How can so many people offer free shipping? My profit margins are already typical very low. On many items I would lose money offering free shipping, especially is you’ve spent money to promote it and the buyer is 3000 miles away.
It's actually pretty simple. Most sellers just bake the shipping cost into their item price figuring the worst case scenario. Like you I am on the east coast so that would mean calculating the cost to ship an item to CA adding the FVF's to that amount and baking it into the price. For some unexplained reason a lot of buyers get the impression they are not paying for shipping.
However, if I was to do that it would inflate the total price to any potential buyers on the east coast or mid-west areas where most of my sales actually occur. The other disadvantage for the buyer is a lot of states do not charge sales tax on shipping as long as it can be clearly identified as being separate from the item cost. The only time I use free shipping is when I know there is only one cheapest method to ship an item to a buyer regardless of where they live. This usually involves heavy items that I can put into a flat rate box or flat rate envelope.
Simply-the-best-for-you Volunteer Community Mentor
