How To Handle Shipping Charges

The answer is always to look at what the top competitors for those items are doing. Anyone ranking high for main search phrases has been in business awhile and they have figured out how to ship things that get them the best conversions while still making a profit. If you cannot manage to do what they are doing, you are not getting true wholesale prices or you are trying to ship to places they do not.

In fact, large, expensive items are usually the easiest to do "free" shipping with, there is so much profit in them. The "free" is worked into the price. You'll gain extra profit when shipping to some parts of the country and lose a little profit shipping to others. It is the small, cheaper things with very little profit that are difficult to provide free shipping on. That's why many websites have things like "free shipping for orders over $250".

The only time it becomes a little more difficult is when you are shipping extremely large or heavy items that have to ship via freight truck instead of UPS or FedEx ground. There are often wide disparities in costs for freight truck deliveries based on the destination. Still, there is usually plenty of profit left over to offer "free shipping" on those things - even when they are shipping to the most expensive parts of the country. That is, if that is what everybody else is doing and you are getting the same wholesale costs as they are.

Hi Dave.

Thanks for that advice. What you said does seem to be logical, alright. I just assumed that the heavy stuff would be that which would kill my profit, 'shipping-wise.'

And, yes, I have often wondered how some sellers make any profit on such items as used books that sell for two dollars, when the shipping costs them half of that, so what you said about the small items being the hard ones from which to realize a profit certainly rings true.

Thanks again for your help!

Work the shipping costs into the price, Free Shipping is what drives sales.