Amazon Free Shipping minimum is now $49 • Hacker News Board

Re: Amazon Free Shipping minimum is now $49

#51

Post by achow » Mon, Feb 22, 2016, 6:00 AM UTC

mdasen wrote: post #41

tristanj wrote: post #2

One look at their finances and it's clear why they're doing this. According to their SEC filings, last year Amazon brought in $6.5 billion in shipping revenue [1], and spent $11.5 billion on shipping costs. Take those numbers together and they lost $5.0 billion subsidizing shipping. They lose more money on shipping every year than most startups make in a decade. It's a huge cost on their budget, not hard to see why m…

In a certain way, isn't that like saying BestBuy spend $X billion on storefront real-estate and made $0 in people paying in "walk-out-the-storefront-with-your-item" charges? Shipping revenues will never cover shipping costs as long as they provide even one free shipment a year (and don't overcharge people paying for shipping). Shipping is one of those costs that you have to pay like having storefronts. The goods have…

You make very good points.

For comparison, the lease amount of Target's Canadian (failed) expansion was for $1.3B USD for 220 stores. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Target_Canada

[Edit]

Target USA stores as of May 2015: 1795 http://www.forbes.com/sites/walterloeb/2015/05/22/what-is-th...

Amazon's $5B shipping loss now almost looks quaint, if one factors in absence of retail stores and presence of handful number of Warehouses.

Re: Amazon Free Shipping minimum is now $49

#52

Post by fencepost » Mon, Feb 22, 2016, 6:08 AM UTC

Gustomaximus wrote: post #12

dangrossman wrote: post #4

"Profit was held back by a big jump in fulfillment costs, which increased 32.8% year-over-year in the fourth quarter and nearly 25% for the full year. Amazon spent $4.55 billion in the fourth quarter to fulfill customers’ orders, up from $3.4 billion in the same quarter a year ago, and the increase cannot be explained away by increases in Amazon sales, as the percentage of revenues spent on shipping also increased, f…

> The average cost to handle a parcel was about $8 last year. Thats still Amazing low cost considering what has to be done to deliver a parcel. Though I'm more surprised Amazon hasn't set up an Argos style business in high density cities. For those that dont know Argos it's in the UK and its basically a collection shopfront with catalogues infromt of the counter. You browse the catalogue, write down the numbers and s…

I believe that the Argos-style staff-retrieving-everything is the way a high percentage of shops used to be, and there are still a few vestiges of it in some industries and areas. I'm not sure exactly where to find information on how the individual retail experience has changed over the decades, but I expect that direct consumer retrieval of items became the standard as larger stores and department stores became more widespread.

Notably in general retail, dedicated shoe stores in the USA are quite often like this though discount shoe stores now often tend to simply have stacks of boxes below a display shoe and it's up to the consumer to find which sizes/styles are in stock. It's also the standard for compact high-value goods such as jewelry. There are probably still also shops (even grocers) in high-crime areas that simply work everything this way.

Re: Amazon Free Shipping minimum is now $49

#53

Post by agumonkey » Mon, Feb 22, 2016, 6:12 AM UTC

deftnerd wrote: post #9

This is just assuming that they'll even let you order $49 worth of items in one box. I let my Amazon Prime lapse because I was rarely using it. A few weeks ago I decided to do a bulk order. I ordered 18 items with a total of $110. They split my shipment into three packages of approximately $50, $50, and one item by itself in another box for $10. Since one of the boxes didn't have $35, they tried to charge me shipping…

..Priceless story.

Re: Amazon Free Shipping minimum is now $49

#54

Post by edsouza » Mon, Feb 22, 2016, 6:15 AM UTC

Gustomaximus wrote: post #12

dangrossman wrote: post #4

"Profit was held back by a big jump in fulfillment costs, which increased 32.8% year-over-year in the fourth quarter and nearly 25% for the full year. Amazon spent $4.55 billion in the fourth quarter to fulfill customers’ orders, up from $3.4 billion in the same quarter a year ago, and the increase cannot be explained away by increases in Amazon sales, as the percentage of revenues spent on shipping also increased, f…

> The average cost to handle a parcel was about $8 last year. Thats still Amazing low cost considering what has to be done to deliver a parcel. Though I'm more surprised Amazon hasn't set up an Argos style business in high density cities. For those that dont know Argos it's in the UK and its basically a collection shopfront with catalogues infromt of the counter. You browse the catalogue, write down the numbers and s…

Lee Valley Tools[1] operates in a similar manner North America. But they specialize in woodworking and gardening tools.

[1] https://www.leevalley.com/

Re: Amazon Free Shipping minimum is now $49

#55

Post by tdeck » Mon, Feb 22, 2016, 6:16 AM UTC

deftnerd wrote: post #39

jbkkd wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a business that purchases multiple items in a single order on a daily basis, and have never encountered this. We always get free shipping for orders, even if boxes are split. I'm curious about your use case, were they non amazon fullfiled items?

Answered in detail above, but to sum it up, all the items were either Amazon supplied or FBA, so they would ship directly from an Amazon warehouse.

The paranoid engineer in me thinks this "box shuffling" is a feature flagged behavior and you ended up in an unlucky bucket.

Re: Amazon Free Shipping minimum is now $49

#56

Post by thirdsun » Mon, Feb 22, 2016, 6:18 AM UTC

ajmurmann wrote: post #23

chx wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe if you buy Amazon items then, even if they split the shipment, they won't charge you. The above sounds like you were buying from different merchants.

The non-amazon shipped stuff on Amazon honestly had been a pain ever since they introduced it. If you have prime it mostly is just a huge nuisance.

Same here, unless it's the only option and I really need the product, I'll only buy Prime-enabled products.

I really don't want Amazon to turn into eBay or Alibaba, but for many categories it already is if you scroll/paginate far enough.

Re: Amazon Free Shipping minimum is now $49

#57

Post by thirdsun » Mon, Feb 22, 2016, 6:28 AM UTC

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #47

sirkneeland wrote: post #6

First reaction: "NOOOOOOOO" Second reaction: "It appears this does NOT apply to Amazon Prime." I am assuming this is gamed to drive further conversion to Prime membership then.

Likely. Amazon seems to have made it clear that if you don't have Prime, they'd :RATHER: you shopped somewhere else. Arbitrary sets of items like certain Blu-ray discs or even like... razor blade replacements and diapers will randomly get set as "Prime exclusive items" for no reason with no warning. Suddenly, buying a $10 Blu-ray requires you buy a $100 Prime subscription to go with it. And customers have found that…

Frankly, I think it's a fair deal.

I gladly pay the Prime fee and in return can be very sure that products will arrive tomorrow. I value that certainty and immediate availability. And that's not even considering the video and music services which I don't use that much.

Re: Amazon Free Shipping minimum is now $49

#58

Post by robryan » Mon, Feb 22, 2016, 6:33 AM UTC

stanmancan wrote: post #25

ajmurmann wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The non-amazon shipped stuff on Amazon honestly had been a pain ever since they introduced it. If you have prime it mostly is just a huge nuisance.

I always make sure I check off the "Prime Eligible" checkbox when searching Amazon. It sucks to find an item, go to buy it, and finding out it's going to take 4 weeks and $25 to ship from the UK or something.

A lot of stuff is fine though and you will probably get it in similar time to Amazon standard shipping.

It would be hard if they let you search by say < 3 business days, < 5 business days in the same way they let you search prime only.

Re: Amazon Free Shipping minimum is now $49

#59

Post by sc90 » Mon, Feb 22, 2016, 6:36 AM UTC

thirdsun wrote: post #56

ajmurmann wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The non-amazon shipped stuff on Amazon honestly had been a pain ever since they introduced it. If you have prime it mostly is just a huge nuisance.

Same here, unless it's the only option and I really need the product, I'll only buy Prime-enabled products. I really don't want Amazon to turn into eBay or Alibaba, but for many categories it already is if you scroll/paginate far enough.

What do you mean turn into ebay or Alibaba?

Re: Amazon Free Shipping minimum is now $49

#60

Post by x0x0 » Mon, Feb 22, 2016, 6:37 AM UTC

sc90 wrote: post #59

thirdsun wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same here, unless it's the only option and I really need the product, I'll only buy Prime-enabled products. I really don't want Amazon to turn into eBay or Alibaba, but for many categories it already is if you scroll/paginate far enough.

What do you mean turn into ebay or Alibaba?

a guess: full of shoddy and/or unsafe knockoffs