Should you really be offering free shipping?

International shipping costs have skyrocketed and in my opinion, the days of offering free shipping are over - unless the products you're selling are very light weight such as pharmaceutical tablets, underwear or sarongs.

Another problem with free shipping is that shipping is never really free - it's often just incorporated into the selling price. If a seller does this but then has a 20% off sale, that component of the sale price is now also reduced by 20%!

While 90% of consumers may regard free shipping as the top incentive that would encourage them to shop online more often and result in less shopping cart abandonment, this doesn't change the outcome. If your customer is not paying for the shipping, directly or indirectly (eg. through inflated pricing), then you, as the seller, are wearing this expense.

So be careful about offering free shipping as you may just find that you're shooting yourself in the foot with little by way of profit, if any.