Free Shipping Strategy

[frost]

So is it generally frowned upon to buy up a bunch of crap you don't want (with the intention of returning it in-store) on sites that offer free shipping with a relatively high dollar minimum purchase?


Discuss.

[Ben]

frowned upon? probably.


smart? probably.

[jason_carreira]

I usually work hard to find something I think I'll keep to get up to free shipping. I've walked away from stuff in my shopping cart when I couldn't.

[frost]

yup. I just bought a full price pair of italian driving shoes in the wrong size, and ugly $14 socks that will be heading straight back to the store.. all to save $9

[mixto]

Well, I do it only if my "real" purchase account for the majority of what's in my cart. To me, filler shouldn't exceed the "real" purchase, probably no more than 1/4 of the price.

[trash]

I just paid $9 in shipping on a J Crew order, completely forgot I could have thrown in another item to get to the free shipping threshold. Thing is, that "filler" would have needed to be a $100 item (or items I guess), so not sure I would have done that anyway. Generally I have no problem adding items to get to a free shipping level if it's stuff I genuinely want to try out, or if I'm buying a couple sizes of a single item to see which one fits better. I haven't paid any shipping to a retailer in quite a while, so I guess $9 to J Crew isn't so bad (not to mention getting to a J Crew store is a bit out of the way for me anyway).

[frost]

yeah. My filler items were $150.


$9 for shipping is complete BS if you take into consideration how overpriced many of their items are, and how much of a regular customer I am. They should have some kind of VIP program that stipulates that anyone spending over X amount of dollars in a given year is entitled to free shipping across the board.


Paid shipping wouldn't be such a tragedy if I didn't have to pay tax as well.