Why is Free Shipping so hard for some sellers?

[guybemis]

Can somebody help me understand this. I'm looking at an item priced $4.99 plus $2.69 shipping. It's a good price. The next lowest seller is charging $12.99 with free shipping for the exact same item. My question is why would the seller choose $4.99 plus $2.69 shipping?

From my buyer perspective, I would be just as likely to buy the item if it was priced $9.99 with free shipping. Because 1. it would still be under the $10 price point and 2. it would still be the lowest price on eBay. Mentally I have already put it over the $5 price point, because of the shipping charge. As a matter of fact I might be slightly more likely to buy it at $9.99, because I might have searched for it with Free Shipping checked. Though usually I use Price plus Shipping Lowest First. That is why I saw the item.

The seller is a long time seller and seems to price all their items similarly. The only thing I can think of is the seller is charges shipping without even thinking about other possibilities. Because maybe that is the way they have always done it.

Is that it, or am I missing something?

[guybemis]

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@juststuffisell wrote:

Ha! I bet you never imagined your one question would result in 200 plus opinions....lol

Cheers

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LOL, actually I thought it was a good question. So I'm not really surprised it got a lot of responses. But the responses have been more varied than I expected they would be. I wasn't expecting so many buyers to say they prefer shipping charges to be listed. I would have thought that most all buyers would have preferred free shipping, and sellers would be more mixed. But itemized shipping charges are more popular then I thought they were. This thread has shown me that free shipping is not going to be standard any time soon. There are a lot of good arguments made both ways.

[guybemis]

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@mathven-usa wrote:

dude....so, did you buy the item or not?

seems you are not a serious buyer, thats another reason to charge for shipping: To avoid "remorseful" buyers 

a buyer who REALLY wants the item is going to pay shipping. 

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The item is still on my watch list. Rarely do I have buyers remorse. I take my time, do my research and get it right. If I do have buyers remorse, I don't return the item. I either sell it, give it away, throw it away, or donate it. The only reasons I return items is if they are damaged, or the wrong item.

[johnrj1226]

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@emerald40 wrote:

As a buyer I much prefer that  the item and shipping be listed separately with the latter being actual cost with no padding.

It gives me a better sense of the value for what I am paying for.

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The padding  you refer to is the costs over and above the  price of the shipping label that sellers incur when they ship something and the seller needs to  recover it in his  total selling price.  Here are a few examples of what I mean - eBay accesses a 10% FVF on the shipping  charge the buyer pays on each an every  item shipped,  sellers need to buy shipping material - boxes/envelopes (no doubt some are free for USPS Priority Mail) but not for First Class, etc; packing materials - bubble wrap, tape,  label printing materials, printing cartridges, etc.  Now I realize some of these items are small but  are in fact a true cost to ship.  What I do - is add up all my  small cost over the year divided by the  number of items shipped and that is my allocation/unit for next year.

Each seller is an independent  busness person that  have  operate within teh framework established by eBay or "landlord" so to speak.  But we can slice and dice our listing as we each see fit as long as we don't make the  "landlord' made.

IMHO one should always judge the  real  total value of any item by the total cost  paid for the item.  That is what I have done over my lifetime.

[johnrj1226]

One more thing as a seller on eBay and a commissioned sale person for over 40 years I never operated as a ONPO - Obviously Not for Profit Organization.  You can only achieve your  target profit margins by recovering all your costs of selling and  buying items at a right price.   eBay does not dictate the profit a seller can make.  Some sellers are OK with a small return for their efforts others ain't.

[waldoette]

It shows Shipping and Handling, not just shipping.  The cost of an item is one item, shipping cost another, handling another.  

Perhaps I am getting old but my logical brains says shipping is shipping and handling is in addition to shipping and makes one cost.

You may not like it and perhaps you are young and are used to free shipping everywhere now.  

No one makes anyone purchase their items and an intelligent buyer looks at the total cost.

[authentic*vintage]

It is tough to know what buyers prefer. I generally sell at auction, .99 to start and no shipping cost. I don't like the word free shipping because it isn't free. It is at no additional cost. There's a difference there. I buy what I want to buy, "free" shipping or not, and I do sort by lowest total price when I am buying a specific item of which there are many, then I check my seller's feedback. 

[krys888]

Because there is no such thing as free shipping. If ebay would be honest and call it all-inclusive-pricing there would be less pushback and confusion. But they like the game. On a recorded call with CS, I asked about this specifically and their response was, “well, some people call it lying, we call it strategy.” It’s lying.

[mam98031]

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@krys888 wrote:
Because there is no such thing as free shipping. If ebay would be honest and call it all-inclusive-pricing there would be less pushback and confusion. But they like the game. On a recorded call with CS, I asked about this specifically and their response was, “well, some people call it lying, we call it strategy.” It’s lying.

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The term Free Shipping was NOT coined by Ebay.  In fact Ebay was slow to adopt the policy that was sweeping the internet.  It was started by a marketing firm for Target I believe it was.

I agree that it is poorly named, but it is what we got stuck with.  It should be Shipping included, but most are very much aware that this is what it really means.  Especially since it has been around for so many years now.

No one is lying.  It is just simply a marketing tool done by a whole lot of sites, not just Ebay.  In fact Amazon has been doing it longer than Ebay.

[penguins_dont_fly]

@magicjohnsonsvariety wrote:

I always believed that sellers who live in the central time zone have a natural advantage when it comes to shipping costs. 

I'm in the Central Time zone ... in NW Florida.

I still have plenty of Zone 8 Locations 🙂 On the Diagonal 🙂

San Diego may be Zone 7, But just North of Los Angeles is Zone 8 ... as is all of Washington, Oregon, North-West Nevada and North-West Idaho

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As a general reply to the whole thread so far ... And replying to the title of the thread ...

I did "Free Shipping" for a year. When I changed it back, my sales were better.

99% of my items weigh over 1lb and are fragile. I ship calculated Priority.

Rolling Zone 8 Shipping into my price made my items overpriced for closer buyers.

I was getting a lot of California buyers with "free" shipping, but none from GA,AL,LA, etc.

When I went back to separated Calculated, I started getting those closer buyers back ... And I still get Zone 8 buyers 🙂

And ... I'm getting international buyers back. .. They aren't paying a double ship charge now ... "free" domestic plus calculated international.

So, that's why "Free Shipping is so hard" for this seller.

[2015mhfashions]

I'm still yet to find the postal service that offers free shipping that's why i charge for it.

[jennzet-0]

I think buyers know nothing is free.

It is more like an incentive.  Some stores will offer free shipping if you spend a minimum amount so many times I will buy something extra to meet it.  So it is not really free but a discount on that last item.

[mam98031]

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@2015mhfashions wrote:

I'm still yet to find the postal service that offers free shipping that's why i charge for it.

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I find it extremely unusual for anyone to think that Free Shipping means that there is no cost to shipping.  This is a very old subject that has been talked about so many times over the past decade or so that it would be extremely unusual for anyone not to know that it isn't meant literally.  

If a seller somehow thinks that if they offer Free Shipping that means they suddenly aren't going to have to pay for shipping, I'd be very surprised.  But maybe there are some out there, IDK.  

Free shipping is a common practice by many sites and it didn't start on this site.

[penguins_dont_fly]

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@jennzet-0 wrote:

I think buyers know nothing is free.

It is more like an incentive.  Some stores will offer free shipping if you spend a minimum amount so many times I will buy something extra to meet it.  So it is not really free but a discount on that last item.

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You would be surprised .... I started an experiment a few weeks ago. Some people actually helped 🙂

It seems that folks that don't ship things have no clue ... And yes, there are people that believe that Santa claus "Free" shipping is really free.

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Selling/A-social-experiment-Shipping/td-p/29320941

[jdch]

Yeah, but if you don't want to take the time to do the math, it's easier to just see a price you will pay and get it done.

[the*dog*ate*my*tablecloth]

I would rather do the math and save money. The sellers who don't say they offer combined shipping have lost a lot of business from me in the past month.