Re: Free postage or Pay - comments please!

[lesbubstuff]

Just started switching my sales to 'free postage' in the hope of sales increases. Are there sellers out there who have a positive or negative experience including postage in their selling price? ta

[cornishmaid1961]

I've never tried the free shipping route so can't really comment as I prefer to offer combined postage to my customers if they buy more than one item. Also I haven't really seen a need as eBid don't charge fees on postage like the other side.

I suppose the one good thing is you don't have to do the massive postage edit in April when Royal Mail hoiks up it's rates again !

[JanetB]

Personally, I prefer item price and shipping separate. Most buyers (including myself) prefer the option of multiple purchases with reduced shipping costs.

[FirstGreenIsGold]

I agree that I prefer to pay for the item and then have the seller add postage and handling costs separately. I'm willing to pay a fee that covers postal plus stationery / selling fees etc. so that the seller is covering costs. The cost of selling always has to to covered somewhere or the seller is just wasting their time. But, I don't want postage costs built into the item cost separately so that I end up paying more.

[EalingBob]

I think most buyers realise there is no such thing as free postage as it has to be paid somewhere along the line, I personalty think you would do more trade offering postage separably were the buyer can ask for a combined invoice and postage which would cost less than them have to pay more for each separate item with so called free postage

[tony41]

I think that separate postage is better. For one, an item can seem expensive if postage is added especially on less expensive items such as stamps. It also means that new buyers can easily get the idea that eBid is an expensive site to shop on. You can always offer combined postage or even set it up automatically for some categories.

[theElench]

I was selling on the other site when they introduced FVF on P&P, it was for that reason I started looking for an alternative and started selling on ebid.

Their CS and Community Team were actively pushing "Free Postage" to anyone who would listen. I never liked the idea but they claimed that buyers were only interested in the total cost of their purchase and Free Postage would actually increase sales whereas showing higher postage costs would decrease them.

Partly true as my sales did go down when I added 10% to cover the fee but decreased even more when I tried Free Postage. IMO the only reason the other site pushed concealing P&P costs was so as not to remind buyers that they were adding fees.

I found that when I went back to showing P&P cost separately my sales went back up again. (But never returned to the levels I had before the FVF was added.)

IMO although buyers do take the full cost into account they also like the transparency of seeing the figures that make up the total. Selling in glass categories postage can be a significant cost. Showing that cost doesn't only give the buyer an indication of the sellers honesty. If they're going to spend £50 on something for their collection it can make a difference if one seller is going to send it in a small box with minimal protection and another in a larger, better protected parcel for a couple of pounds extra.

[Mandart]

I have to admit, my listings were all 'free postage', mainly because I was listing elsewhere as well (no, not that place...) and the norm there was to have free delivery... That place is just ceasing to exist and this thread has certainly made me rethink that policy and I have today adjusted all my listings to be 'plus p&p'.... Glad this thread was started...

[selkab]

I don't like free postage listings from other countries as there postage for their home country is built into the item price. When they ship the item to me they charge the full postage rate for an foreign package but they still made the postage for their home country on the original price. Thus they make extra money on the foreign postage.

[rocks2dust]

I will add that "free" postage only works out for large volume sellers who have special arrangements with shipping companies (or their own), significantly lower inventory costs from manufacturers, and who attract buyers who purchase multiple items that ship together. Aside from being able to negotiate lower shipping costs, they also are able to split the shipping cost across the average number of items in their typical customer's cart. This gets added to the price in one way or another.

For small sellers, this is a losing proposition. Aside from resulting in a higher displayed price, as noted it is it problematic for international sales, and it also discourages customers from purchasing multiple items to be shipped together. Since the "free" is folded into the item price, the customer does not benefit from buying more than one item at a time. These drawbacks potentially could be addressed by adding discounts, but buyers don't want complications and non-standard complexities won't be grasped. I've also offered "free" shipping on higher-priced items, and also had a slight uptick in sales (particularly around the holidays). It never made sense for any but the higher priced items in which the extra cost for shipping could be disguised/absorbed.