Free shipping

You’ve all seen the commercials that say, “Free Shipping.” Well, I’m here to tell you that there is no such thing. You pay for it, it’s just hidden in the cost of the items you are buying.

Similarly, I get “bonus points” on my Amazon credit card when I make purchases on Amazon. They’re not bonus points, folks; the amount of money they represent are already covered in the prices I’m paying to Amazon. Yeah, I enjoy using those points, but I’m not deluding myself by thinking they are a freebie.

It’s just like the saying, “There’s no such thing as a free lunch.” Or a free dinner. Many times you may have seen offers of a “free” lunch or dinner, usually offered by a for-profit company. The meal may be “free,” but you have to sit through what is sometimes a long, high-pressure sales pitch.

The Atlantic ran a story recently about free shipping. It’s the story of a woman named Ann Miceli, who happened to buy feather earrings, and, after inspecting them, decided she could make both the earrings and feather hair extensions herself.

She started a part-time business, selling her creations on a popular online website. She sold over 30,000 of her wares and was able to stop working as a mechanic, which enabled her to stay at home and watch her grandchildren.

But then the website started pushing sellers who guaranteed free shipping, and she was bumped down on the website, and she was told to raise the price of her goods. Others on the same site were able to absorb the extra cost, but Miceli was just barely making a profit as it was. She and the website were in disagreement over what she should do.

Big companies, like Amazon, where I have shopped for over 18 years, starting back when Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon and now the world’s richest man, would actually answer an email himself, are making a killing.

Once, my loyalty to the company even paid off, when I made a suggestion to Bezos about the site, and he rewarded me with a $25 credit. Unfortunately, he never followed through on my suggestion, which has caused me to inadvertently pay more than $25 for worthless goods, not even worth the trouble of returning to Amazon.

Meanwhile, “free shipping” has become something consumers expect and demand, and The Atlantic article said it might mean the end of neighborhood Mom and Pop shops. The ideal situation for online commerce is when people spend money and don’t even feel it.

It’s not like when you are in a store and have cash, but have to count your cash to make sure you have enough to pay for an item you want; online, all you have to do is “buy now,” or save the item in your cart or basket, and you don’t even notice the money slipping away. At least not until you get your credit card bill, but even that is so easy to pay; just click a button and it’s done. It’s not at all like evaluating your check register and having to decide how much you can pay.

This is known as the “pain of paying,” which doesn’t resemble the ease of clicking on a “buy now” button. Most companies must figure the sales tax for where you live. And it all seems painless.

If you don’t think business is booming for the online retailers, consider this: The Atlantic article estimated the US Postal Service delivered 800 million packages last Christmas. FedEx is going to start delivering on Sundays all year. Big retailers like Amazon can see something called the “economy of scale;” the more they sell, the less their overall expenditure, and the greater their profits, because the more they ship, the lower their shipping costs are.

You may wonder why my Amazon shipping is “free” and I get bonus points every month. It is because every year, I pay $119 to belong to Amazon Prime. Belonging to Amazon Prime means I get “free” shipping and can watch many “free” movies.

Because of the bite out of her income, Ann Miceli now has to work part-time at local restaurants and bars. She said that, obviously, some people are winning at the “free” shipping game, but she doesn’t know who they are. You better believe that they are not you, me or our neighbors.

How do you think Bezos became the world’s richest man, anyway?