Shipping eating up Amazon's profits? Rarely do I ever order anything
besides books from Amazon, because they are never the
low price. (Though I've read that supposedly their strategy is
changing in that regard.) But I wanted a pre-wound replacement
spool for my Ryobi string trimmer, and none of the local hardware
stores carried it, and I didn't feel like trekking to an authorized
Ryobi dealer.
So I searched on the web, and Amazon was the only place I found
that carried it. $10--more than it should be, but still much
better than fooling with hand-winding. So I started to place
my order, at which point I discovered: 1) Shipping was another
$10, doubling the cost; 2) Orders of $25 or more got free shipping.
So I decided I might as well order 2 spools, then find some cheap
thing to get me to $25, because it would be cheaper to pay $5
for nothing and get free shipping, than to order 2 @ $10 each
and pay for shipping. So I got a micro mag lite for Beth's purse.
So a few days later I got a notice that the micro-lite had shipped
in advance of the spools. A few days after that, I got a notice
that 1 of the 2 spools had shipped. Then a few days after that,
the final spool shipped.
So, one $25 order, 3 shipments with no extra charge. This gives
rise to two thoughts. First of all, at Amazon's stated shipping
cost of almost $10 per shipment, they lost a boatload of money
on this order, because they made 3 shipments and I only spent
$25. Second of all, I think they must have lost money on this
order, but not as much as their stated shipping costs suggests.
My conclusion is that they are inflating (inflating in the sense
of cost-accounting decision, not in the sense of something illegal
or unethical) their shipping costs for small orders, to push
people to place bigger orders. Not an insensible thing to do,
and it worked on me. Except, at least in my one anecdotal case,
it wound up costing them: instead of a small, profitable sale
of a $10 item with, say, a break-even $5 shipping charge, they
lost money.
10:11:22 AM 
|
|
