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FidosFlowers
Community Manager
Community Manager

Q&A with Etsy admin: A new tool to start offering a free shipping guarantee

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Hi again, everyone!

Some folks from the Etsy team are back to answer your questions about the new smart pricing tool, now available to all sellers in the US, which enables you to offer a free shipping guarantee to your US buyers. For sellers with items $35 and over, the tool also allows you to adjust your prices to recover your shipping costs if you decide to do so. Each seller is responsible for independently determining their prices and Etsy is not recommending any price adjustments. Only you can decide on a pricing strategy that’s right for your shop.

Did you catch Madison’s Facebook Live earlier today, where she walked through the new tool? If not, you can view it on our Facebook page here.

We’ll be taking questions here until 9pm ET today. The team will address your questions by Thursday at 4pm ET.

Another friendly reminder that we will not get to every question here. With that in mind, be sure to read through what others have asked before posting your own. If yours has already been asked, give it a Like! We want to ensure that we answer the questions that matter most to you, so with that in mind, we will aim to answer a selection of questions with the most Likes.

And a few housekeeping notes:
- This Q&A is to address questions about how Etsy's new smart pricing tool works. Please remember that all comments should remain on topic and in line with our community policies. Any comments that violate our policies will be removed.
- If you have feedback to share, we encourage you to fill out our seller survey form. We are collecting feedback and suggestions from the community here, and the team is actively reviewing it over the next couple of weeks.

Thanks, everyone. We look forward to your questions!

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Re: Q&A with Etsy admin: A new tool to start offering a free shipping guarantee

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@OldLadyWhite wrote:

@OldLadyWhite

I already offer Free Shipping. I have activated the new Free Shipping Guaranteed but I can't tell if I did it right or not!

IF I did get the FSG turned on as it should be then my question is will someone only buying 1 item still get their Free Shipping? I sure hope so because I will have to edit my entire shop!

TY!


Hi there!

Thanks for your question. If you set up a free shipping guarantee and your buyer spends less than $35 on an order from your shop, your existing shipping settings for that order will still apply. For example, if you sell items that are priced $25 each and you charge $5 for shipping, if your US buyer purchases two of those items in their order (totaling $50), they’ll get free shipping with their order. If they only buy one $25 item, they’ll see and pay $5 shipping for that order.

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Re: Q&A with Etsy admin: A new tool to start offering a free shipping guarantee

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@SecondWindShop wrote:

I do not want to do a total shop Free Shipping Guarantee, but want to move a lot of my listings to free shipping.

How do I get access to this new price adjustment tool if I do not do the guarantee?


Hey @SecondWindShop!

Thanks for your question.  Listings that ship free to the US are eligible for the same prioritization in search as listings that offer a free shipping guarantee (i.e. free shipping on US orders over $35), so if you plan for all of your new listings to ship for free without any minimum spend, those items will also get priority placement in searchI . That said, you might consider turning on a free shipping guarantee if you want all the listings you create in the future to automatically be eligible for the search prioritization (in case they are below $35 and you decide that you want to charge a shipping price for when they’re sold as part of an order less than $35, and wanted to be eligible for search prioritization). 

I hope this helps.

Good luck with your shop!

Thanks!

Nathan

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Re: Q&A with Etsy admin: A new tool to start offering a free shipping guarantee

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@Former_Member wrote:

@OldLadyWhite ...I have exactly the same question. Already offer free shipping and have activated the free ship guarantee. I don't see anything to indicate that it's 'on'.

I'm also concerned that any item below the 35 will have a shipping charge included? For me, it's just easier to have a blanket free ship. I can't deal with complex at this stage in my life.

Thanks.



Hello, @Former_Member. Thanks for joining our Q&A!

You can always reference whether you have a free shipping guarantee turned on or not in your Shipping Settings of Shop Manager. Just scroll down to the bottom of this page to see if it’s set up. If you set up a free shipping guarantee, it means that any items you have that are priced $35 USD or more will have free shipping. Any items priced below $35 USD will be eligible to ship free if bundled with other items in a $35+ order. If not, their existing shipping prices will show. If you already offer free shipping across your entire shop, those items will always ship for free.

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Re: Q&A with Etsy admin: A new tool to start offering a free shipping guarantee

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@WizardAtWork wrote:

I have an ethical issue with this.  I sell small, reasonably light-weight options.  Currently I have a $4, 3-ounce item that costs $2.66 to ship.  Usuing calculated shipping, I charge *2.66* to ship!  My item is worth $4 so I charge $4 and then I add whatever the USPS says I have to pay to get it to my customer.

If someone buys 4 of this item, calculated shipping costs $3.82 for the 12 ounces.  Or a total of $19.82.

However, if I "absorb" the cost of shipping into the item so I can send the item for 'free', I'd have to charge $6.22 for one.  And then it becomes $24.88 for 4.  So... I'm collecting $5 on postage that I'm not *spending* on postage.  How is that ethical?

And this will hit almost every single one of my customers, because I have very, very few orders that are over $35.  So now I have an item worth $4, that I'm selling for $6.22, but that my customer will pay $8.44 for because they won't get free shipping becuase they want one $4 item, not $35 worth of anything, so they have to pay shipping on top of my 'absorbed' shipping cost???  I'll have zero customers.  This would put an end to my 11 years of selling on Etsy.  I cannot do this and it angers me that I'm being penalized in the listings because I won't charge, basically, double what an item is worth.

And yes, I know you'll say I'm not being penalized, but when I get moved DOWN in the rankings because I won't overcharge and others get moved up for doing it, I'm going to see it as being penalized.


Hi @WizardAtWork!

Thanks for your question.  We understand your concern here.  Given that most of your orders are below the $35 price threshold, you might decide that you want to set up this shop wide shipping over $35 without it impacting your business too much--your typical orders below $35 can still have a shipping costs associated with them that is charged to buyers.   Ultimately, deciding if offering free shipping is right for your shop is your decision. And of course, if you do decide to offer free shipping, it doesn’t mean you have to recover your shipping costs within your item price. For example, you could see if offering free shipping with a $35 spend minimum increases your average order value from US customers and whether free shipping impacts your conversion rate. You may be pleasantly surprised with the results, or you may determine that it just isn’t the right option for your shop. 

I hope this helps.

Good luck with your shop!

Thanks!

Nathan

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Re: Q&A with Etsy admin: A new tool to start offering a free shipping guarantee

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@ideachic wrote:

We offer free shipping accept for our greeting cards.  For cards we had a shipping profile that would offer free shipping on orders over $14. This encouraged upsell and worked for us. Now that we clicked on your tool for this guarantee, to see what it does on our these listings, our old strategy now makes our customers spend $35. We would like our old process back. Can I revert back? I could not see how we can correct this. Thanks! 


Hi there— thanks for your question and I love your stationary! It’s great that you were already offering free shipping! When you set up a free shipping guarantee with our smart pricing tool, it will turn on free shipping with $35 minimum purchase for your US buyers. At this time, using the smart pricing tool is limited to setting up free shipping with $35 minimum purchase only. You can turn off the free shipping guarantee for your shop at any time.

You can turn off your free shipping guarantee by going to Shop Manager > Settings > Shipping Settings.

Also keep in mind that only items with free shipping or those that are eligible to ship free with $35+ purchase (set up through the smart pricing tool) will get priority placement in US search results.

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Re: Q&A with Etsy admin: A new tool to start offering a free shipping guarantee

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@EmbroideryStation1 wrote:

Hoping these questions will be answered this time.

1. When using calculated shipping (I have a number of orders where I get multiples of 2 to 10+ of the same item ordered at once so I need to have Etsy calculate the shipping when I buy/print a label), how do I let customers upgrade to Priority or Priority Express Shipping without the free shipping make me pay for the upgrade?  I see if using fixed cost that the seller has an option to set a standard shipping method and then add an upgraded method but that doesn't occur with calculated shipping.

2. How do we offer free shipping on multiples?  If I add $5 onto the price of an item, the customer does not need to pay an additional $15 for 3 items to cover shipping.  The actual shipping cost does not change the same per item when adding certain numbers to the same box.

3. My shop seems to have already have access to the Smart Tool which sounds like a nice tool but it sounds like in order to use it I have to commit to everything in my shop being free shipping and I have to make all the changes at once.  Right now I don't want to change everything at once to free shipping.  My best sellers are also the multiple sellers and I would like to keep at least one listing of each of those items still charging shipping.  At least that way I have a listing to direct buyers to for reasonable multiples cost.  Not sure if I can switch everything to free shipping using the tool and then select a listing and back it out of the free shipping after using this Smart Tool.  I would like to use the Smart Tool when I want too and just on the listings I want to.  


Thanks for your thoughtful questions, @EmbroideryStation1! My answers to all three are below:

1. You won’t have to do anything different! When you turn on a free shipping guarantee, it will only update your base (shipping price (ie. whatever is the cheapest shipping option for the buyer) that’s associated with the Calculated Shipping profile to be free shipping. All other mail classes, like Priority and Priority Express, will keep their same pricing as before.

2. Unfortunately, we can’t advise you on how you should price your items - how you decide to price your items is completely up to you. However, you may consider reading our education materials for things you might want to consider if you decide to reprice items to recover shipping costs.

3. When you use the smart pricing tool, you’ll be turning on a shop-wide free shipping guarantee so all of the items in your shop will either ship free to US buyers (if they’re $35+) or will be eligible to ship free if bundled with other items in a $35+ order.

Thanks again!

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Re: Q&A with Etsy admin: A new tool to start offering a free shipping guarantee

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@DebbraObertanecArt wrote:

hello  :)

 

I've been offering free shipping for several years across my shop for the US.  I don't want my customers to have to purchase $35 or more to get this perk I've already been offering. Do I need to change anything for priority placement?  I did try to go through and do the FS Guarantee on my dashboard, but then it looks like they have to spend $35 or more when there is already free shipping, does that make sense?  Once I saw that I went back to how I've been doing it. My entire shop is already free shipping in the US, will I still have the 'priority placement' in search?  Thank you for your help and response!


Hi Debbra :)

Listings that already ship free to the US are eligible for the same prioritization in search as listings that offer a free shipping guarantee (i.e. free shipping on US orders over $35), so you don't need to change anything about your existing listings in order to qualify for the search benefit. That said, you might consider  turning on a free shipping guarantee if you want all the listings you create in the future to automatically be eligible for the search prioritization (in case they are below $35 and you decide that you want to charge a shipping price for when they’re sold as part of an order less than $35, and wanted to be eligible for search prioritization). Of course, if you plan for all of your new listings to ship for free without any minimum spend, those items will also get priority placement in search. I hope this helps!

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Re: Q&A with Etsy admin: A new tool to start offering a free shipping guarantee

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@FabuEllaEmbroidery wrote:

I offer free shipping for everything, no matter the cost. What happens if I offer for $35 and up? If I turn that feature on, will it change my shipping to only be free for $35 and up?


Hi Beth - great question, and glad to hear that you're already offering free shipping across the board. Turning on a free shipping guarantee in your shipping settings won't "undo" free shipping on your current listings -- they'll continue to ship free without being subject to the $35 threshold. These listings will also be eligible for priority placement in search. Hope this helps!

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Re: Q&A with Etsy admin: A new tool to start offering a free shipping guarantee

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@BenMcfuzzylugs wrote:

Can this only edit active listings? and where is the tool available when not setting up the free shipping guarantee - for eg if we want to use it again nearer Christmas when we reactivate the Christmas listing

Also 
What is the legality of saying 'free shipping' when you have clearly used a tool to add the shipping price to the listing - would it not be better to say 'shipping included' 

 

and finally 

Rather than having us decide whether or not to make all these changes would it not be better to just show the customer the total price to them including shipping to their location from the search page


Thanks for participating in our Q&A!

The smart pricing tool will only apply to active listings. However, you’ll be turning on a shop-wide free shipping guarantee so all of the items in your shop will ship for free when sold as part of an order $35 or more.

Our goal with this initiative is to empower sellers to offer free shipping to meet buyer expectations if they choose to do so. As always, you need to make decisions for your business that make sense for you. You may find some of the related information we shared here, in our other Q&A, helpful in this case.

Thanks again for your questions!

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PodushkaStudio
Community Specialist
Community Specialist

Re: Q&A with Etsy admin: A new tool to start offering a free shipping guarantee

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@SecondWindShop wrote:

I have created a shipping profile for free domestic shipping. 20% of my customer base is international. How do I offer international shipping  and differentiate between Canada and Australia , considering I have already added US shipping costs to the price of the item.  I have 3000+ items in my store so I have to do this via profiles.


Hi @SecondWindShop! Love your plate selection, and so glad to hear you’re thinking about how to best serve your international customers. Since you are already using Shipping Profiles, I recommend you revisit how these are set up for international customers. If you currently are set up so that it shows just United States and Everywhere Else, you may want to consider making some changes. Since it sounds like the bulk of your international customers are concentrated in Australia and Canada, you can specify each of those markets and then specify the right shipping cost for each of those markets. You may want to consider the average cost to ship to Australia, for example,  in comparison to the US shipping costs you added to your item price when determining the shipping cost for Australia that makes the most sense for your shop, or you may want to reassess your decision to add your US shipping costs to your item price to recover your costs. Ultimately, how you price your items is up to you. 

As your business grows, you may have additional countries become more important to your business, for example the United Kingdom (where I’m based!). In that case, you can add this location to your Shipping Profiles to reflect your shipping costs to that country.

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Re: Q&A with Etsy admin: A new tool to start offering a free shipping guarantee

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@MixieAndMoxie wrote:

A few shops have reported that when they run a sale, those listing now under the $35 dollar threshold show Free Shipping based on the higher price before the sale.

Shouldn't items that are on sale which now fall under the $35 dollar FS Guarantee be "Free Shipping Eligible" instead of "Free Shipping"? 

Why is the Free Shipping badge based on original price instead of the sale price?


Hey there! Thanks for reporting this @MixieAndMoxie. Our team is investigating ways to improve this behavior. While we don’t have a timeline for when a change will happen, rest assured we’re actively looking into this.

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Re: Q&A with Etsy admin: A new tool to start offering a free shipping guarantee

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@MixieAndMoxie wrote:

How can we reduce the shipping costs for International buyers on US Free Shipping items using calculated rather than fixed priced shipping?

Raising listing prices for free US shipping will hurt the International buyer market due to higher item costs & increased VAT fees.  Is there a way to give them a pricing break through lower shipping cost.

Using fixed priced shipping for International shipping is difficult since item weights & destinations vary greatly.


Hi again! Many thanks for your questions. We also appreciate the feedback you’ve shared here.

How you decide to price your items is your decision. If you've included handling fee in your calculated shipping profile, you could reduce that - doing this would lower the total amount that international shoppers pay. You might also consider grouping similarly sized items into a single fixed price shipping profile and then use Etsy's Price Your Postage tool to estimate shipping costs to different countries, and incorporate that into your overall pricing strategy. I hope this helps!

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PodushkaStudio
Community Specialist
Community Specialist

Re: Q&A with Etsy admin: A new tool to start offering a free shipping guarantee

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@PrairieCrocusStudio wrote:

I am in Canada. Will the shipping tool for non-US sellers allow us to select Domestic (Canada) and US only? 

I want to offer the Free Shipping Guarantee $35+ only for Canada and the United States.
I do not want it to apply to overseas shipping, because those shipping costs are at least double, so $35 minimum is too low. 


Hi @PrairieCrocusStudio, thanks for the question! You can offer a free shipping guarantee on orders of $35 USD or more for your US buyers, and you can offer a conditional free shipping sale with your choice of spend threshold to your Canadian buyers, but not for buyers from other countries. The way you go about this for your US and Canadian buyers will look a little different. For your US buyers, you’ll set up a free shipping guarantee. For your Canadian buyers, you’ll set up a special offer. 

If you go into Shipping Settings, you can select to offer a US free delivery guarantee, which will turn on shop-wide settings that will offer free shipping to a US buyer who spends $35 USD or more in your shop. It will also give items from your shop priority placement in US search results starting 30 July. 

If you want to provide free shipping with a minimum spend threshold to your Canadian buyers, you can go into Sales and Coupons to set up a new special offer that gives free delivery to domestic customers when they hit or exceed a specified order minimum. 

Once you’ve set both of these offers up, US buyers who do not exceed the order minimum of $35 USD, will pay for shipping based on your existing Shipping Profiles. Canadian buyers who do not exceed whatever order minimum you selected for your sale, as well as buyers from outside of the US and Canada, will also pay for shipping based on your existing Shipping Profiles. 

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FidosFlowers
Community Manager
Community Manager

Re: Q&A with Etsy admin: A new tool to start offering a free shipping guarantee

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Hi all,

That’s a wrap! Thanks for taking the time to participate in this Q&A.

If you still have questions, please feel free to reach out to our Support team. And if you’d like to share any feedback, please fill out our seller survey form here.

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Re: Q&A with Etsy admin: A new tool to start offering a free shipping guarantee

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@OldLadyWhite

I already offer Free Shipping. I have activated the new Free Shipping Guaranteed but I can't tell if I did it right or not!

IF I did get the FSG turned on as it should be then my question is will someone only buying 1 item still get their Free Shipping? I sure hope so because I will have to edit my entire shop!

TY!

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Former_Member
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Re: Q&A with Etsy admin: A new tool to start offering a free shipping guarantee

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@OldLadyWhite ...I have exactly the same question. Already offer free shipping and have activated the free ship guarantee. I don't see anything to indicate that it's 'on'.

I'm also concerned that any item below the 35 will have a shipping charge included? For me, it's just easier to have a blanket free ship. I can't deal with complex at this stage in my life.

Thanks.

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Re: Q&A with Etsy admin: A new tool to start offering a free shipping guarantee

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@OldLadyWhite 
All your items (except for a digital download) show the free shipping for me.

 

@Former_Member 

I'm in the US, and all your items (including ones less than $35) show the free shipping badge to me.

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Former_Member
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Re: Q&A with Etsy admin: A new tool to start offering a free shipping guarantee

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@Adorabilities ...I think I'm responding in the wrong place but thank you for checking. 

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Re: Q&A with Etsy admin: A new tool to start offering a free shipping guarantee

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@OldLadyWhite wrote:

@OldLadyWhite

I already offer Free Shipping. I have activated the new Free Shipping Guaranteed but I can't tell if I did it right or not!

IF I did get the FSG turned on as it should be then my question is will someone only buying 1 item still get their Free Shipping? I sure hope so because I will have to edit my entire shop!

TY!


Hi there!

Thanks for your question. If you set up a free shipping guarantee and your buyer spends less than $35 on an order from your shop, your existing shipping settings for that order will still apply. For example, if you sell items that are priced $25 each and you charge $5 for shipping, if your US buyer purchases two of those items in their order (totaling $50), they’ll get free shipping with their order. If they only buy one $25 item, they’ll see and pay $5 shipping for that order.

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Re: Q&A with Etsy admin: A new tool to start offering a free shipping guarantee

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@Former_Member wrote:

@OldLadyWhite ...I have exactly the same question. Already offer free shipping and have activated the free ship guarantee. I don't see anything to indicate that it's 'on'.

I'm also concerned that any item below the 35 will have a shipping charge included? For me, it's just easier to have a blanket free ship. I can't deal with complex at this stage in my life.

Thanks.



Hello, @Former_Member. Thanks for joining our Q&A!

You can always reference whether you have a free shipping guarantee turned on or not in your Shipping Settings of Shop Manager. Just scroll down to the bottom of this page to see if it’s set up. If you set up a free shipping guarantee, it means that any items you have that are priced $35 USD or more will have free shipping. Any items priced below $35 USD will be eligible to ship free if bundled with other items in a $35+ order. If not, their existing shipping prices will show. If you already offer free shipping across your entire shop, those items will always ship for free.

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Re: Q&A with Etsy admin: A new tool to start offering a free shipping guarantee

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Hoping these questions will be answered this time.

1. When using calculated shipping (I have a number of orders where I get multiples of 2 to 10+ of the same item ordered at once so I need to have Etsy calculate the shipping when I buy/print a label), how do I let customers upgrade to Priority or Priority Express Shipping without the free shipping make me pay for the upgrade?  I see if using fixed cost that the seller has an option to set a standard shipping method and then add an upgraded method but that doesn't occur with calculated shipping.

2. How do we offer free shipping on multiples?  If I add $5 onto the price of an item, the customer does not need to pay an additional $15 for 3 items to cover shipping.  The actual shipping cost does not change the same per item when adding certain numbers to the same box.

3. My shop seems to have already have access to the Smart Tool which sounds like a nice tool but it sounds like in order to use it I have to commit to everything in my shop being free shipping and I have to make all the changes at once.  Right now I don't want to change everything at once to free shipping.  My best sellers are also the multiple sellers and I would like to keep at least one listing of each of those items still charging shipping.  At least that way I have a listing to direct buyers to for reasonable multiples cost.  Not sure if I can switch everything to free shipping using the tool and then select a listing and back it out of the free shipping after using this Smart Tool.  I would like to use the Smart Tool when I want too and just on the listings I want to.  

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GRITSGirlz
Conversation Maker

Re: Q&A with Etsy admin: A new tool to start offering a free shipping guarantee

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1.  As long as your calculated shipping profiles offers, First Class Package, Priority, Priority Express, and Parcel Select (if you desire), then the higher paid shipping classes will be offered as upgrades.  That's how it works now and will continue to work.

2.  Many are establishing coupons to offer a discount to offset the shipping included on multiple item purchases.

3.  The tool is all shop items since all could meet the $35 minimum order.  You can easily set items yourself to free shipping using shipping profiles, then it's all in your control.

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Re: Q&A with Etsy admin: A new tool to start offering a free shipping guarantee

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@EmbroideryStation1 wrote:

Hoping these questions will be answered this time.

1. When using calculated shipping (I have a number of orders where I get multiples of 2 to 10+ of the same item ordered at once so I need to have Etsy calculate the shipping when I buy/print a label), how do I let customers upgrade to Priority or Priority Express Shipping without the free shipping make me pay for the upgrade?  I see if using fixed cost that the seller has an option to set a standard shipping method and then add an upgraded method but that doesn't occur with calculated shipping.

2. How do we offer free shipping on multiples?  If I add $5 onto the price of an item, the customer does not need to pay an additional $15 for 3 items to cover shipping.  The actual shipping cost does not change the same per item when adding certain numbers to the same box.

3. My shop seems to have already have access to the Smart Tool which sounds like a nice tool but it sounds like in order to use it I have to commit to everything in my shop being free shipping and I have to make all the changes at once.  Right now I don't want to change everything at once to free shipping.  My best sellers are also the multiple sellers and I would like to keep at least one listing of each of those items still charging shipping.  At least that way I have a listing to direct buyers to for reasonable multiples cost.  Not sure if I can switch everything to free shipping using the tool and then select a listing and back it out of the free shipping after using this Smart Tool.  I would like to use the Smart Tool when I want too and just on the listings I want to.  


Thanks for your thoughtful questions, @EmbroideryStation1! My answers to all three are below:

1. You won’t have to do anything different! When you turn on a free shipping guarantee, it will only update your base (shipping price (ie. whatever is the cheapest shipping option for the buyer) that’s associated with the Calculated Shipping profile to be free shipping. All other mail classes, like Priority and Priority Express, will keep their same pricing as before.

2. Unfortunately, we can’t advise you on how you should price your items - how you decide to price your items is completely up to you. However, you may consider reading our education materials for things you might want to consider if you decide to reprice items to recover shipping costs.

3. When you use the smart pricing tool, you’ll be turning on a shop-wide free shipping guarantee so all of the items in your shop will either ship free to US buyers (if they’re $35+) or will be eligible to ship free if bundled with other items in a $35+ order.

Thanks again!

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Re: Q&A with Etsy admin: A new tool to start offering a free shipping guarantee

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A few shops have reported that when they run a sale, those listing now under the $35 dollar threshold show Free Shipping based on the higher price before the sale.

Shouldn't items that are on sale which now fall under the $35 dollar FS Guarantee be "Free Shipping Eligible" instead of "Free Shipping"? 

Why is the Free Shipping badge based on original price instead of the sale price?

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Re: Q&A with Etsy admin: A new tool to start offering a free shipping guarantee

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@MixieAndMoxie wrote:

A few shops have reported that when they run a sale, those listing now under the $35 dollar threshold show Free Shipping based on the higher price before the sale.

Shouldn't items that are on sale which now fall under the $35 dollar FS Guarantee be "Free Shipping Eligible" instead of "Free Shipping"? 

Why is the Free Shipping badge based on original price instead of the sale price?


Hey there! Thanks for reporting this @MixieAndMoxie. Our team is investigating ways to improve this behavior. While we don’t have a timeline for when a change will happen, rest assured we’re actively looking into this.

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Re: Q&A with Etsy admin: A new tool to start offering a free shipping guarantee

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How can we reduce the shipping costs for International buyers on US Free Shipping items using calculated rather than fixed priced shipping?

Raising listing prices for free US shipping will hurt the International buyer market due to higher item costs & increased VAT fees.  Is there a way to give them a pricing break through lower shipping cost.

Using fixed priced shipping for International shipping is difficult since item weights & destinations vary greatly.

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Re: Q&A with Etsy admin: A new tool to start offering a free shipping guarantee

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@MixieAndMoxie wrote:

How can we reduce the shipping costs for International buyers on US Free Shipping items using calculated rather than fixed priced shipping?

Raising listing prices for free US shipping will hurt the International buyer market due to higher item costs & increased VAT fees.  Is there a way to give them a pricing break through lower shipping cost.

Using fixed priced shipping for International shipping is difficult since item weights & destinations vary greatly.


Hi again! Many thanks for your questions. We also appreciate the feedback you’ve shared here.

How you decide to price your items is your decision. If you've included handling fee in your calculated shipping profile, you could reduce that - doing this would lower the total amount that international shoppers pay. You might also consider grouping similarly sized items into a single fixed price shipping profile and then use Etsy's Price Your Postage tool to estimate shipping costs to different countries, and incorporate that into your overall pricing strategy. I hope this helps!

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Re: Q&A with Etsy admin: A new tool to start offering a free shipping guarantee

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hello  :)

 

I've been offering free shipping for several years across my shop for the US.  I don't want my customers to have to purchase $35 or more to get this perk I've already been offering. Do I need to change anything for priority placement?  I did try to go through and do the FS Guarantee on my dashboard, but then it looks like they have to spend $35 or more when there is already free shipping, does that make sense?  Once I saw that I went back to how I've been doing it. My entire shop is already free shipping in the US, will I still have the 'priority placement' in search?  Thank you for your help and response!

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GRITSGirlz
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Re: Q&A with Etsy admin: A new tool to start offering a free shipping guarantee

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Free shipping is free shipping.  If you offer it on all items without any conditions, then you are all set.

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Re: Q&A with Etsy admin: A new tool to start offering a free shipping guarantee

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@DebbraObertanecArt wrote:

hello  :)

 

I've been offering free shipping for several years across my shop for the US.  I don't want my customers to have to purchase $35 or more to get this perk I've already been offering. Do I need to change anything for priority placement?  I did try to go through and do the FS Guarantee on my dashboard, but then it looks like they have to spend $35 or more when there is already free shipping, does that make sense?  Once I saw that I went back to how I've been doing it. My entire shop is already free shipping in the US, will I still have the 'priority placement' in search?  Thank you for your help and response!


Hi Debbra :)

Listings that already ship free to the US are eligible for the same prioritization in search as listings that offer a free shipping guarantee (i.e. free shipping on US orders over $35), so you don't need to change anything about your existing listings in order to qualify for the search benefit. That said, you might consider  turning on a free shipping guarantee if you want all the listings you create in the future to automatically be eligible for the search prioritization (in case they are below $35 and you decide that you want to charge a shipping price for when they’re sold as part of an order less than $35, and wanted to be eligible for search prioritization). Of course, if you plan for all of your new listings to ship for free without any minimum spend, those items will also get priority placement in search. I hope this helps!

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Re: Q&A with Etsy admin: A new tool to start offering a free shipping guarantee

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I offer free shipping for everything, no matter the cost. What happens if I offer for $35 and up? If I turn that feature on, will it change my shipping to only be free for $35 and up?

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Re: Q&A with Etsy admin: A new tool to start offering a free shipping guarantee

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@FabuEllaEmbroidery wrote:

I offer free shipping for everything, no matter the cost. What happens if I offer for $35 and up? If I turn that feature on, will it change my shipping to only be free for $35 and up?


Hi Beth - great question, and glad to hear that you're already offering free shipping across the board. Turning on a free shipping guarantee in your shipping settings won't "undo" free shipping on your current listings -- they'll continue to ship free without being subject to the $35 threshold. These listings will also be eligible for priority placement in search. Hope this helps!

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Re: Q&A with Etsy admin: A new tool to start offering a free shipping guarantee

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I am in Canada. Will the shipping tool for non-US sellers allow us to select Domestic (Canada) and US only? 

I want to offer the Free Shipping Guarantee $35+ only for Canada and the United States.
I do not want it to apply to overseas shipping, because those shipping costs are at least double, so $35 minimum is too low. 

 

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PodushkaStudio
Community Specialist
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Re: Q&A with Etsy admin: A new tool to start offering a free shipping guarantee

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@PrairieCrocusStudio wrote:

I am in Canada. Will the shipping tool for non-US sellers allow us to select Domestic (Canada) and US only? 

I want to offer the Free Shipping Guarantee $35+ only for Canada and the United States.
I do not want it to apply to overseas shipping, because those shipping costs are at least double, so $35 minimum is too low. 


Hi @PrairieCrocusStudio, thanks for the question! You can offer a free shipping guarantee on orders of $35 USD or more for your US buyers, and you can offer a conditional free shipping sale with your choice of spend threshold to your Canadian buyers, but not for buyers from other countries. The way you go about this for your US and Canadian buyers will look a little different. For your US buyers, you’ll set up a free shipping guarantee. For your Canadian buyers, you’ll set up a special offer. 

If you go into Shipping Settings, you can select to offer a US free delivery guarantee, which will turn on shop-wide settings that will offer free shipping to a US buyer who spends $35 USD or more in your shop. It will also give items from your shop priority placement in US search results starting 30 July. 

If you want to provide free shipping with a minimum spend threshold to your Canadian buyers, you can go into Sales and Coupons to set up a new special offer that gives free delivery to domestic customers when they hit or exceed a specified order minimum. 

Once you’ve set both of these offers up, US buyers who do not exceed the order minimum of $35 USD, will pay for shipping based on your existing Shipping Profiles. Canadian buyers who do not exceed whatever order minimum you selected for your sale, as well as buyers from outside of the US and Canada, will also pay for shipping based on your existing Shipping Profiles. 

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Re: Q&A with Etsy admin: A new tool to start offering a free shipping guarantee

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Can this only edit active listings? and where is the tool available when not setting up the free shipping guarantee - for eg if we want to use it again nearer Christmas when we reactivate the Christmas listing

Also 
What is the legality of saying 'free shipping' when you have clearly used a tool to add the shipping price to the listing - would it not be better to say 'shipping included' 

 

and finally 

Rather than having us decide whether or not to make all these changes would it not be better to just show the customer the total price to them including shipping to their location from the search page

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Re: Q&A with Etsy admin: A new tool to start offering a free shipping guarantee

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@BenMcfuzzylugs wrote:

Can this only edit active listings? and where is the tool available when not setting up the free shipping guarantee - for eg if we want to use it again nearer Christmas when we reactivate the Christmas listing

Also 
What is the legality of saying 'free shipping' when you have clearly used a tool to add the shipping price to the listing - would it not be better to say 'shipping included' 

 

and finally 

Rather than having us decide whether or not to make all these changes would it not be better to just show the customer the total price to them including shipping to their location from the search page


Thanks for participating in our Q&A!

The smart pricing tool will only apply to active listings. However, you’ll be turning on a shop-wide free shipping guarantee so all of the items in your shop will ship for free when sold as part of an order $35 or more.

Our goal with this initiative is to empower sellers to offer free shipping to meet buyer expectations if they choose to do so. As always, you need to make decisions for your business that make sense for you. You may find some of the related information we shared here, in our other Q&A, helpful in this case.

Thanks again for your questions!

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Re: Q&A with Etsy admin: A new tool to start offering a free shipping guarantee

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I have an ethical issue with this.  I sell small, reasonably light-weight options.  Currently I have a $4, 3-ounce item that costs $2.66 to ship.  Usuing calculated shipping, I charge *2.66* to ship!  My item is worth $4 so I charge $4 and then I add whatever the USPS says I have to pay to get it to my customer.

If someone buys 4 of this item, calculated shipping costs $3.82 for the 12 ounces.  Or a total of $19.82.

However, if I "absorb" the cost of shipping into the item so I can send the item for 'free', I'd have to charge $6.22 for one.  And then it becomes $24.88 for 4.  So... I'm collecting $5 on postage that I'm not *spending* on postage.  How is that ethical?

And this will hit almost every single one of my customers, because I have very, very few orders that are over $35.  So now I have an item worth $4, that I'm selling for $6.22, but that my customer will pay $8.44 for because they won't get free shipping becuase they want one $4 item, not $35 worth of anything, so they have to pay shipping on top of my 'absorbed' shipping cost???  I'll have zero customers.  This would put an end to my 11 years of selling on Etsy.  I cannot do this and it angers me that I'm being penalized in the listings because I won't charge, basically, double what an item is worth.

And yes, I know you'll say I'm not being penalized, but when I get moved DOWN in the rankings because I won't overcharge and others get moved up for doing it, I'm going to see it as being penalized.

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Re: Q&A with Etsy admin: A new tool to start offering a free shipping guarantee

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@WizardAtWork wrote:

I have an ethical issue with this.  I sell small, reasonably light-weight options.  Currently I have a $4, 3-ounce item that costs $2.66 to ship.  Usuing calculated shipping, I charge *2.66* to ship!  My item is worth $4 so I charge $4 and then I add whatever the USPS says I have to pay to get it to my customer.

If someone buys 4 of this item, calculated shipping costs $3.82 for the 12 ounces.  Or a total of $19.82.

However, if I "absorb" the cost of shipping into the item so I can send the item for 'free', I'd have to charge $6.22 for one.  And then it becomes $24.88 for 4.  So... I'm collecting $5 on postage that I'm not *spending* on postage.  How is that ethical?

And this will hit almost every single one of my customers, because I have very, very few orders that are over $35.  So now I have an item worth $4, that I'm selling for $6.22, but that my customer will pay $8.44 for because they won't get free shipping becuase they want one $4 item, not $35 worth of anything, so they have to pay shipping on top of my 'absorbed' shipping cost???  I'll have zero customers.  This would put an end to my 11 years of selling on Etsy.  I cannot do this and it angers me that I'm being penalized in the listings because I won't charge, basically, double what an item is worth.

And yes, I know you'll say I'm not being penalized, but when I get moved DOWN in the rankings because I won't overcharge and others get moved up for doing it, I'm going to see it as being penalized.


Hi @WizardAtWork!

Thanks for your question.  We understand your concern here.  Given that most of your orders are below the $35 price threshold, you might decide that you want to set up this shop wide shipping over $35 without it impacting your business too much--your typical orders below $35 can still have a shipping costs associated with them that is charged to buyers.   Ultimately, deciding if offering free shipping is right for your shop is your decision. And of course, if you do decide to offer free shipping, it doesn’t mean you have to recover your shipping costs within your item price. For example, you could see if offering free shipping with a $35 spend minimum increases your average order value from US customers and whether free shipping impacts your conversion rate. You may be pleasantly surprised with the results, or you may determine that it just isn’t the right option for your shop. 

I hope this helps.

Good luck with your shop!

Thanks!

Nathan

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