I thought this was a clever idea.

Imcreasing conversations.

[Essex_boy]

Went to a site the other day looking for gifts for my brother bought some beer glasses, strange design but really appealing.

Price £10. Go to checkout £10 no mention of shipping.

Glasses arrive very nice and quick delivery, even included a small bag of jelly sweets.

Hmm says I, Ill have set of them.

Orders them, cost £10. Checkout £14. Huh! £4 shipping charge, didnt pay that last time but what the heck I KNOW these are good glasses so carry on with the order.

Now I nearly missed the extra charge and I wonder how many other people did?

It appears they dont charge for delivery on your first order and dont tell you that they dont charge, which I thought was very clever, after all youd order from them again as you know they are trustworthy and quick. But would you go back if you knew that your next order would be more expensive?

Do many other sites do this? Or any one on here?

[Rugles]

That does not seem legal. At the very least underhanded.

[jecasc]

Perhaps they offer free shipping for the first order only? Have you checked their standard business conditions if any?
Or they finally realized they would not survive much longer when offering free shipping for 10 pound orders and changed their shipping conditions in the meantime.

[Caran]

If this happened to me I wouldn't think they were being clever I'd think they were being underhand.

I'd be very annoyed and never order from them again.

If they had changed their shipping policy in the meantime it should have been very clear when the order was made. C.

[ispy]

It seems fair to me. They are not charging anything you don't know about beforehand, so you can either choose to buy or not to buy. If you don't like the price at the time don't buy it. Lots of stores mark up things up to absorb shipping costs, or just mark things up for no reason at all, lots of times there are sales for no apparent reason, so the real question would be is it worth it to you given the total price. Getting nit picky about whether they are actually charging what the real shipping charge is and whether this is underhanded is a question that probably their accountant cannot even answer.

[quiet_man]

... even included a small bag of jelly sweets

Now that's a nice idea. First I've heard of something like that, is it common? I know that Amazon, for instance, often include vouchers from unrelated e-comm stores with their book deliveries (eg. I've had them for a lingerie site and a business card printer) and I sometimes use these, but a little gift like a bag of sweets would also make me remember the original site.

As for messing about with hidden / uncharged / unwritten shipping prices, I agree with the other posters above ... bad idea*. Regardless of intention, or even if you are actually doing the customer a favour, never mystify the costs for your customer. It really does erode any trust factor you might have worked hard elsewhere to achieve.

* Unless you actually meant to write 'increasing conversations' in the headline, and by 'conversation' you mean the increased chatter between confused customers and a now-overworked customer service team. Sorry Essex_Boy, couldn't resist that one. Sometimes I'm just an annoying pedant.

[bwelford]

Any surprises that you get should be good ones that reinforce your desire to purchase again. Gotchers just turn people off. :(

[Oliver Henniges]

Could also be a glitch in the shop-software, which they repaired just the days between your two orders. Was that a standard-shop-software or obviously self-made?

Many shops selling niche-products are much smaller than they appear at first sight of the internet-presence. Being in a very similar business, this seems quite likely to me. Self-made shop-software generally has clear SEO-advantages but of course also bears the possibility of such mistakes.

The easiest way to test whether ordering again makes sense, is, to report to them what happened by mail. If noone answers, its a trick and not worth the favourites; otherwise you might get a free third package as an excuse and as a thanks for the feedback (from me you would).

[Essex_boy]

Interesting comments, I didnt think they were being underhand. It was a shock but as I said id ordered from them before so they had my trust.

It is a big store being part of a larger group of fairly famous stores.