Add shipping or free shipping???

[jagustore]

Hello, Increase the price of the item and free shipping, Or reduce the item price and add shipping. which one is the best? Which one is the most used?

[ckimodog]

https://sellerschool.ebay.com/

[Anonymous]

$12 free shipping is more attractive than $8 with $4 shipping.

A lot of buyers will narrow their search down to items with free shipping too, so that is a consideration.

[m60driver]

Ebay will give your listings a slight advantage using free shipping.  I use it because it eliminates the dummies who can't add.  Otherwise, I think the jury is evenly split and it becomes a matter of personal preference.  But if one uses free shipping then one has to be very familiar with shipping rates and adjust your prices accordingly when rates go up.

[hartungcards]

Free shipping encourages individual purchases / discourages using the cart for combined shipping for me.  Free shipping results in me losing 30 cents more often than necessary.

[**selling**stuff**]

in 20 years, i've never charged for shipping once, and i only run buy it now auctions..  Whats the point, ebay gets their percentage of it anyway, so just figure out what you want for that item you are selling, and just add in the shipping cost to the buy it now.   i've never understood why people charge shipping when ebay gets percentage of the whole sale. 

[Anonymous]

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@**selling**stuff** wrote:

 i've never understood why people charge shipping when ebay gets percentage of the whole sale. 

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I think some of the old timers still think that there is no FVF on shipping like it was years ago.

[buyselljack2016 · Accepted solution]

When shipping varies by greatly location ...................  I let the buyer pay shipping.

If light weight items, where the cost varies by less than $1.............   I use a flat charge mid-range average cost.

Very seldom do I use "free" (shipping included) when listing.

99.9% "fixed price " buy it now listings. Don't remember when the last "auction" listing was done.

If your items ship,to a buyer in the U. S. A.  the sales tax that they have to pay for some locations is not charged on the shipping, so their tax would be less if shipping was a separate charge.

[sherupas14]

Hi,

I think better you offer free shipping with your items because it will always catch the attention of buyers.  normally when I purchasing items from eBay I always searching for free shipping items and select them. thanks

[lepke1979]

Do whichever you prefer. Free shipping is a little easier to stomach if you're in the midwest. But for someone like me on the west coast that for whatever reason gets a lot of sales on the east coast. I prefer to charge shipping.

I still have a handful of items that are free shipping. But only because the price is small enough where I'll maybe break even or lose a little money on them. And it's doubtful anyone would pay shipping plus 99c. Only have them listed to maybe get a sale for the algorithm.

Regardless. Some swear by free shipping. Others say it doesn't matter. I haven't noticed any difference in sales since converting to charging for shipping. Plus, I prefer it because it's just easier for me to handle the math in regards to offers or discounts. Not to mention when the post office raises rates. Plus, some buyers probably like it for when they buy multiples of something or other stuff in the store for combined shipping. However, there will be a percentage that mentally gravitate towards free shipping. Possibly they can't do math. Possibly Amazon trained them well into thinking free shipping is the way to go while also paying an annual fee for the privilege.

[transamcc]

As a  buyer (only) I always search  in the order "lowest price + shipping first" , looking for the lowest total delivered cost. If there are, in that search, questionables, I then click the free shipping filter and repeat. I always use "US only"  searches, and reset it to that when ebay goes to "default" EVERY time I change a word in the search string. The best delivered price gets my money, unless they are also the slowest!

[dbfolks166mt]

     I use a combination of free shipping, fixed rate shipping and calculated shipping. I am similar to you being on the east coast so rates vary. I generally use free shipping where I have done the research and know what the lowest shipping cost will be regardless of the buyers location. Generally items I ship in flat rate envelopes or small/medium flat rate boxes. Amazing what you can squeeze into those things.  I have sold multiple lots of lead weights that totaled in excess of 8+ pounds, one was 50 pounds, and there is no cheaper way I could have shipped those other than in a flat rate envelope and flat rate box which I know the cost of. 

     For things under a pound that I ship first class package I use calculated shipping based on the buyers location.

     Some items are oversize and I know the cheapest way to ship, which is not through USPS and I also bake the shipping cost into the listing price and use free shipping. The rates do not vary that much because the size of the package is the main factor in the shipping cost. 

[luckythewinner]

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@jagustore wrote:

Hello, Increase the price of the item and free shipping, Or reduce the item price and add shipping. which one is the best? Which one is the most used?

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There are 20 million sellers on eBay, with 1.5 billion items listed.

I suspect there is no "one size fits all" answer, and it varies from seller to seller, from category to category, from item to item, and from buyer to buyer. 

[gamersbaystore]

You never understood why people charge shipping? Maybe its because is there is no such thing as free shipping. Shipping rates are thru the roof right now! In many cases it costs as much, if not more to ship something than what it actually sold for. Priority mail is now highway robbery.

You have a blu-ray player for sale for $30 with free shipping. Yet, if someone in California buys it, it will cost you the entire sale just to ship it. You will actually lose money on the sale after ebay applies all their outrageous fees.

I sell games, movies, etc. It now costs as much as $5 to ship a single game, and media mail just jumped from $3.19 to $3.50. If I sold a movie for $10 with free shipping, I would make nothing after the shipping costs and associated fees.

I offer free shipping only sparingly, and only on items that are cheap to ship, and that are around or over the $20 mark. I have offered free shipping on orders of movies over $30 in the past too, but that's as a far as it goes.

[wastingtime101]

It's category and item dependent. There's no universally correct answer.