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Amazon increases free shipping minimum order to $49

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Point of reference (Score: 1)

by fnj@pipedot.org on 2016-02-25 08:55 (#1539A)

$50 happens to be the cutoff for Walmart online, too. And for quite a few other places.

The skyrocketing cost of shipping is a real problem for everybody. It really frosts me to order ten bucks worth of tea leaves or electronic parts and then have shipping to double the cost to me.

Re: Point of reference (Score: 1, Informative)

by Anonymous Coward on 2016-02-26 20:47 (#1596V)

Fuel is at something like a 20 year low. Everything is automated and optimized out the wazoo. There's no legitimate reason for shipping costs to be rising.

This sucks a bit for me, as after several trials and 2 paid years I realized I still never order more than 2-3 times a year, don't care about 2 days versus 7 days, and never ever used Prime Video. Prime is NOT a bargain and, worse, I've noticed that many/most of the things I shop for lately are MORE expensive at Amazon, making the entire Amazon+Prime proposition nothing but a gimmick and from what I see in others it approaches Apple-y levels of cult stickiness.

Re: Point of reference (Score: 1, Interesting)

by Anonymous Coward on 2016-02-29 13:28 (#15GEE)

There's no legitimate reason for shipping costs to be rising.
US Post Office rates have gone up, I thought this was due to their new requirement to fully fund all their pensions? Or something like that? This requirement was likely caused by FedEx and other shippers lobbying the government. Just another case of companies/capitalists that really want to be monopolists -- in this case driving business away from the Post Office by forcing higher USPS rates.

Moderation

Time Reason Points Voter
2016-03-02 01:47 Interesting +1 hyper@pipedot.org

Junk Status

Marked as [Not Junk] by bryan@pipedot.org on 2016-05-06 23:02