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Amazon to Make One-Day Shipping the Standard on Amazon Prime

Amazon plans on spending $800 million in this year's second quarter to build out the needed infrastructure. Currently, free two-day shipping is the default on Amazon Prime, but the company wants to make it one day.

 & Michael Kan Principal Reporter

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The standard delivery time for your Amazon Prime orders will eventually take one day, not two.

"We're currently working on evolving our Prime free two-day shipping program to be a free one-day shipping program," Amazon's chief financial officer Brian Olsavsky said in a Thursday earnings call.

According to Olsavsky, Amazon plans on spending $800 million in this year's second quarter to build out the infrastructure needed to make the one-day delivery times possible. Already, the company's Amazon Prime program has been offering one-day, same-day, and two-hour shipping times, but only in certain zip codes and for a limited number of products.

However, in recent months the company has been expanding the number of zip codes and items eligible for the one-day shipping times, Olsavsky said. "We're able to do this because we spent 20 plus years expanding our fulfillment and logistics network. But this is still a big investment and [there's] a lot of work to do ahead of us," he added.

For now, it isn't clear when Amazon will complete the transition to the faster delivery time. But the goal is to bring the one-day shipping to Amazon Prime across the globe, starting in North America. "We expect to make steady progress quickly and through the year," Olsavsky said.

The company is making the investment a year after increasing the price for Amazon Prime from the annual $99 fee to $119. At the time, Amazon said the price hike was needed because the paid subscription service was costing the company more to run. With Amazon Prime, customers can get access to both faster free shipping, and access to the company's video and music streaming services.

Despite last year's price hike, Olsavsky said on Thursday that the company saw more Amazon Prime sign ups in 2018 than in any other year. "Morphing to a one-day free shipping offer will make it even more the best deal in retail," he added.

About Our Expert

Michael Kan

Michael Kan

Principal Reporter

My Experience

I've been a journalist for over 15 years. I got my start as a schools and cities reporter in Kansas City and joined PCMag in 2017, where I cover satellite internet services, cybersecurity, PC hardware, and more. I'm currently based in San Francisco, but previously spent over five years in China, covering the country's technology sector.

Since 2020, I've covered the launch and explosive growth of SpaceX's Starlink satellite internet service, writing 600+ stories on availability and feature launches, but also the regulatory battles over the expansion of satellite constellations, fights with rival providers like AST SpaceMobile and Amazon, and the effort to expand into satellite-based mobile service. I've combed through FCC filings for the latest news and driven to remote corners of California to test Starlink's cellular service.

I also cover cyber threats, from ransomware gangs to the emergence of AI-based malware. In 2024 and 2025, the FTC forced Avast to pay consumers $16.5 million for secretly harvesting and selling their personal information to third-party clients, as revealed in my joint investigation with Motherboard.

I also cover the PC graphics card market. Pandemic-era shortages led me to camp out in front of a Best Buy to get an RTX 3000. I'm now following how the AI-driven memory shortage is impacting the entire consumer electronics market. I'm always eager to learn more, so please jump in the comments with feedback and send me tips.

The Best Tech I've Had:

  • My first video game console: a Nintendo Famicom
  • I loved my Sega Saturn despite PlayStation's popularity.
  • The iPod Video I received as a gift in college
  • Xbox 360 FTW
  • The Galaxy Nexus was the first smartphone I was proud to own.
  • The PC desktop I built in 2013, which still works to this day.

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