FREE DOMESTIC SHIPPING QUESTION

[photosalp]

I understand there's a break on FVFs when free domestic shipping is offered. Only about 10% of my sales are to Canada, and a few of my Canadian customers are yelping pretty good about the exchange rate. I'd like to give them a break, and it's affordable if my FVFs come down. But, some of my listings were created on .com. Do I have to do anything with those listings, or do I just change my listings on .ca to free domestic shipping? Al 

[femmefan1946]

When you set up your listings, you are, I gather offering Free Shipping to the USA for your dotCOM listings.

To offer the same to your customers, all you have to do is enter $0.00 as the shipping price for Canada.

You can then set up your overseas shipping as usual, by clicking once again on Additional Service ->Custom Locations.

Similarly, when you are listing on dotCA, you can enter $0.00 for shipping to the USA and offer Free Shipping domestically (Canada).

Be cautious with those customers who are 'yelping' about the exchange rate. They are showing a lack of understanding of how international commerce works. You aren't charging Canadians more.

They are comparing Granny Smith apples with Delicious. They are both apples /dollars, but they are not the same*.

There is no 'break' needed.  A loonie is worth 85 cents US. The two currencies just happen to have the same name.

*For one thing, Delicious apples make pitiful apple pies.

[photosalp]

Thanks for the quick reply Femme, and I apologize for assuming people could read my mind when half the time I don't even know what's happening in there. So I'll back up. 

I'm in Canada and at the moment the only free shipping I offer is world wide on orders over $25. All my pricing is in US dollars. 

I sell stamps, use flat rate shipping and have three tiered pricing for Canadian, US and international shipping. 

For awhile I tried listing on .com as an experiment, but avoid it now because of the problems combining shipments. However, if I run out of free listings before the end of the month I will still use .com if I have to. Not sure how many listings I have over there, but certainly at least a few hundred out of 4000. 

My sales are approximately 70% US, 20% international and 10% Canadian. 

IF offering free domestic shipping on .ca saved me FVFs on all my shipping charges it would make my Canadian customers happy (maybe even attract more, always a good thing) and I might even come out ahead on the deal. But, my question is, does the fact that I don't have free domestic shipping on my .com listings mess that up? As I understand it there's no quick way to move those listings over, and I do not have time to do them one at a time. (At the moment I'm a little overwhelmed with how busy I am. This was supposed to be a part time post retirement venture, not a second career. lol) And offering free shipping to the US just isn't feasible until I get rid of a lot of low priced items.

And I'm with you on the apples. Delicious have always been one of my favourite eating apples, but make nasty pies. 

[recped]

All you need to do is make your shipping to Canada $0.00

I'm in a similar situation in terms of ratio but I can't send my orders out as letters so Free Shipping on Canada orders would only rarely be to my advantage.

You would have to actually run the numbers, off the top of my head I think you might save a little bit. Might also stimulate a few more Canadian sales.

[tobyshitzu]

The fee or non fee on shipping is per listing, so the fact some have free shipping would be unrelated to others that don't.  You pay FVF on whatever the domestic shipping rate was on the sale when its an international buyer.  Its not specifically a break because its "free".  

some of your listings aren't set up right, eg 161513008660 its looks like you have USA also ticked in what you mean for overseas, which displays the higher rate in the listing

US $3.30	United States	Canada Post International Letter-post	Estimated Delivery within 4-9 business days
US $2.50	United States	Canada Post USA Letter-post	Estimated Delivery within 5-9 business days

If that listing was on .ca and you just change the Canadian rate to free from 1.80, you'd save 11 cents on FVF when a non Canadian buys, and give up 1.69 (net of 6% ebay fvf) when a Canadian buys

[photosalp]

Thanks recped and toby. I think you answered my question about domestic shipping. I thought all listings had to be free domestic shipping to qualify for a break on FVF.

Toby, that double barreled shipping charge to the US has been bugging me lots. Every day I have to correct invoices. But I can't find a good way to correct the listings. I have one rate selected for the US. Then another for all other countries with the US unselected. That gives me the two rates. I can also unselect N and S America and then there's only one rate showing for the US, but aside from Brazil no rates show for any other South or Central American counties. Instead there's a notice saying "this ships to ________, please contact seller for information".  That's not the end of the world as in the last two weeks I've only had one sale each to Chile and Uruguay, I just checked and it's the same for the Caribbean. Again, not an area I get a lot of sales from. (In fact, I don't know if I've ever had any) 

Is there any way to have one rate each for US, Canada and international? 

[ricarmic]

Hi Photo!
I may be a bit confused about what is discussed above, but here is what I do, which might work for you too.

I only list on .COM

For stuff like you sell all my stuff is free domestic shipping (to the USA).
This means I can offer free shipping to Canada too (because it costs less than to USA)
I charge extra shipping "internationally" outside Canada

So I have 3 flat rates:
FREE shipping to Domestic (which is USA because I'm on .COM)
FREE Shipping to international (custom location of Canada)
$$$ Shipping to international (worldwide)

I've always done them in that order, sometimes I think folks in Canada have to wait till I send an invoice as it shows two shippings, but that only sometimes seems to happen.... some of my listings are years old so that may be the problem too....

Some would say that the buyer gets burned if they buy lots of free shipping items with shipping built in (especially for stuff like you're selling) but with my stuff, which often is heavier than what you are selling, usually the actual shipping still tends to mirror the built in amount. In cases where it is extreme, I'll include extra stamps with a note "overpaid shipping" which seems to create happy buyers too.

[ricarmic]

Hi again, oops I forgot to add a comment - generally I don't sell anything less than $10 for a number of reasons, but amongst them is the fact that it is hard to build in $1.50 shipping for an item with a retail price of $1.25....