I have ordered from Amazon a number of times in the past four years for direct shipping to the Philippines. For orders to the Philippines amounting to less than USD 200, there are generally no import duties, and for not-so-heavy items, the shipping costs are reasonable. For my first couple of orders, Amazon used UPS to ship the items. A recent order in August 2022 was shipped using Aramex. For all orders I selected AmazonGlobal Expedited Shipping except for one order where I selected AmazonGlobal Priority Shipping. Orders generally arrived in one to two weeks.

Recently, Amazon began offering free shipping to the Philippines. While this offer is does not apply to the entire Amazon catalog, there is a good number of items that are eligible, including some of the items that I have previously ordered. Free shipping for eligible items will be triggered once the order amount reaches USD 49.

So I went and ordered some items eligible for free shipping on October 2. The free shipping option was displayed as FREE AmazonGlobal Standard Shipping and promised delivery by October 19. The non-free option was labeled AmazonGlobal Priority Shipping which promised delivery three days earlier. Here is my order summary:

The package was shipped out on October 4, and tracking information indicated that it will be delivered by Ninja Van. Package was delivered on October 10, nine days earlier than promised.

The package came in the usual plastic wrapper used by motorcycle couriers.

It is good to know that that the Amazon free shipping offer does not mean that it will be slower. The last time I ordered with paid shipping took longer because it sat for about two days at the Aramex facility. So my first experience with Amazon free shipping went smoothly and this makes Amazon a competitive place to shop, particularly when the USD-PHP exchange rate starts to go down.