[rhapsodic]

> Shipping(A+B) is typically less than Shipping(A) + Shipping(B).

In most cases shipping is a cost that's associated with an order, not with the item.

That's true, but they could provide the marginal shipping cost of an item before it's added to the cart:

Shipping(currentCartContents + thisItem) - Shipping(currentCartContents)

In many cases the marginal shipping cost would be 0.

[paulmd]

Well, that's confusing too. If you show a shipping cost on the item, your average consumer would expect that they could buy just that item for that shipping price. After all, doesn't everyone hate the Amazon Add-On Program for exactly that reason? It's Prime but not really Prime.

What if you have multiple tabs open? If you add another product in the meantime then the shipping cost quoted would be totally inaccurate. Could be too high, could also be too low depending on how your order crosses the weight/size thresholds.

Also, that would mean that you have to total up the weights and hit the shipping API for every single page request. Right now you usually only get an icon that tells you "3 items in cart", sometimes not even that much. If you have multiple warehouses this gets even more complex, you essentially have an NP-complete optimization problem. That may not even be possible to do in real time, let alone on every page load.

I just disagree in general over the value of the feature here. There is a lot of potential for misinformation and confusion, and consumers are already trained that they go to the shopping cart to get the shipping price. The shopping cart (the order) is the quantum used for shipping costs and it makes sense to put it there.

Again, to echo others, I hate sites that make me log in and go through the checkout process to get a shipping cost. But there's nothing wrong with going to the shopping cart and typing in my ZIP.

[Johnny555]

I'm fine with Amazon's add-on program - it lets me get small low-priced items much cheaper than they would be if they were priced to cover the shipping cost.

For example, a 2 pack of Sharpie pens is $1.77 with "add-on" shipping, $3.09 from a non-amazon merchant with 1 week shipping, or $6.98 from Amazon for prime 2 day shipping.

If I'm not in a hurry, I can either add it to my cart and keep it there until I find $23 more stuff to purchase, or I can buy the $3.09 product and wait a week for it to arrive.

If I'm in a hurry, I can pay the $7 or keep shopping until I hit the $25 add-on shipping limit (which is usually not too hard to do, I can add laundry detergent or some other consumables that I know I'll need).

What's not to like? Fast shipping if I want it (and am willing to pay for it), slower shipping if I don't.

Still better than making a special trip to Office Max (a 20 minute drive) just to get a pen.

[rhapsodic]

> Well, that's confusing too. If you show a shipping cost on the item, your average consumer would expect that they could buy just that item for that shipping price.

Displaying it as "If you add this item to your current order, it would increase the order's shipping cost by an estimated $0.00" ought to allay any such confusion.

> If you have multiple warehouses this gets even more complex, you essentially have an NP-complete optimization problem. That may not even be possible to do in real time, let alone on every page load.

The shipping cost of the items in the cart could be calculated once whenever the contents of the cart changes, and the number cached. So you'd be doing one shipping calculation per page load, for the contents in the cart plus the item being viewed. And NPC or not, I don't think that would be prohibitively computationally expensive in most cases. After all, people don't typically order thousands of different products, that might ship from any of hundreds of different warehouses, in a single online order. If it made someone more likely to click the "Add to Cart" button on a given item, it might be worth it. And you could have some threshold (number of different products on the order, for example) above which the marginal shipping cost is not calculated and displayed.

[jkestner]

I think y'all are proving the appeal of "free shipping". Retailers provide convenience, and people expect that figuring out the nooks and crannies of shipping costs is part of the service.

If it were about cost and not convenience, Jet's algorithms would've beaten out Amazon.

[rhizome]

Displaying it as "If you add this item to your current order, it would increase the order's shipping cost by an estimated $0.00" ought to allay any such confusion.

This seems like bad IA, and visually expensive.

[Programmatic]

I think the solution would be to create a system where:

1) we have a minimum amount to hit before the marginal shipping cost is $0,

2) build the shipping cost into our margins, and

3) advertise that the marginal cost is $0.

[Jemmeh]

So basically Amazon's free shipping deal. Prime items if you're not a prime member over a certain $ amount gets free shipping.

[Programmatic]

;)