Things that make you go hmm free shipping or shipping added on?

[ricarmic]

I've noticed an interesting situation that seems to go against my free shipping "beliefs"!, that I thought useful to share.

Here is the scenario:

I sell packages of stamps by the 1,000.

Our high small packet costs to the US for a package of 1,000 make the shipping cost a large portion of the "total" cost if it were free shipping built in, and it definitely punishes Canadians because in country charges are not as high as small packet because they can go letter mail here. 

So how I've evolved selling these:

Packages of 1,000 are offered in $C on .CA with free shipping to Canada and the high small packet charges added on as a flat shipping cost to US (and international).

Packages of 2,000 are offered in US$ on .COM with free shipping to USA (and Canada).

In theory one would expect US folks to buy the .com items and the Canadians to buy from .CA because they are both cheaper to the "home" country on each respective site.

However regularly the opposite is happening, US folks are buying the Canadian items and paying the shipping on top - an example would be US buyer paying $21C for 1,000 stamps on .CA and $8.50C shipping for 1,000 when 2,000 on .COM are $30 US with free shipping. Canadians do the reverse, buying the US$ 2,000 size when buying 2 of the Canadian version in $C are quite a bit cheaper after conversion.

So it makes one wonder if some folks don't do the adding up (ie they don't figure the price of shipping into their decision), or they may simply just buy what they see and like without going to any great extent of "shopping around" pricing wise. Probably a bit of both happens. Certainly there are a LOT of options for mixed lots like this, one could spend many hours "shopping around" for a relatively inexpensive item.

I'm of course still fully on board with the "Free shipping" component (all my items are free shipping domestically even up to bankers boxes) because I'm sure free shipping stuff gets better visibility than items with shipping added after in the ever unknown search algorithm but the number of times the vice versa is happening surprises me.

[marnotom!]

I’m inclined to go with your hypothesis that your buyers “like what they see” and don’t bother investigating further.

Perhaps the “foreign” currency involved in these sales makes these listings seem more exotic? 🤪

[reallynicestamps]

It's also possible that the customers don't really "see" that the Canadian listing is much cheaper than the US one, because they don't "know" that the loonie is not exactly the same as the US dollar.

The quote marks are because most philatelists are sophisticated enough to understand that, but it may not be at the top of their thinking when they fall in love.

[ricarmic]

A couple more today of $C items in the $15 to $20 range with shipping cost of $8 to $10 on top of that. 

This is much out of line as to my traditional experience, most especially for shipments to the US.

Perhaps forlks are just getting more used to factoring out the shipping cost, although when it is 30% to 50% of the price of the item, I'm quite surprised by this, especially in my categories!