[ericskiff]

Personally, it’s never been about free shipping for me. It’s shipping inclusive pricing.

It’s the same reason I will always toggle the “include fees” on Airbnb’s search interface. Just tell me the real price.

Upfront pricing and an assumption I’ll get the item in 1-3 days is the real value prop, and I’m still a happy customer of that product

[stavros]

This article makes no sense. Just include the shipping in the price and that's it. Article unnecessary.

[randomdata]

> Just include the shipping in the price and that's it.

Hard problem, though. I can ship to locals, which is the vast majority of my customer base, for practically free. But occasionally I get a far-away order where shipping is tremendously expensive.

If the price is inclusive, all my local customers have to pay substantially more just to cover the occasional order from far away. That's a lot for them to burden, and likely they'll stop buying. Nobody will pay an infinite amount for something. Alternatively, I could cut off sales to those in far away places, but that doesn't help me or them. They are buying from me because they want my product.

The obvious solution is simply to let those in far away places who still want to buy the product to pay a shipping fee on top commensurable with the added costs of getting the product to them.