Why no free shipping?

Many online retailers offer, "free" postage as a way to attract customers and increase sales. But, is it really free? 

While the consumer may not pay an additional fee to have their product shipped, the cost of the postage is usually built into the price of the product. This means that customers are paying for postage, but it's sneakily hidden in the overall price of the item, rather than as a separate charge.

Click to view AusPost charges.

Additionally, some retailers may have a minimum purchase amount required to qualify for free postage, which means that customers would have to spend a certain amount of money in order to be eligible. This can lead to consumers spending more money than they intended, in order to qualify for the free postage.

Another thing to consider is that free postage open comes with longer shipping times. In order to keep costs low, retailers may use cheaper shipping methods that take longer for the package to reach the customer. This may not be an issue for non-urgent purchases but, it could be a problem for customers who need their items quickly.

At Love Loose Leaf Tea, shipping costs were never built into our tea prices; and as we are a small, boutique tea store the cost of postage was indeed, quite crippling to the business.

so what did we do?

We made our shipping rate a discounted, "flat-rate shipping" where everybody pays the same postage cost that covers most of the actual postage and packaging costs we incur (and you can read the details of how much it actually costs us here). 

Therefore, larger orders get an increased benefit from not paying so much in shipping and, smaller orders can also get a small benefit too.

It ended up being a win-win for everyone!