grandpa - 1:21 am on Oct 1, 2003 (gmt 0)

Back in the beginning of 2002 I was briefly associated with the company I now work exclusively for. At that time we offered free shipping on all retail orders over $25 No free shipping for wholesale, period. But we were taking a beating on shipping, so we raised the free limit to $35.

The owner was concerned that he would lose sales, and in my best imitation of knowing what I was doing I tried to convice him that sales that were $25 would now jump to $35, my rationale was that people like free, no matter how much it costs - to a limit anyway. I turned out to be right. The number of orders that jumped to the minimum was amazing. Of course, that was 2 years ago, before things like politics and economics got in the way of everyday life.

Last year we spent $3000 more on shipping than we took in. We're now considering dropping the free shipping altogether. Again, in my best imitation of knowing what I'm doing, I convinced the owner to wait until after Christmas. It's my belief that sales will drop once we remove the free shipping. I'd rather move it up another notch, to say, free shipping over $50.

There was another problem with our shipping - which has been corrected. Over 90% of the products on our site had either missing or incorrect (over) weights. These are used by our cart to determine actual ship costs, and we add $3.00 for handling to that. In the first case, the shipping rates were far too low, and we ate those. In the other case, the customer balked and never made the sale because the shipping was too high. I've watched sales increase over the last month, and I'm pretty sure that's due in part to reasonable shipping charges. People are willing to pay for the cost of convenience.