Amazon Reduces Free Shipping Minimums

[ralphnjoann]

Amazon has gone back to $35 to qualify for free shipping:

Amazon Free Shipping

[fj12ryder]

But if you use the store credit card you don't need to belong to Prime, and still get 5 percent back on purchases. That saves you $99 per year. Easy returns are also done without Prime membership.

[Big_Katuna]

Amazon Prime members using an Amazon Visa get up to 5% rebate on purchases.

Easy returns, extended warranties and buyer protection too.

[fj12ryder]

Lantley wrote:
Amazon is reliable as well. Two day shipping is something you can rely on.
Free shipping is no good if the arrival time is not accurate or reliable.
If I have to guess and hope that my purchase will arrive in a timely matter, I may choose to purchase locally vs. on line.

Well, that "Two day shipping" can be deceptive unless there is an actual "Deliver by" date. That "Two Day Shipping" can mean that it will take two days from the time it is shipped, which means if you order on Monday, and they don't ship til Wednesday you will get it on Friday. It's two day shipping, but not necessarily two day delivery.

I found out the hard way when I ordered a product that promised "Free Two Day Shipping", and didn't receive it for a week. When I inquired about that "Two Day Shipping" I was informed that it means it's guaranteed to only take two days from when it was shipped. If it takes a week to ship, too bad so sad.

[Lantley]

Amazon is reliable as well. Two day shipping is something you can rely on.
Free shipping is no good if the arrival time is not accurate or reliable.
If I have to guess and hope that my purchase will arrive in a timely matter, I may choose to purchase locally vs. on line.

[jnharley]

Add in Kindle Free and Amazon video with your Prime membership and you really have a deal. I have watched enough stuff on Amazon Video to pay for the membership in just a couple of weeks.

[Turn_Key]

fj12ryder wrote:
Well, I don't know that Walmart is directly responsible. My thought would be that people realize without free shipping Amazon is not really cheaper than other online stores. Most of the stuff I buy online I can get cheaper from someplace other than Amazon, but the the shipping costs can be the difference.

If I have to pay shipping I never buy from Amazon, they just aren't that cheap. If I had to pay sales tax for Amazon purchases, the amount I would buy from them would drop even more. Heck, even Ebay is usually cheaper than Amazon. 🙂

Your right on that but I still tend to use Amazon because of a very liberal return policy. I will say that their most recent hike in shipping costs has caused me to look elsewhere.

Always liked the free shipping as I am rarely in much of a rush for an item and will wait until I have a large enough order to qualify for free shipping. But, some things are easier to get through Walmart and being able to return an item to the local store (less then a mile for me) rather then shipping it back is a true "plus".

Happy Camping!

[RedRocket204]

beemerphile1 wrote:
In other news, Warren Buffet has recently sold the majority of his Walmart holdings and purchased a large amount of Amazon stock. Amazon has never made a profit and pays $0 dividend. Walmart pays approximately 3 percent dividend right now.

That is somewhat misleading though as Amazon continues to invest and significantly leads the world with Cloud services via AWS. Can Walmart claim anything even remotely similar? Just look at growth numbers.

[beemerphile1]

Walmart has declared war on Amazon. Walmart was slow to embrace online sales and Amazon built a huge market share while Walmart was napping.

However, Walmart purchased Jet.com recently which was a smaller but growing competitor to Amazon. The CEO of Jet is now head of Walmart online sales.

Walmart recently dropped their version of a free shipping club. In its place Walmart now offers free shipping on many items and no membership is needed.

Amazon is responding to the increased competition from Walmart.

In other news, Warren Buffet has recently sold the majority of his Walmart holdings and purchased a large amount of Amazon stock. Amazon has never made a profit and pays $0 dividend. Walmart pays approximately 3 percent dividend right now.

[leggy]

I was told that Amazon and other companies track your purchases and decide what you are willing to pay for products, so when you put an item in your cart but don't buy it they will put it on discount to a point they think you will buy it. So, many times others are paying different prices than you are, sometimes more sometimes less. Just something to think about.

[Community Alumni]

ralphnjoann wrote:
Amazon has gone back to $35 to qualify for free shipping:

Amazon Free Shipping

Do you mean $25.00 I do not remember any thing higher than $35.00

I guess I should have read the link I did not know it was $49.00

jimR

[Aridon]

We dropped prime the other day. Only used the shipping and I can wait a day or two longer with it still being free to ship.

[jfkmk]

I got Prime on sale, I think I paid $60 for it. I use Amazon for a lot of purchases. They're not always the cheapest, but most of the time they are, especially when you consider shipping. We use Prime video a lot, and Amazon's customer service is second to none.

[MrWizard]

If I put something on hold for later
Amazon send me emails when the price changes

[IAMICHABOD]

mgirardo wrote:
We shop a lot at Amazon, however, we usually shop before we need to buy. That way we find what we want and add it to our cart then save it for later. Amazon tracks and informs us when a price change occurs for items in the cart. We'll wait until an item drops to a price we are happy with and then buy it.

Amazon and its selling partners change prices often. There are many times when Amazon does not have the lowest price. Being able to track changing prices without doing anything more than just going to my cart on a routine basis is great.

-Michael

Have you tried camel camel camel? A free Amazon price tracker monitors millions of products and alerts you when prices drop, helping you decide when to buy.

Works great and I get a E- Mail when something I want gets to a price I want to pay.A lot easier than checking daily.

[tvman44]

Here in Louisiana we had to start paying sales tax Jan 1st with Amazon. Our new liberal idiot governor could not stand to miss a few dollars he could spend. I love Amazon service. A week ago UPS swears the delivered 2 pkgs. to my house from Amazon but only one was there. I contacted UPS and was told Amazon had to initiate the claim search, so I contacted Amazon and told them I seriously doubt someone stole it from my back door because they would have taken both and they offered to either give me credit or reship the item & they shipped it overnight & apologized for the inconvenience. I am happy with Amazon, some things are cheaper than other places & some are more. Just like any other store.