Who Pays for Free Shipping?

Across all markets, amazon to soil samples, free shipping has been a big market driver for the past 10 or so years. When something is shipped, the shipping company still charges, so who pays the bill?

The real cost of free shipping is either estimated per package or averaged over all the items if the products are uniform, either way that amount is added to the selling price of the product. This can bring up a variety of scenarios for both the customer and the seller. The seller can often account for many of these, often to the benefit of the seller.

With the inflation of goods and services along with increases in actual shipping costs, the prices of shipped goods with free shipping have increased significantly due to these synergistic costs.

ALGL made the decision not to offer free shipping several years ago and the reasons supporting that decision have remained valid. ALGL does offer a discounted UPS ground shipping rate to our customers. All our volume of inbound and outbound UPS freight leads to a significant volume discount. The actual cost to ship the samples is transferred to your account. Not free shipping, but as cost effective as can be provided.

No free shipping allows ALGL customers to make the best possible decisions for their business. Clients can directly compare shipping samples through our UPS program to other shipping options such as in-person delivery.  Clients closer to the lab can deliver samples directly to the lab in leu of shipping without being subject to shipping costs included in the sample price. When clients collect soil samples in a season in advance, they can deliver/ship samples after the collection seasons, maybe utilizing RTL freight carriers at a much lower price point.

Free shipping seems like a good deal, but is it? Contact your ALGL Sales Agronomist to help work through the best shipping options for your business.