
“Free” shipping is not actually free - RobAley
https://www.fastcompany.com/3061686/free-shipping-is-a-lie
======
hx87
I don't mind if shipping isn't free. I do mind if the shipping cost isn't
queriable until I:

1) Add the item to the cart

2) Create an account

3) Enter all my personal info

If your business makes it that much of a hassle to find out what shipping
costs (presumably in order to capture sales), I'm indisposed to patronizing
it. Transparency and lack of hassle are what I'm after, not free shipping.

~~~
prakster
We're building a tool that discloses shipping prices AND delivery dates up
front, as soon as you add a product to the Cart.

Here's a popular site that uses it:
[http://store.hufworldwide.com/](http://store.hufworldwide.com/)

Let me know what you think...

~~~
ggggtez
What, no. Tell me before I add to the cart, right in the product description
page.

What kind of draconian world do I live in that I would need to add to the cart
to compare prices.

~~~
paulmd
Shipping(A+B) is typically less than Shipping(A) + Shipping(B).

In most cases shipping is a cost that's associated with an order, not with the
item. It makes sense to show it in the shopping cart.

~~~
rhapsodic
_> Shipping(A+B) is typically less than Shipping(A) + Shipping(B).

In most cases shipping is a cost that's associated with an order, not with the
item._

That's true, but they could provide the marginal shipping cost of an item
before it's added to the cart:

Shipping(currentCartContents + thisItem) - Shipping(currentCartContents)

In many cases the marginal shipping cost would be 0.

~~~
paulmd
Well, that's confusing too. If you show a shipping cost on the item, your
average consumer would expect that they could buy just that item for that
shipping price. After all, doesn't everyone hate the Amazon Add-On Program for
exactly that reason? It's Prime but not really Prime.

What if you have multiple tabs open? If you add another product in the
meantime then the shipping cost quoted would be totally inaccurate. Could be
too high, could also be too low depending on how your order crosses the
weight/size thresholds.

Also, that would mean that you have to total up the weights and hit the
shipping API for every single page request. Right now you usually only get an
icon that tells you "3 items in cart", sometimes not even that much. If you
have multiple warehouses this gets even more complex, you essentially have an
NP-complete optimization problem. That may not even be possible to do in real
time, let alone on every page load.

I just disagree in general over the value of the feature here. There is a lot
of potential for misinformation and confusion, and consumers are already
trained that they go to the shopping cart to get the shipping price. The
shopping cart (the order) is the quantum used for shipping costs and it makes
sense to put it there.

Again, to echo others, I hate sites that make me log in and go through the
checkout process to get a shipping cost. But there's nothing wrong with going
to the shopping cart and typing in my ZIP.

~~~
rhapsodic
_> Well, that's confusing too. If you show a shipping cost on the item, your
average consumer would expect that they could buy just that item for that
shipping price._

Displaying it as "If you add this item to your current order, it would
increase the order's shipping cost by an estimated $0.00" ought to allay any
such confusion.

 _> If you have multiple warehouses this gets even more complex, you
essentially have an NP-complete optimization problem. That may not even be
possible to do in real time, let alone on every page load._

The shipping cost of the items in the cart could be calculated once whenever
the contents of the cart changes, and the number cached. So you'd be doing one
shipping calculation per page load, for the contents in the cart plus the item
being viewed. And NPC or not, I don't think that would be prohibitively
computationally expensive in most cases. After all, people don't typically
order thousands of different products, that might ship from any of hundreds of
different warehouses, in a single online order. If it made someone more likely
to click the "Add to Cart" button on a given item, it might be worth it. And
you could have some threshold (number of different products on the order, for
example) above which the marginal shipping cost is not calculated and
displayed.

~~~
jkestner
I think y'all are proving the appeal of "free shipping". Retailers provide
convenience, and people expect that figuring out the nooks and crannies of
shipping costs is part of the service.

If it were about cost and not convenience, Jet's algorithms would've beaten
out Amazon.

------
imgabe
I didn't think shipping companies were just delivering packages out of the
kindness of their hearts. I just expect it to be included in the purchase
price. I'd much rather have one price to consider rather than a really low
initial price with a bunch of additional charges.

As a customer, adding a bunch of additional fees, even if they're reasonable,
just makes me feel like I'm being nickel-and-dimed. Tell me the total amount
you want me to pay you to get what I want and if it's in my price range I'll
happily pay it.

~~~
aninhumer
>adding a bunch of additional fees [...] just makes me feel like I'm being
nickel-and-dimed.

On the other hand, when I know the shipping costs are included in the price,
it makes me feel like I'm being gouged on larger orders where the shipping
cost per item should be lower.

~~~
bryondowd
A company I worked for actually sort of made up their shipping prices whole
cloth. They had contracts with the shipping companies to get a good deal on
shipping, and rarely passed those savings on. So most cases, they charged more
than they were paying to ship your product, and in a few cases they charged
less. So, the majority were subsidizing shipping costs for a few, with a hefty
profit bump for the company. But I don't think they had any real competition,
so I guess they could just charge whatever they thought people would pay. They
even operated multiple brands for the same exact products/services, just to
offer different prices and advertise from a different angle.

So, back to the point, regardless of whether the price is broken out or
bundled, there's really no way to tell how badly you're being gouged. Unless
you can find it cheaper someplace else, the only question is whether it is
worth it to you at that price.

~~~
cdr
If I recall this is largely why eBay started charging the seller fees on the
shipping cost (boy was that a loophole) and then heavily pushed sellers to
move to free shipping.

On the flip side, as an eBay seller it's kind of painful to know that if I
sell something for $X, shipping is eating $3+ of that - on top of the 10% cut
for eBay and the 2% for PayPal. It makes it not worthwhile to me to list
anything below $10.

------
owenversteeg
Ok, so it seems nobody else is mentioning one of the big things that shocked
me from the article: the claim that shipping, for the company that runs Saks
Fifth Avenue, is more expensive than retail.

What? How on earth is a ridiculously high end Fifth Avenue retail location
staffed with models and lots of hired security cheaper than shipping? Their
Fifth Avenue location in particular is literally stuffed with expensive glass
chandeliers. It's an ENORMOUS property on Fifth Avenue in NYC, the most
expensive street in the world; one of their stores alone is worth four billion
dollars. If you think "enormous" doesn't merit all caps, its shoe department
has its own zip code. [http://www.reuters.com/article/us-retail-usa-shoes-
idUSN2435...](http://www.reuters.com/article/us-retail-usa-shoes-
idUSN2435153420070524)

~~~
thefalcon
FWIW, selling shoes online - especially to pickier clients at higher prices -
requires a high return rate. When you're shipping both ways with no revenue to
show for it, that adds up quickly.

------
mindslight
\- I'd rather have shipping be separate (but prominently displayed), so that
buying multiple items in one order would be beneficial. But obviously a site
has to have consistently good prices for this to make sense. (And eventually,
a meta-buy engine that optimizes sourcing from multiple suppliers, but we can
dream).

\- I figure the prominence of free shipping has more to do with price fixing
by the manufacturers (minimum advertised prices, etc), and perhaps rate
secrecy by shipping companies as well. Since walk-in stores build logistics
into the price tag, online retailers had to move to that model as well to have
comparable prices.

\- I still don't believe that direct shipping is three times the cost of brick
and mortar fulfillment. I'd really like to see that accounting to make sure
that it is including things like the full expense of running a retail store
with employees, additional distribution centers, and clearance markdowns. I
can see a strong temptation for a traditional brick and mortar retailer to
count much of that as necessary overhead for their entire brand rather than
attributing it directly to retail sales.

~~~
fma
Jet.com calculates that for you. Free shipping...but the more you buy, the
cheaper the stuff is.

------
vinceguidry
Retailers complaining about how Amazon is creating a race-to-the-bottom with
free shipping calls to mind horse vets complaining about how automobiles are
eating into their lifestyles. It's sooooo unfair!

Amazon is changing the world the way Standard Oil changed the world. If it's
going in my house and it's not groceries, it's coming from Amazon. The buying
and shipping experience is unparalleled. Amazon isn't one of these bespoke SF-
only investor-moneygrab services, it's real technological progress on a world
scale.

~~~
vkou
> Retailers complaining about how Amazon is creating a race-to-the-bottom with
> free shipping calls to mind horse vets complaining about how automobiles are
> eating into their lifestyles. It's sooooo unfair!

The horse vets found other employment.

The horses, by far and large, were butchered.

The question these days is - which of us are the vets, and which of us are the
horses?

~~~
bostonpete
The vets were labor, the horses were capital/property. I'd say none of us are
the horses.

~~~
vkou
The horses had no skills that were useful in the post-automobile world - at
least, no skills that justified the expense of paying^Wfeeding them.

------
Raphmedia
When I buy a product in a physical store the price of getting the product
there is included. I don't pay the product + the shipping fee. It should be
the same on the web.

~~~
mikeash
It's a bit tougher online because shipping costs can vary a lot depending on
where the customer lives and what they're buying.

For example, the cost of shipping me two boxes of cereal is barely higher than
the cost of shipping me one box of cereal. The cost of shipping it to Alaska
is much higher than the cost of shipping it to New York. In a store, the cost
of getting two boxes of cereal to the store is, on average, about twice the
cost of getting one box, and the cost is identical whether your customer is
from New York or Alaska.

~~~
bkmartin
Your store scenario isn't true at all! It does not cost about twice as much to
get two boxes of cereal into a store as one box. The same shipping economies
are in play here. It actually costs less per box to get it into a store
because they will bring in a pallet at a time. The real cost is the fact that
you have a building and all of its costs with employees and all of their
costs, etc. Shipping anything to Alaska is more expensive that to New York
whether it is one box of cereal or a pallet. The difference is that the price
for a box of cereal in Alaska will have that priced in vs the box in New York.
The same can be done for online retail...except people won't understand it and
get pissed and try to change their location reporting to try and get a lower
price based on where they are located. You see, people don't view online
shopping the same way as they view physical shopping. People will need to be
reconditioned about online shopping now that we have the technology to do
location based pricing thanks to geolocation reporting and other factors (like
getting a zip code up front) that were not available when online shopping
first came about.

------
RandyRanderson
Just a note for Americans that are not aware: the rest of the world,
generally, pays a lot more for the same or inferior items. Some Canadian
examples:

0 Shipping - Free shipping is much less common within and to canada; it's also
more expensive, in my experience.

1 Duties/import broker;s fees - Can be tens of dollars, even for items whose
value is about that.

2 Taxes - Typically, bringing across items with net value more than ~150USD
will have taxes levied (~15%, depending)

3 Straight-up 'gouging' \- For example, the exact same book in canada will
typically be 10-30% more, even taking into account exchange rates. I'm sure
the differences can be partially explained but I've never seen good reasons.

4 Product differences - Cars are a good example here. In the US often the
'base' model will have features CA versions of the same cars require upgrade
packages for.

5 Product Choice - The bigger US market means more colours (or colors even),
wattages etc to choose from

6 Warranties - I haven't taken a survey but whenever I've checked the US
warranties are as good or better.

And that is just CA, EU countries generally have it worse if my UK friends are
to be believed.

------
cromulent
I know a lot of people like the Book Depository due to their "free" shipping.
They actually adjust their price using geo IP data. VPN's can save you a lot.

Someone made a website to show you the pricing discrepancies per location:

[http://www.bookdepository.cheap/Lisp-Small-Pieces-
Christian-...](http://www.bookdepository.cheap/Lisp-Small-Pieces-Christian-
Queinnec/9780521545662?a_aid=bentanweihao0)

~~~
dasboth
Shouldn't the shipping costs be based on where you're shipping to rather than
where you're browsing from? Or am I misunderstanding?

~~~
sliverstorm
You only give them the destination when you check out. They want to factor
shipping into the price transparently from the start. GeoIP data is available
from the very moment you load the webpage, your shipping address is not.

~~~
dasboth
That seems odd because if I happen to be browsing from abroad I might be put
off by the shipping costs, which would turn out not to even be accurate for
the destination I want.

> They want to factor shipping into the price transparently from the start

I guess if they made it obvious that that's what they were doing (stating
their assumption about your destination) it would be fine.

------
webscaleizfun
Free shipping is a lie, but the average consumer thinks of dealing with
shipping costs separately as pesky, and Amazon & eBay have configured their
fees to charge you more on any extra shipping line item to encourage sellers
to make shipping "free".

I don't see "free" shipping going away, nor do I see Amazon's new delivery
service succeeding where DHL and other have floundered in the past, since you
need a certain volume in that business to even be viable, and Amazon has
stated they can't push that volume alone to make running a shipping service
make sense.

What might happen, and what I hope happens is the lower end, smaller
businesses get better next day and 2 day shipping prices. Currently, from one
wholesaler I can order a 50lb box of hardware, and UPS charges them $21 to $23
to ship it from Chicago to Seattle in the span of about 18hrs and get it on my
doorstep.

Another much smaller vendor I deal with can't get anywhere near that pricing,
half that weight/size box will run me $150 easily, with ground (a week and
change) being $40 usually for a 25lb box from them.

Edit: Another layer to this is USPS and China Post teamed up a while back and
offer Chinese sellers dirt cheap ePacket shipping, where 1lb of goods can be
moved to the US for $5, whereas USPS charges $50 to the American seller to
ship something to China [1]. Essentially, it makes American online sellers
uncompetitive in our own market. This is why people like Trump, since he says
he'll put a 35% tariff on foreign imports and end programs like ePacket (not
supporting him though, just to be clear).

[1] - [https://www.skubana.com/e-commerce-trends/the-usps-
epacket-p...](https://www.skubana.com/e-commerce-trends/the-usps-epacket-
program-and-how-it-affects-your-e-commerce/)

~~~
rileymat2
It is not unreasonable for a customer to expect the price seen on an item to
be what it will cost in total.

Amazon would be unusable for comparison shopping if you needed to go through
checkout to get the full price with shipping.

~~~
webscaleizfun
Definitely, you should be able to get a shipping price without going into the
checkout, Amazon makes it quite difficult compared to Aliexpress & eBay when
it comes to finding out shipping prices, to the point that I avoid shopping on
there with a rare exception occurring every 6 months or so.

For the average shopper, pricing in shipping and sales tax will make them buy
more online. Breaking out sales tax has caused a 9% sales drop in states
Amazon charges sales tax in.

~~~
ghaff
>Breaking out sales tax has caused a 9% sales drop in states Amazon charges
sales tax in.

Note it's really "collects" sales tax in. Buyers still, in principle, owe use
taxes on the purchase--which individuals often don't pay of course.

I don't think it's so much a matter of whether sales tax is bundled or not
though. For big ticket electronics purchases, for example, the same item is
often available for the same price with "free" shipping from other online
resellers who don't collect sales tax--and is cheaper for many consumers as a
result.

------
kogepathic
Shipping directly to consumers is more expensive and energy consuming than
shipping to a single location (e.g. a brick and mortar store).

However what this article is neglecting is that brick and mortar stores are
built where people go to them. The land and building cost money, which the
store typically pays for through a lease.

So, yes, shipping isn't free. But having products sit on a shelf in a store in
the city isn't free either. Especially if said products depreciate in value
and aren't sold quickly.

Basically, look at why RadioShack went bankrupt to see how this can backfire
for brick and mortar.

Also, "Free" shipping from China isn't. The cost of shipping from China is
subsidized by other countries. I remember reading that the price to ship
something from China to your house in the US, USPS gets paid less than it
costs them to ship.

Shipping rates from China are up for review soon, and the industry is
expecting their rates to be re-adjusted, after which ordering from China will
get a lot more expensive...

~~~
ryao
When will they come up for review? I want to know when the cut off is for
placing orders at the current rates.

~~~
kogepathic
Can't remember when, but here's an article on it:

[http://fortune.com/2015/03/11/united-nations-subsidy-
chinese...](http://fortune.com/2015/03/11/united-nations-subsidy-chinese-
shipping)

Edit: "As part of this reform process, China will be transitioned in 2016 into
a category for more developed nations, who generally pay higher terminal
dues."

------
6stringmerc
> _Still, someone has to pay the cost of shipping._

Yeah, and this article managed to get an unexpected rise out of me, touching
on my experience in municipal finance, leading me to want to yell:

"Right and somebody has to pay the cost of maintaining the infrastructures
like ports and airports and roads and I don't see anybody lining up to fork
over the cash out of effing altruism these days."

Like, I get it, we all want free stuff, but dwindling tax bases and constant
bitching about taxes just avoids dealing with the more practical angles of
societal function(s).

------
TorKlingberg
With Amazon Prime I am starting to feel like I am paying for shipping twice,
first for Prime then baked into the item price too.

Very often I am looking at an item that would cost £5 in a store and it costs
£7 with prime. Alternatively I can buy it from a non-prime marketplace seller
for £4 + 3 in shipping. Then there is an "add-on item" for £5 where I have to
buy at least £30 in total. And finally a 4-pack for £21 with free shipping.
Either way I am clearly paying for the shipping.

~~~
StillBored
What gets me, is that frequently when the item price+shipping are added
together the $.01 used books cost more than the new ones. Often by 30-50%.
There were articles a few years ago about how people were making more from
amazon's handling charges because the US post shipping rates on books were so
inexpensive that they would have been listing the books for free if it was
possible. That was even before amazon seemingly caught on and increased the
shipping charges even more.

~~~
paulmd
I had the opposite experience. During college I used to sell a lot of
textbooks on Half.com, and shipping costs would almost always eat into the
item price.

Out of the standard media-mail $3.99 hardcover shipping price, Half.com gives
the seller $3.04. For combined shipping, each additional item costs $2.49 and
Half.com gives the seller $1.40.

Out of the expedited $5.99 price, Half.com gives the seller $5.24. For
combined shipping, each additional item costs $4.49 and Half.com gives the
seller $3.49.

Good luck shipping a textbook for $3, even by media mail. I would hand-wrap
each book using some bubble-wrap and kraft paper (a clean paper grocery bag)
to save costs on packaging, but shipping alone costs more than the
reimbursements. Some of my textbooks are essentially worthless since if I sold
for the going price ($0.99) I would actually lose money.

------
anotherevan
I have no problem paying for shipping as a separate item. It is frustrating
though when sites make it hard to figure out what the shipping will be. The
good sites let you identify down to your city without having to enter other
details (like email address, or even credit card details) before you even get
to the check-out phase.

I will often play around with the order to try and maximise against the
shipping cost. e.g., I use to order protein bars and would order the maximum
number that wouldn’t bump me up to the next shipping class, to get the best
value per bar.

My biggest gripe, living in the Antipodes, is that many foreign companies have
really expensive shipping costs to ship internationally. I suspect we’re often
not a big enough market to make it worthwhile for them to fine-tune the costs,
but it still sucks when shipping can be 40-60% of the cost of an order.

e.g. I really want to try out some Death Wish Coffee, but ordering 2 lbs at
US$38 plus US$27 to ship to Australia, vs US$6 for US shipping, sucks.

Some places feel like they are really gouging you on the shipping costs. (Not
saying that’s the case with the coffee above, just that it costs a lot.)

~~~
ezzaf
I suspect the reason is that it is just straight up expensive to ship to
Australia from most places. We're actually quite a long way way. Adding to
this is that most only retailers aren't shipping enough overseas to negotiate
bulk rates like they can for domestic shipping.

The exception is businesses that do ship a large amount to Australia. Examples
of this are online book and bicycle retailers in the UK and Amazon themsleves
in the US. Their lower shipping prices are likely a combination of
subsidisation and bulk discounts.

If you want confirmation Death Wish isn't trying to rip you off, compare
against the USPS pricing calculator for a similar package. You can also check
against what a freight forwarder (who do get bulk discounts) charge, and
you'll see it's not much less. I recently got a similar package shipped to me
and I remember paying pretty much bang on $27.

------
JulianMorrison
I don't care if a company makes shipping "free" and raises the price. Of
course they shouldn't make themselves unprofitable by undercharging, just
charge a reasonable price, and in the other direction I'd prefer seeing the
whole cost up front to having a disingenuous "cheap" product that has
"shipping" so gold-plated it's obvious they're pocketing it.

------
paulmd
If the item is offered at a competitive price then it effectively _is_ free.

For example many items are sold at a fixed MSRP and no retailer will undercut
it, but some retailers will offer free shipping while others charge me. That's
actually free shipping from my perspective.

The same logic applies retailers that offer "free shipping for orders above
$X". Can you argue that the cost is rolled in anyway? Sure, but rational
actors think at the margins. The _alternative_ is effectively paying twice for
shipping, both the explicit shipping charge and the upcharge rolled into the
price. Again, if the prices are competitive the retailer is essentially eating
shipping costs for you.

------
smacktoward
_> "The economics are clear... direct-to-home has a supply chain cost three
times higher than a store-based model."_

That surprised me. Does anybody have more details as to why that would be?

~~~
TulliusCicero
In the store-based model, the customer handles the 'last mile' of getting the
product from a distribution center (the store) to their home.

~~~
_rpd
Yes, but direct-to-home doesn't need to pay urban rent or salaries for its
distribution centers. There must be some other factor. Perhaps the costs of
maintaining a reliable e-commerce site?

~~~
wffurr
It's not clear to me that "supply chain cost" includes the cost of the
storefront.

------
DannyBee
While not "free", also realize the numbers displayed by companies displaying
the number separately are often complete and total fiction, even if you
consider handling/packaging/whatever cost.

IE next day air from within (let's call it a few hundred miles) does not cost
them $50-75 on a 1 lb package, because the volume discount of any company that
does any real amount of shipping is very high.

The shipping cost at a good volume discount is <$15 for something like
priority overnight (and the cost at a great volume discount is closer to
7.50).

Even if you consider their cost to make your order slightly special, package
it, whatever, it's still complete fiction.

I often see companies with separate shipping tell me something absurd, like
it'll be $150 to overnight something. At which point i just tell them to
charge my fedex account instead, because it costs ~10-20% of that.

So when i hear "they are having trouble keeping up with costs", maybe that's
because they are trying to put too much of their margin into handling fees.

------
coldcode
pets.com went out of business trying to ship 50lb bags of dog food for example
with "free" shipping

~~~
bostonpete
I just ordered a big bag of dog food off Amazon, with free shipping, for less
than the same brand costs at Petco. I'm not sure whether they're taking a loss
on that, or maybe dog food is just extremely marked up in brick & mortar
stores.

~~~
pravda
__Everything __is extremely marked-up in pet stores.

Pet water fountain at PetSmart: $50 Exact same fountain at Amazon: $25

But I've noticed that pet stores (or at least Petsmart) are starting to do
price-discrimination by having online-only 'sales'. Purchase online at 25%
off, pickup in store.

------
Johnny555
_Direct-to-home has a supply chain cost three times higher than a store-based
model... It 's because it's really expensive ... It’s a very expensive model
and it’s not less expensive than the store-based model_

I don't doubt that's true, but you're not going to get me into the store, so
if you want my business you're going to have to ship my purchase to me, so
figure out how to make it sustainable. Regardless of how much more expensive
mail-order is, it's going to become a larger part of retail business.

I suspect that it's much worse for merchants that have a brick and mortar
presence - they are paying a lot of money for those stores, and the
incremental cost of serving one more customer is virtually zero, while there's
a material cost to pack and ship a package.

------
drcross
It's easy to imagine a scene when self-driving trucks have multiple
compartments and they pull up to your house, send you a notification on your
phone and you run outside to pick up your package. Perhaps we're talking 10
years maximum?

~~~
wppick
Sure. I think there's actually still a lot of room for improvements in the
shipping industry. I'm currently trying to ship a bike from San Francisco to
Toronto, and the cheapest rate that I can find is around $200 with ground
shipping, 5 days. I can fly myself from San Francisco to Toronto for $250. Is
my bike getting meal service? Why is it still so expensive? What we need is
better APIs from the major shipping companies so that we can more easily shop
around. I think the major shipping companies could also work together to have
possible a single point of access for users and the shipping companies can bid
on which shipments they want to take. Shipping really is part of the
infrastructure of a country. Maybe the government can help add some cost
saving improvements to the industry?

~~~
blasdel
[https://www.bikeflights.com](https://www.bikeflights.com) does exactly that
negotiating rates for these linearly oversized packages, though it's pretty
much only FedEx bidding on them

They're $40-60 domestically, and looks like San Francisco to Toronto is $125

------
JoshGlazebrook
There are been times where a store offers free shipping over $x.xx but offers
free return shipping. So why not just add on a few things you don't want and
then return them when you get them? You get free shipping on the things you
want.

------
nikolay
I can't believe that anybody has not mentioned ShopRunner [0] in this
"analysis"!

[0]: [https://www.shoprunner.com/](https://www.shoprunner.com/)

------
yyhhsj0521
Why is shipping so expensive in US? I live in China, and virtually every
online stores here offer free shipping, even for for example a screwdriver
which worth less than 5 dollars. I once researched into it and found that if
you are a store owner and have many packages to be delivered everyday, the
price can be as low as 30~50 cents per package.

And it's really efficient. Basically no shipping would take more than a week.
Average time would be 3~4 days.

~~~
ryhamz
Your country's highest minimum wage is what the _lowest possible earner_ in
the US (federal minimum) makes in about 1 week, assuming just 40 hours of
work.

That's also why food delivery is cheap/free in Asia as well as cleaning. I'm
an expat in Hong Kong and these people basically own modern slaves. ~$550 +
food and shelter for a live in worker that works 6 days per week.

Anyone in the US that touches the delivery process is getting decent money
compared to a low skilled Chinese worker.

------
jlebrech
I don't understand why shipping has to deliver to EVERY address, wouldn't is
save them millions to leave at secure locations spread across their territory.

In the future I think they'll merge a shop/showroom with collection center.
That way people can see products for real while they collect (it'll serve as
advertising) and there will be more land for housing to be built due to less
stores being around.

~~~
petra
There are parcel lockers which are very eficinet(10X producitivity increase
for delivery drivers) .

But they require real-estate, and in the end the ansolute shipping cost isn't
terribly far from home shipping(in urban environments) , and at that
difference, people prefer home shipping, in the US.

But parcel lockers are quite popular in the UK, Poland.

------
hippich
Speaking of Amazon - if you have Prime membership and buy something with
"free" shipping from third-party seller fulfilling via Prime, seller still
pays ~25% - 30% of the total to amazon to ship this product. So all sellers
factor in shipping into prime price.

Where it get really bad - when you do NOT have prime - you also get charged
extra for shipping, yet seller still pays same cut to amazon! :)

------
kalivia
Free shipping seemed to be a necessary evil to get people shopping online.
First free shipping and then same-day delivery got people past all of their
mental hangups of online shopping. Now with more small businesses entering
ecomm, there will probably be more consumer flexibility on shipping costs. But
to get people in the door, it was necessary.

------
woliveirajr
Remembers me of
[http://romain.goyet.com/articles/free_shipping_from_china/](http://romain.goyet.com/articles/free_shipping_from_china/)

Where the author wonders how a single button, costing less than 5 dollars, can
have free shipping from china to france.

~~~
ryao
AliExpress puts a markup on the actual item versus the price that you would
pay in China. That could partially explain it.

In other posts in this discussion, kogepathic claimed that the cost of
shipping is subsidized by other countries and webscaleizfun even posted a link
to evidence of the US subsidizing the cost of shipping between China/HongKong
and the US:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12857444](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12857444)
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12854573](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12854573)

Maybe France has a similar arrangement. That combined with the markup
Aliexpress charges would explain it.

Edit: According to jeromegv's link to the Washington Post, this is by
international treaty and almost every country is subject to it:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12857145](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12857145)
[https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/storyline/wp/2014/09/12/...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/storyline/wp/2014/09/12/the-
postal-service-is-losing-millions-a-year-to-help-you-buy-cheap-stuff-from-
china/)

Consequently, France is subsidizing the shipping costs for AliExpress.

------
uremog
On a personal level, from ebay experiences and such (in the hundreds of
items), this is what I've seen. Anecdotally and empirically, buyers largely
prefer if the price of shipping is added to the item's price, and marked as
"free shipping", over being marked separately.

~~~
ryao
They do not earn eBay bucks on shipping fees.

------
robotresearcher
"For many online shops, the cost of a free shipment is either folded into the
prices for items or funded by investors."

No kidding. I'm having trouble imagining how the cost of free shipments is
paid for by the remaining shops, if there are any.

(Amazon Prime is pre-paid, unmetered, not free, shipping)

------
QuinnyPig
Have there been any deep-dives into what Amazon pays for shipping on a per-
package basis? At their volume, I can imagine that the cost per item shipped
has the potential to be low enough that it costs more for the worker to put
the item in the box than it does to ship the item out.

~~~
tyingq
I'm sure their volume drives deep discounts.

Their scale also allows them to have multiple warehouses spread across the US,
avoiding high cost / long distance shipping of individual items.

They have other levers as well. For example, they cap what third-party
listings on Amazon can charge for shipping...often the cap is lower than the
actual shipping cost.

------
trizic
Also consider by charging shipping, the seller might refund only the item
price rather than total (depends on reason of return). While if the seller
offered free shipping, they may be obligated to refund the entire price, even
though shipping was included somewhere.

------
alwaysdoit
Free shipping is still valuable if you might return it, because shipping costs
are not typically not refunded, but shipping costs baked into the purchase
price are, unless they specifically state a restocking or return fee.

------
eevilspock
In the same vein, it is a lie that ad-supported websites are free.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12810076](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12810076)

------
mabbo
> Maybe this is why so many of us have so much trouble emulating Amazon's
> model and making any money. It's because it's really expensive and it's also
> why Amazon's had trouble making money on merchandising sales. It’s a very
> expensive model and it’s not less expensive than the store-based model.

Amazon's savings come from it's lack of stores. Retail storefronts are
expensive in terms of staff, cleaning/managing, rent, utilities, taxes. A
warehouse in rural Indiana has a lower operating cost and can far more
efficiently prepare items for customers on a per-worker, per-rent-dollar, per-
utility-bill-dollar basis. And at scale, you only have to have a small margin
to succeed.

------
5partan
Futurama fans of course know about this:
[http://m.imgur.com/BiYzbP4?r](http://m.imgur.com/BiYzbP4?r)

------
duncan_bayne
TANSTAAFL - There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch. This applies to
services like education and healthcare as much as it does to shipping.

If there's one word I wish we could banish from common usage, it's "free" (as
in gratis, not libre).

Discussions around economics and politics would become much more transparent
and honest if we used phrases like "taxpayer funded education" and "customer
subsidized shipping".

------
losteverything
Someone is already working on a reverse free shipping. Like "everything a $1"

E.g. pay $15 and fill your up your cart. Choose from thousands of items. Each
combo has a value, of course. Shipping free.

Have third parties pay to place produce samples inside your boxes. Like Bill
messages of the past

------
yetkin
What is the truth anyway? Business news?

------
totoroisalive
Economy 101

------
FrancoDiaz
It's more than just free shipping. It's the two-day shipping that Amazon and
Walmart are offering with Prime and Shipping Pass.

The problem with the smaller e-commerce shops is that most people aren't going
to subscribe to 3,4,etc... annual service fees...especially for small places.

It took me a while to justify Walmart.com's Shipping Pass fee, but once I saw
the huge discounts that I can get on bathroom and household stuff, then I got
on board.

------
draw_down
Unless I know something is what I really want, I'll buy it in a store. Clothes
are a good example- returning something because it doesn't fit is a hassle
(because the shipping is expensive so there is an incentive to make it a
hassle), so I don't do it. And so the supposed savings from buying online
evaporate. (And of course stores prevent the problem in the first place
because you can try it on.) I used to buy a lot of clothes online but now I
basically never do. The experience really kinda sucks.

~~~
VLM
Tee shirts just fit. Polo and casual business wear just fit. Underwear is
simple for guys, if the old one fit, the identically spec'd new one will fit
(my wife claims that is not the case for women). For about a decade until
quality fell thru the floor my default "asphalt hiking athletic shoe" for long
distance urban exercise was, per my amazon list of orders, a "New Balance Men
MX623 10.5 4E" and they fit like a glove every time. Not even a break-in
period believe it or not, off with the old shoe on with the new. Pants just
fit. Buddys jeans made in the USA just fit. For footwear if you spend enough
money it fits, Thorogood / Weinbrenner products are very expensive and made in
Wisconsin and fit perfectly out of the box like a glove; they also last
forever. If you have to ask if you can afford them the answer is no, but they
last for a decade or two so the annual cost is actually cheaper than buying
cheap boots.

I would not attempt a tailored suit over the internet, your local tailor is
not likely going to be amused you bought it online when you bring it in for
adjustment. My wife can spend a seemingly infinite amount of time trying on
different cocktail dresses. Not all stores for all clothes will go out of
business. Merely almost all of them.

I'm just calling out that maybe 95% of my clothing was either a gift or
purchased online and I've never had the slightest problem. Generally speaking
things that involve paying a tailor probably should be purchased directly from
a tailor but other than that...

~~~
paulmd
Actually it's quite easy to make clothing to measure if you take proper
measurements. My SO makes a lot of specialty outfits for cosplayers and
theater shows, and she regularly makes outfits for people she's never measured
herself. They usually fit perfectly.

Your local tailor will gladly take these measurements for you. $20 for five
minutes of work is easy money. Also, why would a tailor not be amused if you
brought them a product and paid them to alter it? Not all alterations are
possible of course, but they'll be happy to try. In fact, AFAIK it's common
advice that you can get a generic suit from Men's Wearhouse or something and
get it tailored up to look nice...

Most tailors are perfectly aware they're competing with mass-produced clothing
from Asia. There's some bargains especially if you are only going to wear it
once or twice. But in the end you usually get what you pay for, the quality
and durability is not as good as from a tailor who did it right.

The other thing is the sizing - a lot of stuff from Asia is sized for tiny
Asian people, especially women's clothing is often several sizes smaller than
US clothing. But on the other hand sometimes it's department-store clothing
that is being sold off-label direct from the factory. I would look at it as
largely the same bag in terms of quality. Not every department-store dress is
made to last either.

