When a seller has free shipping they are really including shipping in the price of course, so when a buyer purchases multiple items, there is no combined shipping discount. Two years later, my sales are great and haven't suffered any from charging shipping. My reason beyond losing money was that when you sort a search by price, it is sorted by "price+shipping."
HOW TO CHECK FREE SHIPPING ON MY EBAY LISTINGS PLUS
Plus, when negotiating an offer, thinking about the price plus shipping was just too complicated.Īfter about 4 months, I quit free shipping. I cannot set the market price, so in the end, I was eating a lot of shipping costs. So, with free shipping lots of buyers from the West Coast were buying my items. If I had a pair of 2lbs men's jeans and the buyer was on the West Coast, then the shipping costs could be as much as $12-13. I think what was going on was with free shipping there was no barrier for buyers to buying from me. You're not competitive at any distance, just a 'little' overpriced nearby and a 'little' underpriced far away. Or you can try for 'in the middle' which is, IME worst of all worlds. You either factor in 'the most' it could be far away, and are overpriced for nearby buyers, or you factor in 'the least' it could be nearby and most of your sales will be far away and cost you more. first class the distance-variation is minimal and you can likely "fudge it" so you build in 'free shipping' and you make a little more if nearby or a little less if far.īut if you're selling a bulky item that varies greatly by distance, 'free shipping' can be hard to calculate. If you're selling something that will ship at 9oz. Shipping varies by distance for most items.įrom a seller's standpoint, it really depends on distance. People IME think of this as $20 free shipping is better than $15 + $5 shipping, b/c people 'like' free shipping, search for it, and prefer it.īut there's no free shipping, and in MOST cases, it's not a zero-sum thing. OTOH, eBay gives not one shit about your bottom line.
eBay 'prefers' free shipping and will give it a higher position in search.