Hi, everyone!
Thanks for making your way over to the Etsy Success section. We hope you’ve had a chance to review Josh’s Announcement on how we’re making it easier for US shoppers to find items that ship free. We know many of you may have questions and we're here to help!
Today and tomorrow, Madison, Bryan, Perry, Michele, and Nathan from the Etsy team will be hosting a Q&A on offering a free shipping guarantee. What questions do you have about this new guarantee?
Here are the Q&A details:
- Share your questions about this change in this thread from now until Wednesday, July 10. We will close the thread that evening at 9pm ET.
- Etsy staff will answer questions by 5pm ET on Thursday, July 11.
- It is unlikely we will be able to answer all questions, so 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 prioritize answering questions with the most Likes.
And a few housekeeping notes:
- This Q&A is to address questions about how we’re making it easier for shoppers in the US to find items that ship free. 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.
One last note: if you are unable to make this Q&A, the team will be back next week to answer your questions about the new smart pricing tool that is designed to help you offer a free shipping to your US buyers and recover shipping costs. The tool should be available to all US sellers with items $35 and over next week, and all other sellers in August.
Thanks, all. We're looking forward to your questions!
Agree with you all. Amazon provides the tools to gate customers upfront, tools that work 100% right. I'm A-OK with Etsy making data driven changes, but not providing the tools to do it right is a big problem.
I follow my market. If we need to cancel unprofitable orders or ask customers for surcharges, I will because my competition will (heavy items are a tight market, none of us can absorb nationwide free shipping and offer competitive prices local). But that's just bad customer experience.
I'm under the impression there is no penalty to cancelling orders now.
This! Totally this!
I'm happy to offer free shipping and incorporate that cost. After all, buyers already pay the total anyway, so they're obviously happy to do so.
But, I can't add the US shipping cost to all buyers, even those here in the UK. I'd be overcharging them by about 4X as much it should be!
Great question! Adding shipping into the price only works if it's a flat rate shipping but since USPS now has calculated rates for First Class-Priority Mail, how would you role that in when it varies.
I sell vintage and every piece is different, so as others have stated, shipping costs vary by destination. I am on the east coast and sell to many buyers on the west coast. Because of this I will not offer free shipping on these mostly heavy items--ever.
My biggest issue is that we should not be penalized in the search results. That is also unfair to buyers who are looking for a specific item, common with vintage and antiques. My item might be overwhelmed by others that merely have one or two tags that match mine but are not the item being searched. My prices are very affordable, and people seldom ask for reductions, so I can deal with losing that 20 percent. I just find being punished for that choice offensive.
Yes! This is my question as well. If we must offer free shipping, is there a way to price according to location? It's not just vintage that has to deal with this. A 36x48 inch canvas costs much, much more to ship to the opposite coast than it does to the next state.
I would also like to see more of the data because I am not seeing what Josh describes in my shop. Instead, I see sales disappear when I offer free shipping until I charge for it again. This really has me concerned if we are being strong-armed into free shipping. Not only that, but more than 50% of my clients select a shipping upgrade. Does free shipping allow them to upgrade and actually pay for shipping if they want to?
NO
I'd like to see all of your issues addressed, also! Plus....1) will we be penalized for not offering international sales altogether? At this time I don't offer returns/refunds of any kind. 2) Am I being cast down to search page 700+ for not offering returns/refund?
@1337ShadyStudios wrote:Can we vary prices based on customer location? Can we gate customers by location or zip code? Are we required to offer free shipping to the non-continental US? Are we penalized for cancelling orders that are not possible to ship cost effectively? Can we see more of the data that led to this decision? Can we see data on shipping heavy items?
Hey, @1337ShadyStudios!
Thanks for your questions. I can speak to the data point. Below we have some of the stats and figures we used as part of our decision making. While these statistics are general, they are inclusive of heavy items:
I hope this is helpful in understanding how we came to our decision.
Thanks!
Nathan
@1337ShadyStudios wrote:
Can we vary prices based on customer location? Can we gate customers by location or zip code? Are we required to offer free shipping to the non-continental US? Are we penalized for cancelling orders that are not possible to ship cost effectively? Can we see more of the data that led to this decision? Can we see data on shipping heavy items?
Hi @1337ShadyStudios! Thanks for all the questions! I’ll try to cover most of them and then Nathan from our research team will jump into cover your questions around data. It is not currently possible to set prices based on customer location or to gate customers based on zip code.
Setting up a free shipping guarantee for your shop is not required, but if you do decide to offer one it means that all of your listings will be eligible to ship for free to or within the US when a US shopper spends $35 USD or more in your shop (excluding applicable taxes). Alternatively, if you’d like, you can also select individual listings in your shop to ship free (without the $35 USD minimum) and they will also have priority placement in US search results.
This doesn't change Etsy’s policy on cancelling orders. You can learn more about our policy here.
Based on a survey from April this year, nearly two thirds (62%) of buyers said that a free shipping guarantee would encourage them to shop for things they might not otherwise buy
We learned from a promotion that we ran in May that buyers in the cart are 20% more likely to purchase when their shipping costs are free than when they’re not, holding total price equal.
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1. Holding total price equal means that sellers would have to eat the shipping and not include it to get the same effect.
So why are you pretending Sellers can just add it on for the same effect?
2. Did you tell those buyers that free shipping would mean the shipping costs would be added on? They didn’t in the survey I got.
So let's actually look at the numbers a bit for non-US sellers.
US$35 is approximately £28 depending on exchange rates. I had an order of exactly £28 about a month ago, and Etsy fees were £1.95 (related to the fees of the sale) and £1.32 (related to payment processing fees). £28 minus those Etsy fees leaves you with £24.73. Now a lot of my items can be sent as large letter, for items over £20 Royal Mail state they should be sent tracked, so postage cost is £8.65 (that's 31% of the item price alone spent on "free USA shipping"). Taking that amount of leaves you with £16.08. Taking off packaging and parts costs, depending on the item made obviously varies, but using the costs involved for the item sale I mentioned above would leave me with a profit of £6.90 from a £28 sale that's only a quarter i.e. 25% of the price I sell for would be profit!
Whilst I understand I can adjust item prices, to adjust enough to provide "free" USA shipping, my items would be seriously overpriced for UK and European customers. How can non-USA sellers realistically deal with this situation?
Whoops! I accidentally posted my question to you instead of the main thread. Sorry about that!
The way I see it, this policy might not be good for many Etsy Sellers, as this same scenario applies to ALL sellers, U.S. included.
Thank you for breaking this down.
Etsy should therefore allow us to display different prices for different locations. Why should a UK based customer have to pay for US shipping?!
I have never had a US customer complain about the price of shipping. Etsy is supposed to be for small businesses. Free postage ('shipping') does not exist.
Thanks for breaking down the costs in your example. I'm too angry to work it out myself right now, but don't sell anything over $35.
Kim
my thought exactly. I am unable to factor free US shipping into my prices as this will make my makes seriously overpriced for the UK/EU market. Also what angers me most, is that free US shipping will get you higher in Etsy search. SAD and UNFAIR!
Great points. In addition, I've never had trouble attracting US buyers for some of my products which are unavailable anywhere else. They know this, and are more than happy to pay the required shipping - even if it means buying "all the way from Australia". Etsy should give more credit to buyers' ability to discern for themselves, whether or not they are prepared to pay for International shipping. This way, I can set the same, fair sales price on all items (for local customers as well as international), and the buyer makes their own choice, with full disclosure. (As a buyer myself, I dislike the secrecy of "free shipping" - because I know it cannot actually be free!)
I had every expectation that this policy change was going to be made. Like many Etsy Sellers, I am not happy about it, and not certain how this change will affect my particular business.
That said, I would appreciate any guidance Etsy can provide regarding “building in shipping costs” for heavy and/or bulky items. Depending on the shipping distance of the buyer, shipping costs can vary greatly. Also of concern, is the issue as to how Sellers of small, supply type items might effectively compete in this “Free Shipping” environment.
JO
NoHoJO
I am so disgusted by this policy change but of course, it is not a surprise. Glad it is over $35 and not $25 as was suggested previously.
I think sellers of bulky, heavy, coast-to-coast items are going to have to get creative to sustain our businesses. The last thing I want to do is start nickle and diming my customers for additional fees. Like airlines do. Should I charge for for drawer pulls?? We have to offer more for less now to get biz.
Agree completely with this. My items may cost 9.75 to send to Georgia from where I operate, but 18.00-20.00 to send to the west coast, so there is NO WAY to increase my prices to make this work.
Also, I pay for promoted listings and have for awhile because they work beautifully for me. I'm thinking that this 'rise to the top' for free shippers will now make promoted listing irrelevant? If that is the case at least that's one cost I can eliminate by just turning it off since free shippers will take the top listings anyway.
@NoHoJO wrote:I had every expectation that this policy change was going to be made. Like many Etsy Sellers, I am not happy about it, and not certain how this change will affect my particular business.
That said, I would appreciate any guidance Etsy can provide regarding “building in shipping costs” for heavy and/or bulky items. Depending on the shipping distance of the buyer, shipping costs can vary greatly. Also of concern, is the issue as to how Sellers of small, supply type items might effectively compete in this “Free Shipping” environment.
JO
NoHoJO
Hi there @NoHoJO, thanks for these questions. It’s ultimately up to you to decide how to price items in your shop, but we cover different strategies you can consider for pricing items like craft supplies and heavy items in this article.
I hope this helps!
Hello,
I have been in the process of changing my listings over to free shipping, with about 430 done and 80 left to change. Currently I have the free shipping set up under the Sales and Coupon section. Does it matter for placement sakes whethter the free shiping is set up in the Sales and Coupon section or the Delivery Settings?
Thank you,
Linda
@LindasJewelryShop I had the same question. The announcement kept using the phrase "free shipping guarantee." What does that mean? Are we supposed to edit our shipping profiles or set up an appropriate free shipping promotion every month? I'm sure this info will come out in the next couple weeks with the new tools, etc., but I need to start figuring out my pricing strategy now.
My question was along these lines too. The announcement said we would have a tool within the next week to help with this but I have had free shipping with a minimum order (higher than announced minimum for search placement) set up in my other shop since late last year. If I were to adjust that threshold to meet the $35 or less will my other shop be set to qualify or do I have to use whatever the new tool will be?