Amazon Reduces Minimum On Free Shipping For Non-Prime Customers

Image courtesy of Alan Rappa

Almost exactly one year after Amazon increased the free-shipping minimum on non-Prime customers from $35 to $49, the e-commerce giant has decided to revert back to the old $35 minimum.

The Verge reports that Amazon appears to have dropped the price of its non-Prime member shipping minimum to $35 over the weekend.

A spokesperson for the e-commerce giant tells CNET that the change happened “recently,” but declined to specify when exactly the change took effect.

There doesn’t appear to be a shipping change for Amazon’s $99/year (or $10/month) Prime service, which offers free two-day shipping on millions of products. Additionally, the free shipping minimum for books continues to be $25.

This quiet change to Amazon’s shipping charge comes on the heels of Walmart’s decision to drop its $50/year ShippingPass service, which had been intended to compete directly with Prime.

Instead of a subscription tier, Walmart has opted to offer free two-day shipping on a wide variety of products — with a minimum purchase price of $35, which just happens to be the same minimum that Amazon has reverted to.

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