Amazon scraps free delivery on all orders under £10

Saving and Making Money

Updated on 16 July 2014 | 11 Comments

The online retailer has extended the £10 minimum spend for free delivery to items from all departments.

Amazon has scrapped its free Super Saver Delivery service for all orders that come to less than £10.

The minimum spend has been rolled out across all of Amazon's departments, so now items like books, CDs and DVDs will come with a postage charge unless an order totals £10 or more.

The online retailer made the announcement in an email to users and has updated its website to reflect the new rules - which take immediate effect.

The change applies to products offered by Amazon. Normal delivery charges will apply to items supplied by third-party sellers.

Closing loopholes

Amazon last updated its delivery charges in July  when it introduced the £10 minimum spend, but this was only for some departments.

Many popular departments escaped the new postage rules including Books, Music, Film & TV, Blu-ray, Software and PC & Video Games. Ordering any items from these departments triggered free delivery on an order.

This caveat meant that shoppers could sidestep the new postage charges by adding an item from one of the exempt categories. As long as the item was much cheaper than the original cost of postage that would have been applied, customers could still save.

But Amazon has now closed this loophole by extending the £10 threshold to all departments.

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How to cut down on postage costs

You can trigger free Super Saver Delivery on your Amazon order as long as you spend more than £10.

Alternatively you could try Amazon Prime, which costs £49 a year and offers unlimited one-day delivery with no minimum order size. Being a Prime member also gets you discounts on other delivery services that might be more convenient, like Evening Delivery.

Another way to save money is to shop through a cashback website to offset the postage cost and even earn a bit extra on top. Both Top Cashback and Quidco offer cashback when you shop at certain Amazon departments.

Lastly you could try looking elsewhere for a better deal and shop around to see if you can find what you're after for less when you factor in postage.

What do you think of the move? Will it encourage you to shop around more? Let us know in the Comment box below.

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