When you get a refund it doesn’t include shipping. So yep.
Yep it’s the return shipping that gets you. I order from REI but the closest store is 2 hours so I go 1-2x a year. Often my orders have free shipping but return shipping is prohibitively expensive. This keeps me from buying some things from their online store, either waiting to go in person or ordering it somewhere else. Or most likely, paying a bit more to get something similar locally.
Makes a difference when asking for a refund. No one refunds delivery charges.
Actually, in Germany shops have to also refund shipping cost. There may be exceptions for large or heavy goods that require delivery by freight forwarding companies, but general parcel delivery via DHL or similar services definetly have to be refunded.
We have to buy school uniforms online. This one place shipped two pairs of pants, $20 each, same size, but one didn’t pair fit. Cost us $10 to return them. Return pricing on clothes is bullshit
eBay:
Item $5
Shipping $25
Buying on Ali Express:
- Buy for $2
- Click on item
- $75 shipping cost
- No way to sort by total cost
No way to sort by total cost
But you can filter by free shipping.
Anyway, yeah, what an irrational decision the OP discovered.
This has not been my experience at all, delivery is almost always free for purchases over something like $20.
You can forget entirely about returns though, zero chance to get one of those to work
There’s not even anything-close to a 100% chance you will even get your items.
I have ordered many things from Ali express, and sometimes the sellers cancel the order because they can’t fulfill it but I’ve never been charged for something that didn’t arrive. I’ve also never bought something expensive enough that it would be a problem if it doesn’t arrive, as I know it’s just a marketplace where I’m sure scammers exist.
We must be shopping for different kinds of things, though I have exaggerated the shipping costs, I find it hard to work out what the cheapest item is. I have also commonly found what someone else mentioned, that they have different items for each “colour”, and have something cheap on one colour and the thing you actually want for a lot more on another colour. You search for the thing you want, and it comes up in the search showing the price for the thing you don’t want because the system things they are different colours of the same thing when it’s not.
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australia: $30 product, free shipping to north america, $20 shipping to australia… guess i’m subsidising y’all’s shipping while also getting fucked aye?!
Or $30 product, and “sorry we don’t ship to your location”
Or the fairly regular $30 product with $75 shipping.
De Minimus got dropped last Friday in the US. This means that goods valued at less than $800US can no longer be shipped duty free. And the rules of how to go about who assesses and collects the import taxes is not clear. So many postal services around the world are now refusing to ship to the US.
And Australia is one. So you are now down to fucking yourself…
shipping TO the US though… when shipping from a lot of places in the US that say free shipping for north america and incorporating that into their product cost, we subsidise your shipping and our own exorbitant rate
but i was already doing that
Tried to buy a shirt the other day. I realized it was an Australian company when I got to checkout and shipping had $23 USD stacked on the total price to cover for duties. So it was like a $34 shirt, with $75 for shipping + duties. Oof. Did not buy.
But I’ve been assured the dirty foreigners would have to pay all the republican’s tariffs?
yeah its pretty standard for australia: +50% of the cost of the item in shipping
As an Australian, I was trying to buy a record (only available from the US, from a small independent artist). The record was about $60AUD, very reasonable. The shipping was $70AUD. I didn’t buy it.
Or another small artist manufactured a super cool colour splitting lamp. Lamp was about $140, quite reasonable. Shipping was about $110. I didn’t buy it.
Supporting any small american artist is just not justifiable.
one of our customers at work has two online shops: one with everything free shipping but higher prices and one with lower prices and shipping extra. both go well. i can’t say their names tho, because he’s afraid people would be angry if they find out it’s basically the same offers in both shops 😄
Guess it better to get the expensive one if not sure whether you will return as then you’ll get shipping refunded as it was factored into the price.
Depends on how many I’m buying and if shipping is cheaper for multiple items.
25+25+5 is cheaper than 30+30+0.
On sites where people tend to sort by low price, keep shipping separate.
On sites where people buy based on emotion, give free shipping to improve conversion rates and close the deal.
Or don’t hack peoples brains and just say hey here is product, you want it? Click here.
It’s a rat race. If you don’t, someone will and you lose.
Ordering on aliexpress:
$5 item, free shipping but it crosses the ocean on the back of the next available sea turtle, and if you have any issues they’ll send you a replacement component and a loose guide on how to desolder the old component and solder the new component.
But it was worth a try
Ali is very good for stuff that you can’t really mess up and still get good reviews from unknowing people. Like stickers, cases and such.
$30 and a $5 discount when picking up at the shop
