Do we want to avoid paying for shipping on Amazon even without Prime? Let’s see how to proceed during purchases.
With Amazon we can purchase many household items, new technological gadgets and even consumer products (such as pasta, oil and other foodstuffs); Unfortunately free shipping on any item or product is only included for Prime memberswho can effectively buy anything without ever paying delivery fees (as well as having access to the fastest deliveries).
If we don’t have Prime we can still get free shipping on Amazon by purchasing only a certain category of products and reaching a very specific amount in the cart, adding a single item or accumulating various items up to the required value.
READ ALSO -> What does your Amazon Prime membership include
1) Which products to use for free shipping?
To be sure of reaching the minimum spending threshold to obtain free shipping even without Prime we must make sure that the chosen product has the following requirements (under the button Buy now):
- Shipping and Seller -> Amazon
- Shipping -> Amazon
These products are managed and/or sold directly by Amazon and therefore fall within the minimum threshold required to avoid shipping costs. If we don’t find the Amazon entry anywhere, the package is not managed by Amazon (it is entrusted to a third party seller on Amazon) and may require additional shipping costs, even if we reach the required threshold or are Prime users.
2) Minimum spend required for free shipping on Amazon
The minimum spending threshold for not paying for shipments is €35: once this threshold is reached we will no longer pay any shipping costs, regardless of the product or products sold on Amazon. After filling the cart, all we have to do is confirm the order and select standard delivery o Free shipping in the shipment summary window.
This shipping is slower compared to that provided for Prime customers: it may take 3 to 5 working days for the package to be delivered to our address, to one of the sales points or Amazon Locker available on Italian territory.
3) Amazon Prime monthly: use the benefits occasionally
As a valid alternative to free shipping over €35 we can also activate Amazon Prime with the monthly subscription: we will pay immediately €4.99 per month and we can deactivate it at any time, even after just one month, taking us into the Amazon Prime subscription management pageby pressing up Update, delete and more and clicking on Finish registering.
This occasional subscription can be very useful during the Christmas period or in a month with many birthdaysso you can benefit from free shipping on all products (even those with a price of less than €35) and the fast shipping within 1 working daydefinitely more convenient if we have to give gifts and can’t wait up to a week for delivery.
We can read our article on Amazon shipments what to do if an Amazon package does not arrive or is missing.
Conclusions
Even without Prime active we can get free shipping on Amazon purchases, but we’ll have to buy items worth more than €35 o fill the cart beyond this threshold to avoid shipping costs.
A good alternative involves activate monthly Amazon Prime only when really necessary (Christmas or a month full of birthdays), so as to take advantage of the benefits of Prime only for a short period of time and avoid spending €50 on the annual subscription.
To learn more we can read our guides on how to change shipping address on Amazon and on tricks and secrets for shopping on Amazon.