No more Free Shipping for $25.
Orders must be $35 or more.
Well…I’m looking elsewhere for deals on books.
Suggestions?
There are multi-site book search services around like:
http://www.bookfinder.com
Hasn’t this increase come and gone a few times? Like, maybe it’s a holiday-times only increase?
Depends, I use Bookbub and a kindle. I’ve got about 220 books I haven’t read yet.
Not that I recall.
Maybe I’m misremembering. I recall someone claiming it had gone to $35 or $50, and checking to see that that was the case… but right after that it was $25 again.
Aw man. I get order between $25 and $35 a lot. They’re trying to make me get Prime but I don’t want to. Well, I still have a .edu email address so art least I can get the student rate of $40 if necessary.
And I don’t remember it going up from $25 ever either. I know it used to be $50 years ago, but that was before it had ever been $25.
I’m honestly surprised it took them this long. It’s just not that hard to push an order past the $25 threshold with no additional buying. $35 is trickier, but it still looks like a deal to Joe One-Click.
Just in time for Christmas shopping and they can rake in the bucks.
The free shipping is the main reason I don’t drive to Walmart or Best Buy. I will need to seriously reconsider my shopping choices. Why pay $10 or more shipping for something I can purchase for the price of driving to Walmart?
I hope this bites them in their greedy corporate asses. It will serve them right if this little nasty trick costs them 20% of their Christmas sales.
This directly causes me a problem. I’ve had a recurring order for a case of Campbells soup setup for over 2 years. Automatically ships every 3 months and cost $26. Just enough for free shipping. At least until these scumbags raised the rate to $35. I’m not sure what I’ll do. It was pricing out just a few cents a can under what I could buy locally. There’s no way I can pay shipping without getting royally screwed. I guess that means lugging heavy shopping bags of soup home from Krogers from now on.
Can’t you just add a case?
:rolleyes:
While I know this will aversely affect you directly (which sucks), it’s hardly fair to charge Amazon as being greedy in this case when the part you quoted says that they haven’t changed the minimum order level in over 10 years. In that time, gas has more than doubled and the average wage has increased. Using the US inflation calculator, $25.00 in 2003 would be $31.78 today. While it’s not $35, it’s not too far off.
I’m surprised a change to the minimum hasn’t happened sooner. Like 5 years ago.
E Commerce only succeeded by not charging sales tax and offering free shipping. It give them a small edge over local brick & mortar stores. The savings really isn’t all that much. Depends on the item. But, I’ve rarely saved over 10%.
They’re charging local sales tax in several states and now Amazon raises the minimum order for free shipping. Add all that in and suddenly brick & mortar store prices are either the same or a bit lower. Why shop at Amazon? I’m not willing to pay more for an item just because I can order it with a mouse click. Price matters a lot to me and I shop wherever I get the best deal.
Subscribe and Save is still free shipping regardless of how much you spend; is the soup you order also available in the Subscribe and Save store?
Yes. My case of soup is subscribe and save. I didn’t realize those orders were free shipping. My soup has always been just over the $25 limit. I always thought that was why shipping was free. I was freaking out because there is no way to add anything to the order to reach the new minimum order limit. The soup just ships automatically.
If I get free shipping anyhow, then that’s wonderful news. I really didn’t want to lug those heavy soup cans home from Kroger again.
thanks for the good news. 
No problem! There used to be a running thread on the Amazon forums w/ the cheapest item you could subscribe to (and get shipped for free) once the ‘must subscribe to 5 items for the 15% discount’ kicked in but it seems to have disappeared. I’ve been working the S&S system for two years now; even if I’m sending a gift I try to do so from the S&S store to avoid shipping. Then I can spend more on the actual item; I send a bunch to women’s shelters and food pantries around the States b/c it’s a pleasant surprise for them and a little can go a long way w/ Amazon’s wide variety of groceries along w/ their various coupons and daily deals.
If the situation were ever to devolve such that the $35 limit applied to S&S, go into your S&S items and change it to 2 cases every 6 months instead of one every 3 months. That day may come, sadly. 
Well, no, not really. I buy online and pay tax and shipping much of the time. I do so because it’s convenient, the selection is much better, and because much of the time it’s a good bit cheaper. I actually do not expect free shipping on most my purchases. In fact, I don’t think any of my last dozen or so online purchases included free shipping. Amazon’s policy sounds more than reasonable to me.
I’ll keep that option in mind. Two cases every six months. My wife and I love this chicken broccoli cheese soup. We’ll eat a can each at least three times a month in the winter. Twice a month in the summer.
What you can buy today for $35 probably only cost $25 a few years back, so is this really a big deal?
My problem with Amazon these days is that so much of the shit on there isn’t really sold by Amazon at all but some other company. I’d rather be buying from Amazon itself, since they’re a known reputable business, than a “partner” which for all I know is some kid in his mom’s basement. Yeah, Amazon can step in and help if things go tits up with a “partner” but I’d much prefer to not have to risk such a hassle in the first place.
I realize they’ve had this sort of arrangement for a while, but it just seems to be more and more prevalent all the time. Seems like almost nothing I search for on Amazon is actually sold by them anymore.
I already started a Thread about this.
MODS?
Merged duplicate threads, placed result in MPSIMS.