> We can't get it without shipping. Don't quote prices that are impossible to achieve.
This, exactly.
When I first glanced and thought "Oh, $150 a year? That's not too bad." Then I looked closer and saw the shipping cost was extra.
It's not that the extra shipping cost was necessarily prohibitive, it's just that there's some sort of psychological effect (sticker shock, I guess?) where you think you know what the price of something is, and are disappointed to learn that's not really the price at all.
This assumes that the shipping rates will be the same anywhere that they serve. That's usually an incorrect assumption. This format allows for variations in the shipping while keeping the same unit price.
Edit: Although, I am confused that they send me through the Paypal service before collecting my shipping address. Are they actually quoting me a price based on IP geolocation? That's kind of a dumb assumption; I send half of my traffic through a private VPN. I could probably save quite a bit of money by switching to U.S. East coast server for the payment processing.
You're not wrong, but it just seems like bad design. Why do they still show shipping rates at all, if the separate price/shipping prices are meant to deal with the uncertainty of shipping fees?
I'm not sure if they're altering the page based on geo-ip or not, but what I'm seeing on their page is "$14/mo (plus low 5.99 shipping) and $150/yr (plus 69.99 shipping)."
Why not just say $20/mo or $220/yr (additional shipping fees may be required for non North American customers)? It seems like that would be less likely to cause the sort of complaint had by gergles.
Geolocation is not a reliable way to detect a shipping address (you could be using a VPN for instance). If you don't separate the shipping cost then it would be harder to tell the client why the final price is different to the initial quote.
This, exactly.
When I first glanced and thought "Oh, $150 a year? That's not too bad." Then I looked closer and saw the shipping cost was extra.
It's not that the extra shipping cost was necessarily prohibitive, it's just that there's some sort of psychological effect (sticker shock, I guess?) where you think you know what the price of something is, and are disappointed to learn that's not really the price at all.