Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Web
  3. News

Digital Trends may earn a commission when you buy through links on our site. Why trust us?

Amazon: Now you’ll only have to spend $35 to get free shipping

By

Amazon has just cut the minimum order for free shipping to $35, down from $49.

Spotted by The Verge, the reduction comes 12 months after the company raised the minimum order fee from $35 to $49 for eligible items. For book deliveries, the minimum order for free delivery remains the same, at $25.

So what’s going on?

Recommended Videos

It seems the move could be in response to Walmart’s recent decision to offer free two-day shipping on eligible orders worth $35 or more. But there’s a difference: Amazon’s deliveries will take between five and eight business days to arrive, considerably longer than Walmart’s promise of just a couple of days.

Related

For free two-day shipping, Amazon customers need to sign up to Prime, which in the U.S. costs $99 and includes other benefits such as unlimited streaming of online movies and TV shows, and access to the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library.

Amazon hasn’t made any official announcement about its new, lower free-shipping threshold, and, considering how much it likes to push its Prime membership, is unlikely to do so.

In January, Walmart announced it was doing away with its subscription-based ShippingPass and replacing it with free two-day shipping on eligible orders of $35 or more for all customers.

In contrast, another competitor in this space, Best Buy, says it “sometimes offers free shipping for specific shipping methods in select categories, or free shipping sitewide.”

Sign up to its free “My Best Buy” scheme and you’ll find that some orders qualify for free two-day shipping, with a minimum purchase of $35. Additionally, qualify for its “Elite” or “Elite Plus” scheme (by buying a lot of stuff each calendar year) and you can get free two-day deliveries on many items, with no minimum purchase required.

So if you have no intention of signing up to Amazon Prime, but you do like to order stuff online, it’s best you wait until you want to order at least $35 worth of stuff, and then check all of the competing sites to find the best deal — with free shipping included.

If you want to know more, you can also check out our guide on what Amazon Prime Now is.

Topics
Trevor Mogg
Trevor Mogg
Contributing Editor
Not so many moons ago, Trevor moved from one tea-loving island nation that drives on the left (Britain) to another (Japan)…

Editors’ Recommendations

How to change margins in Google Docs
Laptop Working from Home

When you create a document in Google Docs, you may need to adjust the space between the edge of the page and the content -- the margins. For instance, many professors have requirements for the margin sizes you must use for college papers.

You can easily change the left, right, top, and bottom margins in Google Docs and have a few different ways to do it.

Read more
What is Microsoft Teams? How to use the collaboration app
A close-up of someone using Microsoft Teams on a laptop for a videoconference.

Online team collaboration is the new norm as companies spread their workforce across the globe. Gone are the days of primarily relying on group emails, as teams can now work together in real time using an instant chat-style interface, no matter where they are.

Using Microsoft Teams affords video conferencing, real-time discussions, document sharing and editing, and more for companies and corporations. It's one of many collaboration tools designed to bring company workers together in an online space. It’s not designed for communicating with family and friends, but for colleagues and clients.

Read more
Microsoft Word vs. Google Docs
A person using a laptop that displays various Microsoft Office apps.

For the last few decades, Microsoft Word has been the de facto standard for word processors across the working world. That's finally starting to shift, and it looks like one of Google's productivity apps is the heir apparent. The company's Google Docs solution (or to be specific, the integrated word processor) is cross-platform and interoperable, automatically syncs, is easily shareable, and perhaps best of all, is free.

However, using Google Docs proves it still has a long way to go before it can match all of Word's features -- Microsoft has been developing its word processor for over 30 years, after all, and millions still use Microsoft Word. Will Google Docs' low barrier to entry and cross-platform functionality win out? Let's break down each word processor in terms of features and capabilities to help you determine which is best for your needs.
How does each word processing program compare?
To put it lightly, Microsoft Word has an incredible advantage over Google Docs in terms of raw technical capability. From relatively humble beginnings in the 1980s, Microsoft has added new tools and options in each successive version. Most of the essential editing tools are available in Google Docs, but users who are used to Word will find it limited.

Read more