Le Chic Geek
Related Articles
ShopRunner gave away free accounts to people with American Express cards, and I’ve been using it fairly often.
In fact, using ShopRunner has made Drugstore.com a direct competitor to Amazon in my book. A lot of items that were “add-on” only on Amazon–that is, you could only get free Prime shipping if you hit a spend threshold–were available for free shipping on Drugstore.
But the era of free shipping on Drugstore (and other ShopRunner sites) has come to an end.
I received a letter in the mail letting me know that many stores are moving to a minimum spend threshold–though it didn’t specify which ones.
I knew this already about Drugstore since I shop on it so often. I went to order some soap and was confused by the minimum spend requirement.
The benefits of still using ShopRunner is:
1. Free shipping kicks in with $10 less spend than Drugstore’s usual free shipping.
2. Bulky items can be shipped for free with ShopRunner (again, if you hit minimum spend), but not with Drugstore.
This makes ShopRunner a mildly better program, but not really one worth paying for on a yearly basis. I think these minimum spends are a huge devaluation, especially since a lot of companies now have coupon codes for free spend once you hit a minimum amount.
They probably listed Drugstore/Beauty.com first cause they’re their biggest partner sites and therefore the first ones to adopt a minimum purchase price. Any partner site can charge a minimum but they aren’t required to do so; non-listers are probably still the best overall deals for SR members.
ShopRunner’s FAQ has a complete current list of sites who have adopted a minimum:
Staples, $49.99 minimum purchase amount.
FragranceNet.com, $25 minimum purchase amount.
drugstore.com, $25 minimum purchase amount.
Beauty.com, $25 minimum purchase amount.
Bon-Ton, $25 minimum purchase amount.
Bergner’s, $25 minimum purchase amount.
Boston Store, $25 minimum purchase amount.
Carson’s, $25 minimum purchase amount.
Elder-Beerman, $25 minimum purchase amount.
Herberger’s, $25 minimum purchase amount.
Younkers, $25 minimum purchase amount.
Hopefully this info will help out other SR members in the future.
Thanks! This is really, really helpful!