Amazon's free shipping minimum now requires a $49 minimum purchase, nearly double of what it started at before a 2013 bump from $25 to $35, according to
TechCrunch.com.
The increase is Amazon's latest effort to get customers to consider its Prime membership, which offers free two-day shipping with an $99 annual membership, said the tech website
The
Wall Street Journal said Amazon may be trying to counter rising shipping costs with the move, noting that shipping expenses leaped 37 percent to $4.17 billion in the fourth quarter last year. Shipping costs made up 12.5 percent of sales in the fourth quarter last year, up from 10.9 percent over the same period in 2014.
The Journal said Prime fees alone could bring Amazon between $4 billion and nearly $6 billion in revenue annually with an average of 40 million to 60 million members.
"Also crucial to Prime's growth is Amazon's ability to make as many items as possible eligible for Prime's fast shipping," said
Fortune magazine. "With that in mind, Amazon has made a big effort to have third-party merchants use its own fulfillment centers, giving it more control so that it can ensure quick delivery to its users.
"Amazon is notoriously quiet about the total number of Prime users and growth, so we may not hear from the company whether this move will encourage more Prime subscriptions," said the magazine.
CNN said nearly half of U.S. households now have Prime accounts, according to a Consumer Intelligence Research Partners report, and despite rising shipping costs Amazon still raked in record fourth-quarter profits last year of $482 million.
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