Free shipping-Amazon? NOT FREE

Just bought a boiler part for $12 plus $5 for shipping. Amazon offers free shipping now for everything & just looked at the price for same item- $21. Free shipping but higher overall price

2ND example-had a tv mount bookmarked from Amazon because when I compared price with wall world, it was cheaper. Now that there is free shipping @ Amazon, it's $5 cheaper @ wall world.

The United States post office does not ship anything for free. Niether does UPS or Fed-Ex. Therefore there is no such thing as free shipping. If any retailer is offering free shipping, you can be sure that the cost of shipping is built into the retail price.

Amazon uses variable pricing and will in some cases vary that price almost daily (look at camelcamelcamel you will be amazed). I typically use camelcamelcamel.com (Amazon price tracker) and Google to see if its the best price I can get overall (cost of item + shipping). Amazon is not always the cheapest....... but tomorrow it might be .

(quoted from post at 10:22:30 11/05/18) Just bought a boiler part for $12 plus $5 for shipping. Amazon offers free shipping now for everything & just looked at the price for same item- $21. Free shipping but higher overall price

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Uhhhh yeah. that is the way the world works.

Cost plus ship or free ship whats makes the difference? Your cost is what it costs shipped to your door. Free ship is a sales ploy and a good one. I have had same items advertised on Ebay both ways and at same cost and 95% of purchasers choose free ship.

W.C. Fields was right.

Did you order "from" Amazon, or "through" Amazon? If ordering from a 3rd party on the Amazon site, then they will likely have their own shipping costs. I've seen some sellers (both on Amazon and eBay) that will list ridiculously high shipping costs. Have also seen sellers who will charge more than they were supposed to. If you have an email stating what shipping was supposed to be, contact Amazon and get it straightened out.

rustyfarmall; It was P.T. Barnum who said, "There's a sucker born every minute", but W.C Fields made plenty of tart observations, too, so maybe you're thinking of some other one.

Stan

Wow. 'Free shipping' I used to work for one of those shipping organizations. They paid my wage plus additional overhead such as electricity for the lights and machines. No one was working for 'free'.
Maybe you work for free.
Then again, are you using a free computer with free electricity in a free house?
I bet you paid for something somewhere.
I have sold on ebay both with 'free' shipping and overcharged shipping rates.
I live about 15 miles from the post office.
You mean my truck burns free gas to go to the post office?
Huh.
Maybe you could sell that free energy to Shell.
My time and fuel cost to go to the post office is worth something.
That might explain the higher shipping cost.
I sure would like to come live in your free heated house and eat your free food.
I expect to be free next week, just send along some free gasoline and we should be there directly.
Not going to happen? Oh well. Can't say I didn't offer.

My point is that why raise prices on all of Amazon products, then give free shipping. It only drives business elsewhere if your price comparing.

I think most of us are smart enough to know the shipping ain't free. But I refuse to even consider an item that does not have "free shipping". I don't like to play the game of trying to calculate the shipping price to my zip code. I want to know the exact price right now or I'm moving on down the line. TDF

(quoted from post at 12:19:35 11/05/18) rustyfarmall; It was P.T. Barnum who said, "There's a sucker born every minute", but W.C Fields made plenty of tart observations, too, so maybe you're thinking of some other one.

Stan

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You are 100% correct.

Not everything amazon sells is free shipping.
I have amazon prime, mostly because I love the movies.
If it says prime, it's free shipping.
I'm looking at buying an 8 inch dewalt bench grinder.
Amazon prime has the best price vs eBay that offers free shipping.
See if you can beat Amazon prime price. I haven't been able too.

Ditto on the movies; I do buy a fair amount of stuff, I live out in the sticks so the "big" city is 2 hours away. I stick stuff in my cart, and watch for price changes. I also "camelcamelcamel" everything meaningfull, plus use their email notification to let me know when Amazon gets down to my set price. More than half off winter boots that way!

I think "shipping included" would be more accurate than free shipping. Either way its going to cost .

Spend some time learning everything you can about Bezos & then decide if you want to continue doing business with this guy!

No such thing anywhere in the world of "free" shipping, health care, housing, insurance, education, medication, food, clothing...anything. Someone is paying in some form for whatever you get. Usually it's the consumer. "Free" shipping has to be covered in the cost of the item of the business fails, simple as that.

(quoted from post at 09:22:30 11/05/18) Just bought a boiler part for $12 plus $5 for shipping. Amazon offers free shipping now for everything & just looked at the price for same item- $21. Free shipping but higher overall price

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Personally I prefer when shipping is separate.

When items are sold to Canadian buyers from US sellers there is a threshold for the declared value over which the package gets processed at the border and taxes and duties are added on.
Usually does not amount to more than a few dollars so no big deal the problem is they add on about $10 as a processing fee.

Buy a $20 part and pay $15 shipping no problem.

Buy what is a $20 part with free shipping for $35 and get dinged an extra $10-$15 when I pick it up at the post office.

(quoted from post at 21:46:44 11/05/18) I think "shipping included" would be more accurate than free shipping. Either way its going to cost .

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Yes. More accurate, and more honest.

(quoted from post at 14:34:52 11/05/18) My point is that why raise prices on all of Amazon products, then give free shipping. It only drives business elsewhere if your price comparing.

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So you found *two* examples. You can also find as many examples where Amazon's "free shipping" price is the lowest.

It's called "competition."

So apparently a lot of people here don't understand how Amazon works? Buying something off Amazon isn't always buying something from Amazon. Similar to Ebay. You can find the same product for sale from 20 different sellers on Amazon, all could have a different price.

For 1.5 years I sold motorcycle, ATV, UTV parts on Amazon. I had over 100,000 items listed. With an operation this size, pricing is automated. We paid a company somewhere @ $3500/month to automate our prices. You set parameters in their systems and their system would crawl your inventory and your competitors prices on Amazon and it would adjust your price on Amazon to keep your price the cheapest within your parameters. With 100K items it would adjust on-hand inventory and prices every 18 hours.

Between paying Amazon's seller fees, the automation company fees, buying the parts, paying the shipping, and paying my payroll, in the 18 months I operated, the business [b:827a4a5f4f][i:827a4a5f4f]ALMOST [/i:827a4a5f4f][/b:827a4a5f4f]paid for itself [b:827a4a5f4f][i:827a4a5f4f]ONE MONTH[/i:827a4a5f4f][/b:827a4a5f4f].

I tell everyone now it's basically organized crime. When you have something that sells well, Amazon will go to the manufacturer and start buying that item directly from them and selling it themselves. Anything you see that says "Sold and fulfilled by Amazon" is this way. Some poor guy worked his butt off and probably lost quite a bit of money only to have Amazon steal their good selling item from them.

And, Heaven forbid, you have a dispute with a buyer because Amazon will give the buyer whatever they want and deduct it from your proceeds. You have no choice.

I kept waiting for a couple of thugs to come walking in dressed in polyester pants, a leather jacket, fingerless gloves, and a pork pie hat carrying a ball bat.....

And Pa Kettle,

"He is a nice guy, but you have to watch him"