Amazon escalates free shipping minimum to $49

New Delhi: American electronic commerce and cloud computing company Amazon Inc. has raised the free-shipping limit to USD 49 for non-prime members.

The move by Amazon comes in a bid to push more of its customers to subscribe to its prime service. The Prime service of the electronic commerce offers significantly faster delivery and lots of other perks.

The move also means that it may be able to cut its shipping cost down and escalate its profit margins, Techcrunch reports.

Headquartered in Washington, Amazon is the largest Internet-based retailer in the United States. Amazon.com started as an online bookstore, later diversifying to sell DVDs, Blu-rays, CDs, software, video games, electronics, apparel, furniture, food, toys and jewellery.

The company also produces consumer electronics notably, Amazon Kindle e-book readers, Fire tablets, Fire TV and Fire Phone and is the world's largest provider of cloud infrastructure services (IaaS).