6 ms·

Free shipping isn’t really free (2020)

45 points by fortran77 3y ago

ericskiff 3y ago
Personally, it’s never been about free shipping for me. It’s shipping inclusive pricing. It’s the same reason I will always toggle the “include fees” on Airbnb’s search interface. Just tell me the real price. Upfront pricing and an assumption I’ll get the item in 1-3 days is the real value prop, and I’m still a happy customer of that product
- stavros 3y ago
  This article makes no sense. Just include the shipping in the price and that's it. Article unnecessary.
  - randomdata 3y ago
    > Just include the shipping in the price and that's it. Hard problem, though. I can ship to locals, which is the vast majority of my customer base, for practically free. But occasionally I get a far-away order where shipping is tremendously expensive. If the price is inclusive, all my local customers have to pay substantially more just to cover the occasional order from far away. That's a lot for them to burden, and likely they'll stop buying. Nobody will pay an infinite amount for something. Alternatively, I could cut off sales to those in far away places, but that doesn't help me or them. They are buying from me because they want my product. The obvious solution is simply to let those in far away places who still want to buy the product to pay a shipping fee on top commensurable with the added costs of getting the product to them.
slily 3y ago
This article names a bunch of advantages of free shipping but we're supposed to reject it because an Etsy seller decided she didn't want to offer it and compensate by increasing the price of her product slightly for an algorithmic boost? I don't get the point. Either someone's fishing for an excuse to a decline in popularity or the justification for getting rid of "free" shipping is poorly laid out.
- londons_explore 3y ago
  Some sellers don't want to increase their product price. Perhaps because they have pricing agreements (eg. Royalties of some percentage of the sale price). Perhaps because for a higher price the customer expects a better product. (Nobody complains when the $1 scissors don't cut great, but the $15 scissors really ought to cut properly)
neonate 3y ago
https://web.archive.org/web/20240118044621/https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/01/the-myth-of-free-shipping/603031/ https://web.archive.org/web/20240118044621/https://www.theat... https://archive.ph/CSeUn https://archive.ph/CSeUn
paxys 3y ago
The article is trying to paint baking in the shipping cost into the item's sale price as some diabolical anti-consumer ploy but in reality that's exactly what customers want. Yes I know free shipping isn't actually "free", just like how free returns aren't free and customer service isn't free and the warranty isn't free and the credit card transaction isn't free... But I still don't care. Tell me ONE price — inclusive of everything — up front, and I'll decide if I want to buy your product or not.
- londons_explore 3y ago
  Google shopping is the worst for this... 'sort by price' sorts by the price without shipping. But clearly if I'm buying from an online shop I need shipping. And for a $5 item, shipping of $3 and shipping of $25 lead to very different purchase decisions.
  - throwaway2990 3y ago
    lol sounds like ebay. Buy a card for $1. They want $35 for shipping. Arrives in an envelope with a $2 stamp.
    - master_crab 3y ago
      Don’t forget the cost of handling!!!! /s (mostly)
    - loeg 3y ago
      Ebay explicitly allows you to sort by price + shipping. I don't think they even have a sort by price only option.
  - loeg 3y ago
    In my experience Google shopping is inclusive of shipping if they know about it, but there's a big data hygiene problem, so you have to verify their results. I find it useful even though it's imperfect.
- imoverclocked 3y ago
hexage1814 3y ago
“Free lunch isn't actually free”, more news at 11
- bombcar 3y ago
  Free shipping isn’t free, it costs folks like you and me And if we don't all chip in We'll never pay that bill Free shipping isn't free No, there's a hefty fuckin' fee And if you don't throw in your buck o' five Who will?
ip26 3y ago
I do appreciate how free shipping makes the vendor care more about the cost of shipping. If you’ve ever ordered a tiny part from some shop whose cheapest shipping option is $9.00 you may know what I mean.
massysett 3y ago
"How retailers hide the costs of delivery" Umm, when I go to the Home Depot warehouse, they don't add something onto my receipt for "warehouse real-estate cost" or "warehouse heating charge." In fact I'd get annoyed if they did add such a charge. Furthermore, it's often publications like this one that whine when vendors like Comcast add in "regulatory recovery fee" or "regional sports fee" and the retort is "that's just a cost of doing business, they shouldn't be charging a fee for it, that's a junk fee." But for some dumb reason when a retailer decides to bake the cost of shipping into the sticker price, that's not some pro-consumer thing but rather merits a cynical "free shipping isn't really free" and complaints that the retailer is "hiding" something.
- bombcar 3y ago
  Part of it is that shipping has somewhat of a “flat fee” + per pound. So it is better to combine purchases, but that’s not the case if you have Prime (Amazon tries to bribe you to do so).
  - cgriswald 3y ago
    > Amazon tries to bribe you to do so Do they? I can't recall Amazon offering me anything other than a longer wait time (for the items that can be shipped faster) and fewer boxes.
    - bombcar 3y ago
      When I had prime they’d almost always offer me a $1 digital video coupon or some other credit to take slower shipping which would allow them to combine. At the height it was easily more than the cost of prime each year in credits. Maybe in denser areas it’s not worth it to them.
      - patch_cable 3y ago
        I always get offers for an additional 1% back on my Amazon Prime credit card.
highwayman47 3y ago
Free shipping costs a buck o' five
Dwedit 3y ago
Any time someone who isn't a big corporation wants to ship something, they pay outrageously large fees. Those little guys subsidize the big guys.
- ralph84 3y ago
  The big guys provide steady volume to keep the trucks, trains, and planes full. Without the big guys it wouldn’t be possible to offer the service at all.
nosefurhairdo 3y ago
TANSTAAFL
NaOH 3y ago
The questionable quality is that the word free is known to induce strong positive emotions, more so than if online retailers said more straightforwardly something like “Prices include shipping.” Yes, we know the costs of shipping are factored into the prices of the products, but it’s essentially a dark pattern to increase a shopper’s emotional likelihood of buying. As always, though, there are different norms among industries. We don’t think anything is off when we see “Free Shipping” notices online, but if the same practice were elsewhere we’d think it were bizarre. To wit: Restaurants: Free Dressing with Any Salad Coffee Shop: Free To-Go Cups Cities/Municipalities: Free Schools and Snow Plowing Auto Mechanic: Free Windshield Washer Fluid Notebook Computers: Free Charging Cord Credit, though, to coffee shops which do provide a discount if you bring your own mug. Plenty of other businesses could do this and offset the built-in shipping charges they have online. For instance, a shoe retailer may have the same price online (with free shipping) as their local store, but I’ve never seen a setup like this whereby the customer gets a discount for picking up locally.

45 points by fortran77 3y ago

Personally, it’s never been about free shipping for me. It’s shipping inclusive pricing. It’s the same reason I will always toggle the “include fees” on Airbnb’s search interface. Just tell me the real price. Upfront pricing and an assumption I’ll get the item in 1-3 days is the real value prop, and I’m still a happy customer of that product

stavros 3y ago
This article makes no sense. Just include the shipping in the price and that's it. Article unnecessary.
- randomdata 3y ago
  > Just include the shipping in the price and that's it. Hard problem, though. I can ship to locals, which is the vast majority of my customer base, for practically free. But occasionally I get a far-away order where shipping is tremendously expensive. If the price is inclusive, all my local customers have to pay substantially more just to cover the occasional order from far away. That's a lot for them to burden, and likely they'll stop buying. Nobody will pay an infinite amount for something. Alternatively, I could cut off sales to those in far away places, but that doesn't help me or them. They are buying from me because they want my product. The obvious solution is simply to let those in far away places who still want to buy the product to pay a shipping fee on top commensurable with the added costs of getting the product to them.

slily 3y ago

This article names a bunch of advantages of free shipping but we're supposed to reject it because an Etsy seller decided she didn't want to offer it and compensate by increasing the price of her product slightly for an algorithmic boost? I don't get the point. Either someone's fishing for an excuse to a decline in popularity or the justification for getting rid of "free" shipping is poorly laid out.

londons_explore 3y ago
Some sellers don't want to increase their product price. Perhaps because they have pricing agreements (eg. Royalties of some percentage of the sale price). Perhaps because for a higher price the customer expects a better product. (Nobody complains when the $1 scissors don't cut great, but the $15 scissors really ought to cut properly)

neonate 3y ago

https://web.archive.org/web/20240118044621/https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/01/the-myth-of-free-shipping/603031/ https://web.archive.org/web/20240118044621/https://www.theat... https://archive.ph/CSeUn https://archive.ph/CSeUn

paxys 3y ago

The article is trying to paint baking in the shipping cost into the item's sale price as some diabolical anti-consumer ploy but in reality that's exactly what customers want. Yes I know free shipping isn't actually "free", just like how free returns aren't free and customer service isn't free and the warranty isn't free and the credit card transaction isn't free... But I still don't care. Tell me ONE price — inclusive of everything — up front, and I'll decide if I want to buy your product or not.

londons_explore 3y ago
Google shopping is the worst for this... 'sort by price' sorts by the price without shipping. But clearly if I'm buying from an online shop I need shipping. And for a $5 item, shipping of $3 and shipping of $25 lead to very different purchase decisions.
- throwaway2990 3y ago
  lol sounds like ebay. Buy a card for $1. They want $35 for shipping. Arrives in an envelope with a $2 stamp.
  - master_crab 3y ago
    Don’t forget the cost of handling!!!! /s (mostly)
  - loeg 3y ago
    Ebay explicitly allows you to sort by price + shipping. I don't think they even have a sort by price only option.
- loeg 3y ago
  In my experience Google shopping is inclusive of shipping if they know about it, but there's a big data hygiene problem, so you have to verify their results. I find it useful even though it's imperfect.
imoverclocked 3y ago

hexage1814 3y ago

“Free lunch isn't actually free”, more news at 11

bombcar 3y ago
Free shipping isn’t free, it costs folks like you and me And if we don't all chip in We'll never pay that bill Free shipping isn't free No, there's a hefty fuckin' fee And if you don't throw in your buck o' five Who will?

ip26 3y ago

I do appreciate how free shipping makes the vendor care more about the cost of shipping. If you’ve ever ordered a tiny part from some shop whose cheapest shipping option is $9.00 you may know what I mean.

massysett 3y ago

"How retailers hide the costs of delivery" Umm, when I go to the Home Depot warehouse, they don't add something onto my receipt for "warehouse real-estate cost" or "warehouse heating charge." In fact I'd get annoyed if they did add such a charge. Furthermore, it's often publications like this one that whine when vendors like Comcast add in "regulatory recovery fee" or "regional sports fee" and the retort is "that's just a cost of doing business, they shouldn't be charging a fee for it, that's a junk fee." But for some dumb reason when a retailer decides to bake the cost of shipping into the sticker price, that's not some pro-consumer thing but rather merits a cynical "free shipping isn't really free" and complaints that the retailer is "hiding" something.

bombcar 3y ago
Part of it is that shipping has somewhat of a “flat fee” + per pound. So it is better to combine purchases, but that’s not the case if you have Prime (Amazon tries to bribe you to do so).
- cgriswald 3y ago
  > Amazon tries to bribe you to do so Do they? I can't recall Amazon offering me anything other than a longer wait time (for the items that can be shipped faster) and fewer boxes.
  - bombcar 3y ago
    When I had prime they’d almost always offer me a $1 digital video coupon or some other credit to take slower shipping which would allow them to combine. At the height it was easily more than the cost of prime each year in credits. Maybe in denser areas it’s not worth it to them.
    - patch_cable 3y ago
      I always get offers for an additional 1% back on my Amazon Prime credit card.

highwayman47 3y ago

Free shipping costs a buck o' five

Dwedit 3y ago

Any time someone who isn't a big corporation wants to ship something, they pay outrageously large fees. Those little guys subsidize the big guys.

ralph84 3y ago
The big guys provide steady volume to keep the trucks, trains, and planes full. Without the big guys it wouldn’t be possible to offer the service at all.

nosefurhairdo 3y ago

TANSTAAFL

NaOH 3y ago

The questionable quality is that the word free is known to induce strong positive emotions, more so than if online retailers said more straightforwardly something like “Prices include shipping.” Yes, we know the costs of shipping are factored into the prices of the products, but it’s essentially a dark pattern to increase a shopper’s emotional likelihood of buying. As always, though, there are different norms among industries. We don’t think anything is off when we see “Free Shipping” notices online, but if the same practice were elsewhere we’d think it were bizarre. To wit: Restaurants: Free Dressing with Any Salad Coffee Shop: Free To-Go Cups Cities/Municipalities: Free Schools and Snow Plowing Auto Mechanic: Free Windshield Washer Fluid Notebook Computers: Free Charging Cord Credit, though, to coffee shops which do provide a discount if you bring your own mug. Plenty of other businesses could do this and offset the built-in shipping charges they have online. For instance, a shoe retailer may have the same price online (with free shipping) as their local store, but I’ve never seen a setup like this whereby the customer gets a discount for picking up locally.