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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 2016-02-26 22:26 (#159EV)

The reason for shipping costs to rise now is profit margin. Then, when fuel prices rise, they can whine that they're losing money on shipping and increase the costs more, and the "Just World" brigade will leap to their defense, claiming that no business should lose money to its customers. People who don't track what happens will be convinced, and increased shipping costs become the norm.

Moderation

Time Reason Points Voter
2016-02-29 13:28 Interesting +1 hyper@pipedot.org

Junk Status

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