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.
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.
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.
I don't think it's some diabolical anti-consumer ploy, but shipping is something that has economies of scale: one $100 order is cheaper to ship than four $25 orders.
Let's say I sell shirts for $5 and offer free shipping with a $25 minimum. The shirts would be $4 if I charged for shipping. Shipping 5 shirts will cost me $5 and shipping 40 shirts will cost me $10. If someone buys 5 shirts, $1/shirt goes to shipping and I get $20 after shipping - just like $4 shirts plus $5 shipping. If someone buys 20 shirts, $0.50/shirt goes to shipping - I'm making an additional $0.50/shirt because someone decided to make a larger order.
But this is why a lot of stores do coupons when you hit thresholds. Free shipping at $25, 10% off if you spend $100. That way if you spend $100, you're actually charged $90 and so you're only paying $4/shirt + $10 shipping.
> Tell me ONE price — inclusive of everything — up front
Do coupons that require you to hit a spending level fit into this metric? I think they do in a lot of ways. You see the price and if you just want the price you just get the price while large orders get the discount. But it can also be hard when you see a bulk discount and feel pressured to spend more.
There's also the problem of where things are being shipped from, they could in a warehouse down the road, or coming from the other side of the world. For something regular/you shop often at, entering your shipping address to have shipping costs appear as you shop might help, but if it's a one-off, or you're trying to price compare and you don't want to enter your details yet, then that's much harder.
I often need to make returns on shoes, as I’m between sizes and wear a size that few vendors carry locally (Men’s 7.5 or 8, which is basically never in stock). So free returns is nice.
Not to go too meta on this, but if you buy two of something to get past the free shipping threshold, then do a free return on one of them, have you gamed the system?
I accidentally did that with Walmart.com once. My bill was $40, which qualified for free shipping. I checked out, and realized that I had ordered one of the items (about $20) to be picked up, which wasn't possible because there's no Walmarts near me. I quickly canceled that item, but the rest of the stuff shipped.
I kind of felt guilty, because I genuinely wasn't trying to game anything.
Whatever trust and sense of ethics there was have been swept away by companies playing continual pricing games, eschewing quality assurance, and nickel and diming workers into doing the bare minimum. Personally I'd love a store that had consistently low prices where I could save money by batching orders for different things, packed items well, had intelligent empowered customer service, and charged money for elective returns. But evidently there is more money to be made by confusing the market with wildly variable prices day to day, price fixing across stores, and turning the screws where they can. The industry has made it clear that the only thing that matters is the formal terms, so that's the game I'll play.
For example, I've got zero qualms about buying something I merely might want because it's a on a good sale, and then making the actual decision over the next 30/90 days. And if I've already got a pending return somewhere, then doubling down with more speculative buying is essentially free. Holiday shopping season is basically an extended project season.
Or when items arrive damaged, I'll optimize the presentation of my complaints such that I'm less likely to have to actually return them to get replacements. This saves me the time of doing so and makes up for having to deal with the situation in the first place.
When I ship myself (aka, fly on planes) I much prefer it when they bundle all the fees together so that I know what I'm paying. I believe it's the law in Canada.
I wish we had pricing transparency laws requiring companies to honor the advertised price without being able to tack on all kinds of hidden fees. Since we don't, there are many times where I've abandoned an online cart because a hidden fee increased the price beyond what I was willing to pay. I'm also generally not going to order from web sites that do "orders of $x or more get free shipping" unless there's at least $x worth of items I want to order so this tactic is self-defeating.
Yup. Either bake it in or make the shipping price known in your banner. It's a pain the ass to do price comparisons, think you're getting a deal, only to get hit with $15 shipping on your $10 widget immediately before checkout.
Just ONE price sounds good but in reality, shipping is very complicated and the true cost varies greatly depending on your location, quantity of items, and mix of items in the order.
Baking free shipping into the price of every individual SKU most likely means that a retailer will either set a price higher than Amazon or earn negative profit on many orders. In both scenarios, the long-term consequence leads to far fewer small or independent retailers and your only remaining choice being Amazon and perhaps a few other megacorps.
I feel part of the problem is the adversarial environment created by the lack of proper consumer laws e.g. returns/warranty and credit card fees are strongly regulated in Australia, whereas in the US taxes aren't included in the sticker price, tipping and there's a general opacity about the actual cost. If there's no trust, then people go looking for signals like "free shipping" to see there's no hidden fees.
> The article is trying to paint baking in the shipping cost into the item's sale price as some diabolical anti-consumer ploy but in reality that's exactly what customers want.
I don't want that. I don't pay for prime and I don't pay for shipping, I'll wait for weeks or longer until I need however many items it takes to reach the slower free shipping threshold. I don't want my option to save that money to go away.
Yeah it ignores the age-old "shipping and handling" fees that infomercials used for decades to inflate the cost of goods. The early internet had tons of this stuff, and often it was kind of "surprise billing" where you bought something and cursed when you realized there was a 5$ fee on that 10$ widget.
Note that this is RAMPANT on eBay these days.
I remember some online store forum bragging about how much extra money you make with it. This was circa 1999-2001 era online shopping.
Free shipping means the price is the price you pay. It's a lot more transparent.
However, I can see how major retailers get to negotiate superior relationships with Fedex and UPS and USMail.
