Charging for postage is the perennial debate of e-commerce. I think Amazon’s decision this week to extend its free postage charge trialled before Christmas might favour a good deal more consumers than Amazon serves. I can see other retailers having to follow suit as they look to win a friend and gain a client from their competitors.

You can almost see it as a cost per acquisition – how much would you pay a 3^rd party to get you a customer? Is it cheaper than banner ads and affiliate percentages?

Then again, when Amazon can charge $3 billion for a Discovery Channel CD-ROM, maybe taking the hit on their postage bills wont hurt the P&L so much.

Photo credit: Mooganic