Previously, Prime had been an either/or option for merchants: Items either were available for free shipping or they weren’t. We’ll have to wait and see if the results are favorable enough for Amazon to consider rolling this program out for everybody. However, some members will now be limited with regards to what “Prime” items they will get in two days.
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One of Amazon Prime’s best perks is getting scaled back.
The program is logical because some of these small and local merchants would never be able to afford to offer free two-day shipping nationwide – a pair of shoes is much cheaper to ship from California to Washington than it is to send them from New Jersey.
Amazon is scaling back on free shipping perks. This test means that there may be times when Amazon Prime members will still have to pay for two-day shipping despite their $99-a-year subscription, reports Tech Times. If they were required to ship to the entire country, for instance, these merchants may never make their products eligible for Prime. In the past, items will only earn a Prime-eligible designation when it is shipped first to an Amazon warehouse.
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Amazon has recently made other tweaks to its Prime program, including expanding same-day delivery service and limiting the number of people who can use a single prime membership account. Dubbed Ship by Region, the program allows sellers to decide which regions they’re willing to ship their items to for free. Amazon seems to have launched the program to expand the number of items that are show up when customers search for goods at Prime. Merchants would then only receive orders from Prime customers who are located close to the merchant’s warehouse.
