I agree. I’d just prefer to offer NO FREE SHIPPING than to offer it at $35. It’s my shop, my margins. I’m so f-ing tired of them telling us how our shops should be run.
I offer free shipping on orders over $50. I set it up two ways. 1: I have a "free" shipping profile that is connected to every item over $50 in the shop. 2: I have my coupon code for free shipping over $50 in every listing.
Yes, I end up having to refund shipping if someone doesn't use the code. I have to refund shipping because combined weight doesn't work like it's supposed to as well, so it's just become part of my routine to check the shipping paid when I'm packing orders.
Etsys own customer service didn’t even know they took away the ability to have a free ship at minimum. I contacted them and they said it should be right where it always was and explaining that it’s no longer there they escalated the issue up! Sooo frustrating. Glad I’m not losing my mind though.
I dont get how some sellers can sell an item for 3.50 and the cost to ship for 3.50 thats 7 dollars. then when I did this I got charged 5.25 for my package and that doesnt count the materials for the item or the packing to mail it. How can someone make money when they make the 7 dollars and 5,25 comes out of the cost of shipping and after costs to etsy and listing price of 20 cents, I have been scratching my head over this all day.
Do these sellers have a deal with some special shipper? I would love to give my buyers a good deal like 3.50 per a hand torn ribbon.
But there is no profit.
Can anyone direct me? (I am still new here) and would love some input.
International shipping is covered by the Universal Postal Union, an international body that is now part of the United Nations. Part of the UPU is that "developing nations" get their postal rates subsidized by "industrialized nations". China is still considered a "developing nation" under the UPU so it gets the lowest rates, which is why it is so difficult for US sellers to compete. It isn't an even playing field. And add on that it is our tax dollars paying to subsidize it, it adds insult to injury.
It now looks that even if you offer a Free Shipping Sale or Free Shipping Promo, your items don’t show up with the “Free Shipping” filter on the search page. Now your items show up ONLY if you offer their standard $35 FSG. They used to show up and now they don’t.
All of this used to work fine but Etsy said “Oh, no you don’t”. It’s amazing the time and energy Etsy spends preventing sellers from running their shop “their way”. They obviously had to have a meeting about this, develop and write a code specification, have developers make the change, test it and push the code out to their production servers. All so we couldn’t easily change our free shipping to a higher amount. Think about this folks!!
What is Etsy’s fixation with this $35 Free Shipping offer?
If you have a free shipping profile, it will show up as free shipping whether you have the FSG or not. With the FSG, free shipping only appears on the listing if the item is $35 or more. If you are still lucky enough to be able to set up a free shipping coupon with a minimum or even without, coupons don't show you have to give them out. Again if you are lucky and still able to set up a free shipping sale with a minimum then it only shows if the item meets the minimum. If you don't cancel the FSG it is pointless to set up a sale with a higher minimum any way. The FSG rules.
Free Shipping in a Shipping Profile is a different thing. We are talking about Free Shipping Coupons set up via Marketing > Sales and Discounts.
Some Shops have lost the ability to create a Coupon for Free Shipping witn a Minimum $ Spend or Number of Items as they now have "Run a Sale" and Encourage Bigger Orders" Sales Format.
I have been using a promo code for a minimum of $50.00 for quite some time. For regular domestic shipping only. Etsy had priority shipping with the regular shipping in their free shipping guarentee and customers started selecting priority mail and there was no way to turn it off. So I bailed out of the Etsy shipping guarentee and have been doing my own free shipping with fifty or over.
@StonesAndLeatherUS What we are sayingher is that option is no longer offered to the many Shops which have been "upgraded" to the "Encourage Bigger Orders" Sale as a separate process from "Run a Sale"
What worries me in this change most is that it has automatically disadvantaged the sellers (especially new ones) who did not have this feature (sale) already configured. Yes, I can create a coupon and put it into all of my listings, but this is not as streamlined as an automated notification about the shipping discount
