When you buy on Amazon, you are usually getting a pretty good deal. But that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t try to save even more money. One of the ways that you can do that is by getting free shipping. There are a number of ways that you can get free shipping on Amazon. You probably have already heard of some of them, but others you may not be familiar with or have thought of yet. Let’s take a look at six of the best ways that you can get free shipping on Amazon and make your purchase make even more fiscal sense and save you even more money than it usually does.
Always Buy the Minimum
The first thing that you want to make sure of is that you always buy the minimum order to get free shipping through Amazon. Amazon has required you to spend at least $35 in the past in order to get free shipping but is now lowered that to $25.
However, you have to keep in mind that this is not available on everything. You have to actually look for the notation that the item has free shipping on qualified orders. This is a terrific way to save money because the shipping on those items by individually would be quite a bit higher. Plus, Amazon has a number of tools at your disposal so that you are able to save items for later purchase quickly and easily. Besides the cart function, you can save items for later; you can add them to a wish list for further down the road and more.
Sign Up for a Prime Membership
You should also consider signing up for an Amazon Prime membership. Prime gives you a ton of benefits, but one of the main ones that you get is free shipping on millions of items on Amazon. You can simply filter items so that everything you look at as free two-day shipping with Prime, or you can look for the Prime symbol next to the item that you are interested in.
Amazon Prime is about 13 bucks a month or you can sign up for a yearly membership for $99 annually. However, Prime also gives you other benefits like being able to access thousands of television shows and movies through Amazon streaming, unlimited music streaming, the ability to borrow books and much more. Amazon Prime is one of the best programs out there for anyone who uses the Amazon site regularly or who gets their entertainment from online sources.
Look for Free Shipping Deals
Keep your eyes open for Amazon promo codes and hot deals that come with free shipping. These are rarer than some of the other types of items that we have described here, but it can be very advantageous to keep your eye out for these types of discounts and items to get free shipping if you do not have an Amazon Prime membership and you are not able to create an order that is at least $25 or more. Amazon does send out promo codes once in a while that will give you free shipping, so you may want to look into that in order to save money on your purchase.
Get a Discount to Make Up for Shipping Costs
You may also want to get a discount on your actual items in order to make up for shipping costs. If you can get a few dollars off of the purchase price of an item, then you’re going to make up for whatever you have to pay to ship. There are lots of ways that you can get a discount on items. One of the best ways to get a few dollars off is to add an item to your cart but not by right away.
Sometimes, Amazon will discount the price a little bit in order to get you to check out and buy the item that is in your cart. When you go back to the Amazon site, you will often see a message if you have left something in your cart saying that the price has changed. If you can get this type of discount, then the three or four dollars that you spend on shipping will be taken care of.
Order Lightweight Free Shipping Items
Most people do not realize this, but Amazon actually offers free shipping on lightweight items. If you normally buy lightweight items at the department store or dollar store, consider checking for them on Amazon first. You may be able to find items for a better price or different items than what you would find at the store and get totally free shipping on them.
This allows you to shop in a more convenient way for the items that you are already going to purchase, get them with totally free shipping and have a wider selection as well as a potentially lower price. The only downside to using this method is that it may take you a couple of days to get your item, so if you need it right away then you may want to go to the store instead.
Use Subscribe-and-Save Items
You can also alleviate some of the cost with millions of items on Amazon by using subscribe and save. Subscribe and save is a program that offers a lower price if you sign up to purchase the item every month. Not only is this really convenient for you, allowing you to eliminate those items from your shopping list altogether and forget about them until they show up at your door, but it also saves you a pretty significant amount of money.
You may still have to pay for shipping on these items, unless you meet the $25 threshold or have an Amazon Prime membership, but the money that you saved by subscribing will make up for the shipping costs. In addition, if you are able to get free shipping, then you’re going to save money directly from the purchase price which is an extremely appealing reason for subscribing.