Everybody knows that Amazon’s free shipping program has been a resounding success.
So much so. that the company has announced that it will be moving the minimum qualifying order up from $25 to $35 … inducing shoppers to fill their carts fuller or switch to the highly profitable Amazon Prime program.
The free shipping program’s success was highly predictable based an an apparently inadvertent “matched market test” that Amazon did.
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Here’s the skinny on the Amazon’s inadvertent market test …
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Early-on, Amazon launched free shipping on $25 orders in the U.S. and sales skyrocketed.
In the UK, Amazon launched “nominal shipping” (think, 99 cents) for orders totaling the equivalent of $25.
Sales increased … but only by a fraction of the U.S. sales gain.
Proof-positive of the “power of free” … and evidence of an equally important dynamic:
There’s a big difference between “free” and “almost free” …
When you slip a price on something – even a small one, people are far less responsive.
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