14 DAY TRIAL // Earlier this week, Amazon quietly rolled out a new feature that allows any US user to order and get free shipping for items under $10 / €9 and 8 ounces (230 grams), as Bloomberg reported.
Currently, the Amazon userbase is split into two separate groups, regular and Prime users, this feature being new for both.
While previously regular users were supposed to rack up $35 / €31 in minimum orders to benefit from free two-day delivery, now they can order any item they want and get it for free.
The downside is that they'll have to wait between four and eight days for the products to arrive, and all items will mainly be sent out from a brand-new shipping depot built in Florence, Kentucky, just for this purpose.
How does free shipping for small items help Amazon in the long run
Amazon Prime accounts which include automatic two-day deliveries and have no minimum order limit don't actually benefit from this policy change, and some dropouts are expected.
This isn't very likely to affect the company in a big way, but the benefits of targeting cost-aware buyers are higher than losing a few Prime accounts.
Amazon is consciously targeting the low-cost item market, where eBay, Target, Wal-Mart, and Costco have been dominating, but aren't offering anything like Amazon has just rolled out.
The market isn't likely to shift right away, and Amazon faces quite a steep road ahead, with a high chance of losing quite a large sum of money if the free shipping gamble doesn't pay off in the long run via an improved market share.
But maybe this is what Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos was thinking of when he was planning to use drones to deliver light goods to customers a few months back.