target used to block cell phones in store, until it became illegal to do so, because so many people were walking into the store, checking online to see how much they could save and ordering it online rather than at Target. Anything I don't absolutely need now, I order. Amazon delivers to my house more days than not. If they'd do same day grocery deliveries, I'd never leave the house. :)

[Wayne Lovell]

I dropped Prime a couple of years the only one of the "services" it provided I used was the "free" 2 day shipping and it had gotten to where they did not make the 2 day shipping at least 1/2 the time. About the only thing I use Amazon for is price check and the reviews, I can almost always buy it somewhere else for the same a a better price and still get free shipping. If I really need something from Amazon I get my Son to order it for me.

[Brian Elfert]

Amazon seems to have gotten a lot better with Prime deliveries now that they have distribution centers in so many places. Amazon used to ship a lot of stuff via UPS next day or second day, but recently they are using USPS. The Post Office can still deliver on time when the packages are traveling shorter distances. My employer has a Prime account and recently my boss ordered an item on Wednesday evening. It arrived in the mail Friday morning.

Amazon has built a sortation center here and is also building a distribution center that opens later this year. I have no idea what a sortation center is exactly, but it allows Sunday deliveries of Prime orders without a distribution center locally yet. (I do not personally have a Prime account.)

[Matt Meiser]

When we were visiting my brother in Minneapolis we got 2 hour delivery on something. Cost us a $5 tip. Got a few Lighning cables cables cheaper than going to a regular store and buying 1, plus we didn't have to deal with Black Friday traffic. Had the bring a 2L of diet Coke too.

Amazon is already doing Sunday deliveries here. I have an order being delivered tomorrow that I ordered last night. They truck it to about 30 minutes from here then deliver to the local post office. From what I understand their contract with the post office says the PO agrees to deliver same day, 7 days a week.


I've always wondered how UPS and FedEx can afford to ship Amazon stuff for FREE and still stay in business???

One of life's mysteries, I guess.

Please tell me you are being joking???

[Brian Henderson]

Seriously, I can't think of the last time that Amazon has missed a 2-day shipping window. I think the last time was because it fell on a federal holiday. I'm getting things next day a lot more often than I'm getting things in three.

[Jay Runde]

Seriously, I can't think of the last time that Amazon has missed a 2-day shipping window. I think the last time was because it fell on a federal holiday. I'm getting things next day a lot more often than I'm getting things in three.
I just had a Prime order that I ordered Wednesday that had guaranteed delivery on Friday and they shipped it UPS 3 day select for some reason. It's not due to arrive until Monday, but because it's late they gave me a $35 gift card

[Matt Meiser]

They are supposed to give you a free month of Prime each miss, up to 12 a year. We're up 13 months over 5 years. I joke that I watch the weather and place an order when there's a storm forecast. :)