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Free Shipping: When are your thoughts?

MoreVolume

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What are your thoughts on offering Free Shipping?


Up until yesterday, I was a big time opponent of Free Shipping
In my mind, if the product is quality, the customer will have no problem paying the extra money to have it shipped to them. This was reinforced by 2 relatively successful years in business, where I charge for shipping on a product that has high margins.

But I was recently approved for Amazon, and I forgot to add shipping settings to my product(s). In 1 full month, my sales on Amazon have mirrored an average month on my product's website. Totally unexpected. People are clearly making purchases because they don't have to pay shipping and I didn't realize this until yesterday.

I feel completely different now. I almost feel as if I was being close minded. It definitely comes with its advantages.
 
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B. Cole

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What are your thoughts on offering Free Shipping?


Up until yesterday, I was a big time opponent of Free Shipping
In my mind, if the product is quality, the customer will have no problem paying the extra money to have it shipped to them. This was reinforced by 2 relatively successful years in business, where I charge for shipping on a product that has high margins.

But I was recently approved for Amazon, and I forgot to add shipping settings to my product(s). In 1 full month, my sales on Amazon have mirrored an average month on my product's website. Totally unexpected. People are clearly making purchases because they don't have to pay shipping and I didn't realize this until yesterday.

I feel completely different now. I almost feel as if I was being close minded. It definitely comes with its advantages.

I have no advice to offer other than from a consumer perspective - free shipping is definitely appealing to me. This thread caught my eye because I’m trying to figure out if I should include the shipping container and materials in my shipping cost, or just count that as part of my COGS and absorb in the product margin.

At the profit/loss level, are you better off or worse off for it?
 

ShamanKing

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I always do free shipping unless item is super duper heavy. I stick to light items for the most part.
 

Bearcorp

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Xeon

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I've been debating this for a long time. But if $35 + Free Shipping for all orders within the USA will attract more people than $30 + $5 shipping, then I'm all for the former.
 

Ecom man

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I’ve done a decent bit of testing and for cheaper items it seems to work better to have a small shipping fee than to charge the higher price. So $29.99 with 3.99 shipping sounds so much better than $33.99.

On the other hand for larger items that people are concerned about getting hit with a huge shipping charge I would 200% build the price of shipping into the costs so the customer knows exactly what their costs are and don’t have that nagging worry in their mind about how expensive shipping is on this giant...
 

Mr. Roboto

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...or you can be sly and have people pay for free shipping. Amazon does it already with Amazon Prime.
 
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MoreVolume

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At the profit/loss level, are you better off or worse off for it?
Compared to what I make from my site, I only lose $2.70-$3.00 per unit, which it not a big deal. The fact that my sale volume is high more than makes up for the small loss
 

Strm

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If you look this from psychological perspective, it is definitely appealing for most of the customers. It is just how the brain works.

Bought a pair of sunglasses yesterday and got a free shipping. I am fully aware that I am probably still paying for the shipping though. But I hear people even bragging sometimes when they buy something and get free shipping :) So definitely something for you to consider!
 

B. Cole

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Compared to what I make from my site, I only lose $2.70-$3.00 per unit, which it not a big deal. The fact that my sale volume is high more than makes up for the small loss

Yeah and look at what Amazon's Prime shipping model has done for them.
 
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