Amazon says it’s working on free one-day Prime shipping

Amazon revealed today that it’s working to offer free one-day shipping as the default for Amazon Prime customers, instead of the free two-day Prime shipping primarily offered today. “We’re currently working on evolving Prime two-day to Prime one-day,” says chief financial officer Brian Olsavsky during the company’s first quarter 2019 earnings call.

The new free one-day shipping method should be different from today’s free same-day and free one-day shipping, which usually require you to order at least $35 worth of items. The free one-day shipping also won’t come at an additional cost to consumers, besides the required Prime membership subscription.

“We’re already starting down this path,” explains Olsavsky. “We’ve expanded the number of zip codes eligible for one-day shipping.” Still, he says, “it will take us a significant amount of time to achieve.” He says Amazon was working on improving its shipping logistics over the past quarter, and will use the US Postal Service and all its other transportation partners to help make free one-day shipping the standard for Prime customers.

Amazon says it’ll tell us more about the expansion of free one-day shipping in the second quarter of the year. Development is beginning in North America for now, but it will eventually expand globally. Olsavsky adds, “The vast majority of items are available in two days. If we cut that in half...we think it will open up a lot of potential purchases and a lot of convenience.”