Free Shipping Is Not Really Free!
We all love really love free shipping but let’s face the truth. Like free appetizers at a restaurant, the cost is either baked into the prices of the products, or it's part of a strategy to increase a customer's order size. Knowing the biases of the customer base, and how good free shipping makes them feel, increasing product prices by a small, unnoticeable amount is occasionally the strategy retailers will use to offer the incentive and cover their costs. Often, the lack of quality customer service is the most common way for a company to reabsorb the costs associated with free shipping. Time after time, consumers swap horror stories of customer service phones that just ring and ring, disconnect over a period of hold time, or messages that go unanswered. For many small online retailers that are trying to compete with powerhouses like Amazon, Target and Zappos, this is the easiest tactic to stay in the game. Another strategy retailers employ is requiring a minimum purchase in exchange for free shipping. Processing larger orders costs companies less than filling a multitude of smaller purchases. Consumers, attracted by the offer of free shipping, purchase more, which reduces overhead costs and allows the retailer to reabsorb the shipping costs. The customers who don’t purchase enough to waive the shipping usually wind up paying a slightly inflated shipping fee to make up the difference. Again, the money has to come from somewhere. Someone has to pay the cost of shipping. If customers or investors aren’t footing the bill, e-commerce companies could easily lose money on every free shipment. That’s sustainable if a new round of financing is coming; otherwise it can plunge a retailer or e-commerce company, especially a smaller one, into financial oblivion. In fact, free shipping was partly responsible for one of the most prominent crash-and-burns of the 1990s dotcom boom. Pets.com, whose commercials are still seared into the consciousness of many readers of a certain age, offered free shipping on expensive-to-ship dog food. In his book Thinking Inside The Box, author Kirk Cheyfitz explained how low profit margins due to an insistence on free shipping helped sink Pets.com.
The goal at East Coast Truck & Trailer Sales is to remain in business for years to come while providing auto transport and towing professionals the lowest price to-the-door in the industry. We’re not going to build our shipping costs into the price of our products or make those who purchase less pay more for shipping. Like the great retailer Walmart, we provide our customers “Always Low Prices”, competitive shipping and expert service. Our bottom line is clearly the lowest. See for yourself – shop and compare on towing parts and supplies, tow straps, winch cables, lock out kits, tire skates, jumpboxes, tow dollies, snatch blocks, and more at Parts.ECTTS.com.
