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A free shipping mystery

romain.goyet.com

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Re: A free shipping mystery

#51

Post by nerfhammer »

knowaveragejoe wrote: post #30
rogerbinns wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For us they seem to delay the shipping the item yet still claim two day shipping. For example ordering around midday (Pacific timezone) on a Thursday often results in the item not shipping until later on Monday, which then arrives Wednesday but more often Thursday morning. Every step on the way can be contrived as "two day", but it really took a week and that is the number we care about. We likely won't be renewing P…

To counter this anecdote with my own, I often get "2 day" shipping items delivered the day before they were supposed to arrive. Likewise, there's been multiple times where I've walked out the front door on the way to work at ~8AM and my package is already sitting there. Maybe it has something to do with location?

Another interesting case is when you select the slowest shipping option and it shows up in 24-48 hours anyway. Happens all the time.

Re: A free shipping mystery

#52

Post by tomp »

scholia wrote: post #26

The postal service is a networked delivery service, just like the Internet. The difference is that the data packets are physical envelopes. Now, the cost of running the postal service is the cost of supporting the whole network of delivery vans, sorting offices, collections and so on, including all the staff. The cost of supporting the network is the same whether it carries a very large number of packets or zero pack…

I don't buy this argument. This might explain free shipping to France (the country), but not free delivery to the OP (the physical address). There's not way you can make even a short 1km delivery profitable for 3 cents (except if you're delivering for a whole building at once, which seems very unlikely).

Re: A free shipping mystery

#53

Post by mikeash »

Retric wrote: post #45
mikeash wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By "ongoing costs" (maybe the wrong term) I mean costs related to the amount of traffic. The number of trucks or airplanes you need to run on any given day depends on how much traffic you carry. The amount of fuel you need to buy then depends on that. So does much of the maintenance you do, and how much you pay the workers. A postal network carrying zero traffic will be a lot cheaper to run than one carrying lots of…

Once you need to send a truck to someone's house, have someone get out and drop off one letter then adding a second letter has a tiny extra marginal cost. Further, there are some fuel savings from sending an air craft 1/4 full vs. 3/4 full but again there minimal in comparison to keeping the aircraft flying in the first place. Thus, from the post offices perspective they are much better off with a steady stream of tr…

Sure, but once the truck is full, sending one more letter needs an entire second truck. Average this across the system, and a route's costs per parcel are roughly equal to (cost of running one truck) / (number of parcels the truck carries).

Re: A free shipping mystery

#54

Post by guelo »

tomp wrote: post #52
scholia wrote: post #26

The postal service is a networked delivery service, just like the Internet. The difference is that the data packets are physical envelopes. Now, the cost of running the postal service is the cost of supporting the whole network of delivery vans, sorting offices, collections and so on, including all the staff. The cost of supporting the network is the same whether it carries a very large number of packets or zero pack…

I don't buy this argument. This might explain free shipping to France (the country), but not free delivery to the OP (the physical address). There's not way you can make even a short 1km delivery profitable for 3 cents (except if you're delivering for a whole building at once , which seems very unlikely).

Whether the mailman delivers the 3 cent button or not he still gets up in the morning, does his delivery rounds and collects the same paycheck.

Re: A free shipping mystery

#55

Post by ben174 »

dsugarman wrote: post #31

on a tangential note about free shipping, aside from this China mystery, there is no such thing as free shipping. free shipping is a marketing ploy which makes you feel like you are getting some value where you actually lose it. when you add the shipping component of an online purchase into the item price, it removes the ability for you to save when you purchase multiple items. each one is priced as if it were being…

In that same respect, you're paying for that same shipping when you buy from a brick and mortar store. Whatever overhead it cost to get the item from point A to point B, you'll end up paying for somehow.

Re: A free shipping mystery

#56

Post by tomp »

franciscojgo wrote: post #15

Here's an article from 2014 that explains this "loophole" https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/storyline/wp/2014/09/12/...

From the article:

> All this should be a reminder that any trade deal has winners and losers and unintended consequences.

Obviously, whoever you subsidize is a winner. If you're setting up barriers to trade (e.g. tariffs), foreign sellers/manufacturers lose. If you're subsidizing imports, domestic sellers/manufacturers lose.

Why can't we just not subsidize anyone?! Free trade is supposed to be just that, free. Instead, we have the TPP & TTIP, which will create yet new injustices and new sets of winners and losers.

Re: A free shipping mystery

#58

Post by [deleted] »

mikeash wrote: post #53
Retric wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Once you need to send a truck to someone's house, have someone get out and drop off one letter then adding a second letter has a tiny extra marginal cost. Further, there are some fuel savings from sending an air craft 1/4 full vs. 3/4 full but again there minimal in comparison to keeping the aircraft flying in the first place. Thus, from the post offices perspective they are much better off with a steady stream of tr…

Sure, but once the truck is full, sending one more letter needs an entire second truck. Average this across the system, and a route's costs per parcel are roughly equal to (cost of running one truck) / (number of parcels the truck carries).

[deleted]

Re: A free shipping mystery

#59

Post by fiatjaf »

fiatjaf wrote: post #57

Of course there are subsidies and complex discount + partnership relations involved, but in the end the question is simply: WHO is paying for this?

This article[1] linked somewhere in this thread explains part of the problem. But why not just the US, but many other countries, including Brazil, the most international shipping unfriendly country in the world [2], are getting free shipping on DX and AliExpress packages.

[1]: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/storyline/wp/2014/09/12/...

[2]: https://community.ebay.com/t5/Archive-International-Trading/...

Re: A free shipping mystery

#60

Post by Retric »

mikeash wrote: post #53
Retric wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Once you need to send a truck to someone's house, have someone get out and drop off one letter then adding a second letter has a tiny extra marginal cost. Further, there are some fuel savings from sending an air craft 1/4 full vs. 3/4 full but again there minimal in comparison to keeping the aircraft flying in the first place. Thus, from the post offices perspective they are much better off with a steady stream of tr…

Sure, but once the truck is full, sending one more letter needs an entire second truck. Average this across the system, and a route's costs per parcel are roughly equal to (cost of running one truck) / (number of parcels the truck carries).

The normal solution to that is just wait a day to deliver some mail. With some intelligent routing you basely never send a truck out that's not close to normal capacity.
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