Amazon's minimum order size for free shipping is now $35

There has been similar changes in their European operations some months back. Many items are no longer covered by complementary postage. Deliveries also seem to take longer to 'ship' (that might be my imagination though). I think it's all related to Prime, them trying to make a subscription service look more valuable by disabling the alternatives.

Yeah, we've been using it for a year. We justified it by switching the $8/mo from netflix to amazon. The streaming isn't as robust but it gets the job done :)

The only side effect this will have is that it will push more people into buying Prime. Great comments in the other Amazon thread about how they're really playing the long game [1].

Personally, I think Prime is a serious USP for Amazon that is often overlooked. It's pretty controversial among analysts (from what I understand) with some claiming it's causing explosive growth [2] yet with others unconvinced it's sustainable [3].

Definitely a company to watch over the next 10+ years though...

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6591509

[2] http://news.investors.com/technology/030513-646807-amzn-prim...

[3] http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2013/04/26/prime-is-ki...

I am amazed at how amazon remains doing business with so low margins or no profits. We love amazon at my house and being Prime members, we are almost ordering everything under the sun from Amazon that we possibly can. Here is why we love it:

- The reviews are actually useful. I just bought a 70 inch TV through amazon and the critical and helpful reviews really helped me get going with settings on the TV that would have taken hours to research on google otherwise.

- Shipping is superfast. Most items are delivered within a day or two with prime.

- Btw, if you are a parent of a baby, then check out Amazon Mom. It is free with Prime membership and gives you further discounts if you subscribe to ordering baby stuff like formula, diapers etc. on amazon. Also we compared the prices and it is almost impossible to beat amazon for these things as well.

- No need to go drive to a store. Sometimes I need to buy $10 item for which I might end up spending $2 on gas.

- Easiest returns if the need arises.

- Not to mention that Amazon prime gives you access to lot of great videos, movies, shows etc as a bonus.

One drawback with prime is that not all items are Prime eligible. Specially what they call "add on items"

but their inventory sucks. way too limited.

unless you count in the other sellers. i.e. stuff not marked as sold by amazon, then all that you said stop to be true.

reviews means little because when bad reviews pile up, they create a new listing.

shipping is weird. some stuff may be shipped from china. arduino clones.

oh and that, you get arduinos clones being sold as originals.

at least the returns are usually still better than the alternatives.