Free Economy Shipping in Amazon templates

Selling on Amazon FBM
, ,
1

I’ve just been Borged into SSA and, with the constantly increasing cost of shipping, I am reviewing my shipping templates. I sell only books and other media. Currently I offer only standard and expedited shipping. Standard is free for most of my items going to the lower 48 states.

I have never used the Free Economy Shipping option (I’ve just had free standard shipping), but I am considering using new templates moving forward that offer free shipping, standard shipping with a small charge and, thirdly, expedited with a heftier charge.

My questions:

  1. I’ve always thought it’s probably a little too much to throw three different shipping options at buyers, but maybe more sellers do that than I realize? Just wondering what the downside is to adding Free Economy Shipping in addition to standard and expedited.

  2. I know previous discussion of SSA on this forum has included a warning not to use the Free Economy Shipping option on templates, but I am unclear as to why? (I do understand that SSA applies only to standard shipping.)

@Lost_My_Marbles

2

  1. Most buyers think that whatever seller has the BuyBox is the only seller on the listing, and that messaging whatever seller has the BB now will contact whoever they bought something from 2 years ago. Most buyers won’t notice that you offer other shipping options.

  2. I have SSA on my templates with Free Economy, it hasn’t been a problem. I still hate SSA, though.

3

I believe all shipping options are shown at checkout, though, so at that point they could choose faster shipping even if they didn’t notice additional options before adding the item to their cart. (I’m basing that on my own Amazon shipping experiences.)