As other retailers have begun lowering the threshold for online shoppers to qualify for free shipping, retail giant Target is now raising its limit, according to reports.
Target quietly and without fanfare raised its minimum purchase requirement from $25 to $35 on May 7. The company had offered free shipping to purchases of $25 and above since 2015, according to CNBC.
“Target regularly reviews and adjusts our online shipping policies and practices to better serve guests and enhance our business,” the retailer said to a query from CNBC.
Target credit and debit card holders will continue to get free shipping on any purchase, the company said.
The hike in the minimum purchase comes after retailers like Amazon.com and Walmart had lowered their threshold for the perk. Amazon recently moved from $35 down to $25 while Walmart moved from $50 down to $35 in January.
The unannounced change in shipping fees came only a week after news broke that company CEO Brian Cornell’s compensation was slashed by nearly one-third, falling to $11.3 million due to the company’s poor performance.
Target has been beset by financial loss after a year of declining sales, tumbling share prices, and a major slide in its brand name.
The company has seen four quarters of sales declines in a row and has a loss of over $15 billion year over year. And since April of last year, the company’s brand name has also taken a drubbing. The fall was bad enough that many investment advisers downgraded Target to a “strong sell” even as its falling price might seem to make it an attractive buy.
The recommendations against Target were renewed this month when Gordon Haskett Research also advised customers to dump Target stock and replace it with Walmart stock. The investment advisor said Target is “moving too slow” to fix the problems leading to its precipitous decline.
Target has seen falling fortunes since its April 2016 announcement that men pretending to be transgender women entering a Target location would be allowed to use any bathroom or changing room they felt like using at any given time. By February of this year the company lost $15 billion since its pro-transgender announcement and had lost over $30 per share since its high last year. The chain also suffered a massive, organized boycott that earned over a million signatures in only a few weeks.
Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston or email the author at igcolonel@hotmail.com.
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