Online shoppers are benefitting from the e-commerce battle between Amazon and Walmart. Amazon has once again lowered its minimum for free shipping for non-Prime orders, from $35 to $25, undercutting Walmart’s minimum by $10.
The Verge reports that Amazon quietly made the change, which was first noticed by BestBlackFriday, last week but it went unnoticed until now.
Amazon’s shipping page now notes that “all orders of $25 or more of eligible items across any product category qualify for FREE Shipping.”
The new shipping threshold applies to any item with “FREE Shipping” messaging on its product detail page and includes a notation that the product is fulfilled and shipped by Amazon.
The e-commerce giant does include the warning that canceling items, combining orders, or changing your shipping address could affect the free shipping eligibility of some items.
Amazon’s Prime subscription service, which offers free two-day shipping on millions of items, does not appear to be affected by this change.
The $25 minimum shipping requirement marks the second time this year that Amazon has quietly lowered the threshold for free shipping in the face of competition from Walmart. Back in February, the company dropped the qualifying purchase price to $35 from $49.
That move came on the heels of Walmart’s decision to 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.
More recently, Walmart announced that it would offer customers discounts if they shopped online but picked up their products in stores. The discount varies by product and can be see on the item’s product page online.
by Ashlee Kieler via Consumerist