Saturday, June 27, 2009

Free eBay Shipping

Are you offering FREE Shipping?
Share your input with us here!

Free shipping was heavily promoted during holiday time.
Some sellers have backed off now.
Some sellers never participated.
Some are still offering it.

What are you doing?

If you are a buyer not a seller, do you look for free shipping offers or does it matter?

I do still have a FREE SHIPPING page at my website.
Visit: PowerSellingMom's FREE SHIPPING PAGE to view the sources.

I look forward to reading your input.
Leave a comment about this topic and I may use it in my next newsletter:
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Have a GREAT DAY!
Danna






7 comments:

0Jenniferb0 said...

I use Free Shipping only based on what my competition is doing. I research the item and look at which listings were sold. If the majority of the sold completed listings offer free shipping, then I price accordingly and off free shipping. I would rather charge for shipping and price my items a tad lower than offer Free Shipping. It's more profitable in the long run since you are charged less on FVF's. Offering free shipping on ebay usually means you've upped the asking price a bit, creating more revenue for ebay and more out-of-pocket expense for the seller. It's another way Ebay makes money. Just my opinion.

Unknown said...

I think Free Shipping is great if you aren't losing money on your items. I do the Free Shipping sometimes on smaller items. I think it's best to give the lowest possible prices on Shipping fees to my customers. I never charge a handling fee and I try to pack items the cheapest way possible. If they pay more than $2 over the actual postage costs, I refund their extra money.
http://stores.shop.ebay.com/G-R-I-T-S-Sisters__W0QQ_armrsZ1

CatPurry said...

It usually isn't prudent for me to offer Free shipping, but I do offer $1 or $2 shipping when the actual cost may be a lot more. I do that to be competitive, but if you offer FREE shipping, I think the buyer sometimes leaves you no feedback stars on the cost of shipping question because they think it doesn't apply. I hadn't thought about the FVF being higher because of the elevated item price offsetting the lower shipping price. That is another thing to factor in. http://www.CatPurry.com

ebetsy said...

I currently am offering free shipping on most of my client listings ( acquisator - jewelry) because of the ongoing eBay promotion w/free subtitle and double discounts. Our customers love it! And our DSRs are great. I use the subtitle to include more keyword or a short comment on the item, plus I call out FREE SHIPPING IN USA.

However, on some of the least expensive jewelry items, we offer $1.50 flat-rate shipping instead because the double discounts don't offset the higher FVFs from building shipping into the price. And on our collectibles, we offer flat-rate shipping at various rates. We gladly combine shipping for multiple items won.

On our own listings (monjott), we offer free shipping on some of our eBayana items, but we build a little extra into the price to cover it. For example, I offer free shipping on eBay gift wrap, which is a fixed-price listing with multiple quantity.

However, I wish I could revisit that decision — I think that offering free shipping has made the gift wrap's price point unattractive/too high — but I've already had sales, so I can't change it. If I could do it over, I would offer calculated or maybe even flat rate shipping.

In general, I prefer calculated shipping for our items, because we ship at actual cost and build our handling charge into the item price. Buyers love that, especially when they get a little refund because the Shipping Calculator was slightly off! Again, we gladly combine shipping for multiple items won.

In general, I think that free shipping works for some categories and types of items, but not for all. It will be interesting to see what happens when the Free Shipping promotion ends on June 30 (tomorrow!). I'm not sure yet if acquisator will still offer free shipping, but I sure will miss those free subtitles!

JeaneBee said...

If I offer free shipping, then I am paying Ebay a FVF based on the entire amount of the sale including the shipping price. Is this correct?

Danna Crawford said...

Hello JeaneBee,
Yes that is correct! And you are gaining a happy customer!!!

MoneySavingEnthusiast said...

I've been looking for EBAY info. like this. Glad I found your blog. I often wondered when and if I should sell items with free shipping.