It’s time for another edition of Effective E-Commerce marketing, and this time I have good news and bad news for you! The good news is I’m going to make an exciting announcement that you’ll want to hear about as the owner of an online business. The bad news is that a major marketplace site has made a huge change to their policies that could have an impact on your business. But don’t worry, I’m going to tell you what it is, how it can affect you and what you can do about it.

First–the good news!

I am very pleased to announce that I am introducing my first ever educational product for owners of e-commerce stores. It’s called the “25K Ecommerce Profit Plan.” This isn’t just an e-book or a guide; it’s a complete course of study intended to help anyone get an e-commerce business off the ground.

The “25K Ecommerce Profit Plan” takes a step-by-step approach to starting an online store. The educational course is a great fit for people who want to start an online store and have no idea where to begin. In addition, you can also benefit from the course if you have an idea for a store and are ready to begin putting your vision into action to get your store up and running. Even people who already have an online store and want to boost sales and become more profitable can gain valuable insights from the course. What I’m basically saying is that my program can help anyone who wants to succeed in e-commerce no matter what your experience level is.

Through the course of 10 modules filled with actionable tips and step-by-step tutorials, “25K Ecommerce Profit Plan” will teach you everything that I know about starting and running an online business. I’ve developed the course based on my own experiences launching an online store and growing it to generate more than $800,000 in total sales.

I am introducing the “25K Ecommerce Profit Plan” at a pre-sale price of $97, which is a reduced price tag. The new price will be good through June 1, when it will increase to $499. My hope is that this course will help new entrepreneurs avoid the headaches, stress and mistakes that I made early on and be able to get on their way to having a successful online business with greater ease.

Now, to the not so great news–Amazon has made a big change to their policies.

In order for shoppers to get free shipping when shopping on Amazon, they will need to spend at least $49. If you sell products on Amazon as well as through an e-commerce store, you may be affected by this. It’s hard to say exactly how it will play out, though. It could be that Amazon’s changes will just encourage people to buy more to avoid the shipping charges, which could be beneficial in the long run. There’s also a chance that more people will sign up for Amazon Prime to get free shipping, and if this does happen (as Amazon probably hopes), there should be very little impact to businesses who are eligible for Prime.

Even if you don’t sell on Amazon, the changes to the shipping policy might affect you, too, but in a good way! Most small businesses aren’t able to offer free shipping on every order and set a minimum dollar amount for free shipping.

Based on my experience, $49 is about the average minimum dollar amount that businesses require a customer to pay to get free shipping. I actually recommend setting a minimum shipping price, so that you can keep your prices on your products more competitive.

It used to be that Amazon was a more appealing place to shop because of the lower shipping costs. Now, small e-commerce stores will be able to better compete and won’t feel pressured to compete with Amazon by eating all of the shipping costs on every order.