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Hi all,
I know this topic has been covered before, but is there a general consensus that free shipping isn’t worth it?
I’ve seen a lot of people discussing the cons of offering free shipping and not a lot of pros. It seems to me, the cons of free shipping are these: you have to raise your prices every time the postal rates go up; you’re always stuck refunding shipping when you get a return; your sell through rate probably won’t go up and might even go down, etc. The only advantage I can see is that if I put free shipping on all my items, eBay would stop nagging me about free shipping. Of course, they would keep nagging about offering free returns, but that’s another thread.
So is anybody still offering free shipping on all or most of their items and if so, why? Do you really see a boost in sales, or is there another reason?
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Yep, no free shipping for us because its not free.
But if you have a homogeneous inventory (like only sell t-shirts) that you can accurately predict the shipping cost, then you could just add that into the price and offer Free Shipping. This seems to make sense if you sell a very competitive, commodity item that needs to stand out.
Again, its not actually free because the buyer just pays more for the item.
$10 + $5 shipping
vs
$15 Free ShippingIt’s all just smoke and mirrors but could attract buyers who are insane about FREE SHIPPING.
I MUST HAVE IT :O -
I went through the same scenario last year and we even had a fairly good thread here on SL. You can try search for a few keywords.
But try this: Google search Danni Ackerman. Look up some of her YouTube Videos that she broadcast from Las Vegas. She lays the ground work for the “Pro” side of the argument. Based on not the fact that it is all built in but the perception of FREE shipping as Jay mentions but also the problem with the younger crowd, math, and their perception of what it really costs. Her vids are about an hour and has some good information and you can jump ahead to the ones about and where in the vids she and a co-host talk about it. Think there are 2 or 3 out of all of her vids that specifically address the why’s and why it’s good.
Personally, we don’t unless it is under 15 ozs. and again we build it into the price. Zones 1 through 8 also make a difference on how you do it. Tough to build a $27.00 FREE SHIPPING into a $25 item.
Good luck
Mike at MDC Galleries and Fine Art
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Hi Jay,
That makes sense. It seems to be a gimmick, basically.
But I thought I heard the search algorithm pushes items with free shipping to the top of the search results. Or, if you don’t offer free shipping, your item goes to the bottom of the pile. Could that be true?
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Agree with everyone here.
Our items get pushed down in search because we don’t offer Free Shipping…because so few sellers in our categories offer Free Shipping.
Outside of commodity items and some clothing, a small percentage of sellers ship for free on eBay. Just do a search for the items you sell to see the reality of “free shipping”. Its something eBay tried to push 4 years ago but was not taken up by most sellers.
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I will offer free shipping strategically – commodity items where everyone else is doing free shipping, an expensive but lightweight item (think vintage baseball/trucker hat).
When I do, I always put Free Shipping at the end of the listing title so if an offer comes through I am reminded. -
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Free shipping on SOME items like what I call “commodity” amazon ish items. For example, cleaning products, makeup items, skincare.
I used to free ship USPS first class to stay competitive in clothing but I’m cooling on it especially since Poshmark charges flat under 5lb $6.79 and buyers pay it over and over again.I am going to get more of the USPS Flat Rate Paper (not padded) Envelopes b/c it saves about .50 cents per item now in shipping. This will work only some of the time and I really don’t like them, but I am going to try it for some thin items.
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Sure I think the cardboard Flat Rate Small Envelope would probably hold up for some items. It is permissible to tape and reinforce the seams and flaps and tape the shipping label and closure, but not cocoon or encase the entire envelope in tape. Which is how I once received a shipment of loose metal items weighing about 8 lbs. It was the darnedest thing. It arrived looking like a mess and had morphed into sort of a shapeless bag but there were no holes and nothing fell out.
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The problem I’ve always had with adding the “Free” shipping cost into the item’s price, is once I add enough to cover shipping to the furthest US region, I was making the item too expensive for buyers in regions closer to me (regions that actually have lower cost of living than say the west coast). I recently started changing some of my listings from free to calculated.
Today I sold some items via calculated shipping, which I had also sold previously under free shipping (they were multi-quantity items). Here are the results:
Anthropologie Plate – Listed $49.95. The ones that sold in 2018 were all Free Shipping. Because they sold to different regions, my profit on each unit varied widely! Below are dates along with profit after all fees, COGs and Shipping per unit.
3/20/18 $21.76 (shipped within region)
9/17/18 $14.39 (shipped to nearby region)
11/5/18 $3.81 (shipped to furthest US Region from me)
11/5/18 $3.81 (shipped to furthest US Region from me)
Today I sold one with calculated shipping for the same $49.95 price. After calculated shipping, my profit after all fees & cogs $34.48!Another example – For this one, I actually decreased the listing price once I changed to calculated shipping.
Marc Jacobs Wallet – Listed in 2017 & 2018 for $89.99
Profit after fees, cogs and free shipping
5/29/17 $28.75
7/17/17 $32.51
9/1/17 $32.51
10/30/18 $23.40
Last night I reduced the price to $77 but changed free shipping to calculated. It sold within 12 hours. Profit $34.22! My profit increased between $1.71 and $10.82 over prior sales even though I dropped the price $12.99.I’m switching everything to calculated shipping this week.
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I have been on both side of this debate, but now that we are on the Free Returns, we very rarely do free shipping.
I think on used clothing, where fit and condition are more of an issue, free shipping is a no. On new clothing, I think it would be a benefit. I think if your buyer is likely to be someone that is also buying from Amazon…Free Shipping is a plus.
Etsy and Poshmark are not free shipping, for what it is worth.
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