Amazon have emailed Prime Members to inform them that from the 18th of September, you will have to start paying a delivery charge for Same-Day delivery which you may have been enjoying for free.
First off, it’s not all bad news. Prime members can still have orders delivered for free with One-Day delivery, but if you want ultra fast delivery (same day or overnight by 1pm) you’re going to have to pay an additional fee of £1.99, but only if the order is under £20. Non-Prime members won’t see any difference and they will continue to be charged a shipping fee of £5.99 for Same-Day delivery.
Eligible items are products marked with “Today by 7 PM” or “Today by 10 PM” or “Tomorrow by 1 PM” delivery promises on Search and Detail Pages. It’s frankly astounding that goods can be home delivered this fast but sadly what was once free will soon be chargeable.
The timing may be a nuisance for some, the changes come into effect on the 18th of September, so when you’re busily wrapping your Christmas presents in Q4 and run out of Sellotape, you’ll no longer be able to get it delivered Same-Day for free unless you’re buying in bulk.
Amazon Prime Benefit Changes
- Your Prime Same-Day or Overnight (Tomorrow by 1 PM) orders over £20 will automatically be delivered to you using the fastest available option, at no extra cost. This means that where available, you will get eligible orders delivered for free on the same day or by 1PM the following day, depending on when you place your order.
- Eligible Prime orders under £20 will continue to be shipped with free One-Day delivery. Where available, Same-Day delivery can be selected at checkout, but there will be a fee of £1.99 per delivery for orders under £20. The fee for customers who are not Prime members will remain £5.99.
Why charge for Prime Delivery?
The majority of Prime members currently receive most of their Prime orders with One-Day delivery, while free Same-Day delivery can be manually selected for eligible orders. Now if you are like me and about to order something, you’re probably perfectly happy to receive it with One-Day delivery, right?
But then you get to checkout and you see this tempting selection of delivery choices and there’s that one that says “Order within so many minutes for delivery by 10pm today”. And it’s at no extra cost! And you’re sitting there thinking I didn’t really need this until tomorrow, but why wouldn’t I have it delivered today? I mean what’s the downside for you – that delight and amazement that something can be delivered so fast is just begging you to press the button and discover if it really will arrive before you go to bed.
So you press the button and twenty or thirty miles away your pack of batteries or whatever else you’ve just purchased gets popped onto a van that rather than doing a full delivery route will probably drop off at a number of houses with several miles between drops just because you couldn’t wait til morning.
Well, the truth is that it’s probably costing Amazon a small fortune to sate your need for instant gratification and as they roll Same-Day and Overnight delivery more widely there are going to be many more people pressing that super fast delivery button and it’s really not sustainable, from an environmental or financial standpoint.
So the upshot is, too many of us are opting for ultra fast delivery and we’ll still get it so long as we spend twenty quid or more per order. But for lower value items Amazon want you to slow down and perhaps accept a One-Day delivery which will cost them a lot less to perform, and the £1.99 shouldn’t really bew viewed as a charge, it’s more of a disincentive to choose Same-Day when you don’t really need it.
