From experience, I know that free shipping offers aren't always free. Buyers and sellers, please read below for helpful information and trade secrets. I LOVE Etsy and eBay, but these tidbits of information help all of us.
What the buyer needs to know
Likely when you shop sites such as Etsy and eBay, sellers have to offset free shipping offers by raising the price of the items they sell. In other words, they include the price of shipping in the price of the item. So, shipping isn't really free.
What the seller needs to know
Shipping is different prices for different locations you ship to. So, if you don't add enough to your item to cover full shipping fees for your "free shipping" offers, you'll wind up losing money. AND places like eBay and Etsy get more fees for each sale, because you have increased the selling price to cover the shipping, which means you lose more money again.
What is the solution?
Buyers, buy from whomever you want to, whether it's "free" shipping or paid shipping. Shipping isn't free to the sellers, so they have to charge something for the shipping fees they have to pay.
Sellers, I recommend offering free shipping on your higher priced items, because you won't lose as much money that way regardless of the price of shipping and additional Etsy fees. And let customers pay for shipping on your lower priced items. I generally offer the lowest shipping prices available to help my customers save money. However, you can also offer customers a range of shipping prices so they can choose how much they want to pay and how fast or slow they want to get their items. I also encourage people to contact me before they buy multiple items from my store so I can combine items into one listing, and they can get more discounted shipping prices.
And by the way, I don't create a new listing on Etsy when I combine item prices and shipping, because that will cost an additional .20 cents. Instead, I use one of the listings of one of the items and change the title, price, and shipping to reflect the combo that the customer is buying. And Etsy still gets the fees for the total price of the combo sale. : )
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