Curious How Free Shipping Works

Can anyone, merchants or members, explain how free shipping works?  

We all like to get free shipping and most vendors will offer free shipping if you purchase merchandise above a certain threshold.  Being in Canada I will try to purchase from Canadian vendors because they offer that free shipping whereas no US vendors offer free shipping to Canada.  I'm ok with the fact that virtually all Canadian vendors offer free shipping to US customers as the obvious market forces and competition are at work.

Obviously shipping isn't free - somebody has to pay for it so how is that accounted for?  Is there a % markup added to all merchandise?  If that's the case do customers bring below the threshold actually pay a higher price for the same product even without the shipping cost added in?  Its a mystery to me and I'd like to be enlightened.  Do some vendors, presumably the larger ones, get preferential shipping rates?  Is this anti-competitive or just taking advantage of economies of scale?  So many questions

Does anybody have the facts on this?

Tidbit - The Mongols were the first to establish an efficient, long distance "postal service".  Yam riders, like the pony express would ride horses carrying mail between Yam stations where they'd refresh horses/riders.  They could move fast.

I don't have time to answer in an extended manner, but here are 2 things.
1. We knew early on buyers don't like to see shipping fees. It's built into the price. There's no free.
2. It costs us way more to ship to Canada from here. Maybe one of the Canadian vendors can answer, perhaps there's some government subsidy in the Canada to US shipping to encourage exports???

I don't have time to answer in an extended manner, but here are 2 things.
1. We knew early on buyers don't like to see shipping fees. It's built into the price. There's no free.
2. It costs us way more to ship to Canada from here. Maybe one of the Canadian vendors can answer, perhaps there's some government subsidy in the Canada to US shipping to encourage exports???

Man, could I make political "hay" out of that, but I won't. 

It's pretty much a theme of all of life. Not just politics.

For sure I assumed it’s worked into the price but since a given item is priced the same whether you’re over the free shipping threshold or not g TT then those customers below the threshold are in effect subsidizing the free shipping customers. I guess it’s a voluntary subsidy/discount.  Like yay, nobody likes to pay shipping but somebody has to pay shipping and it only makes sense that the user/customer should pay. 

I don’t believe there’s a government shipping subsidy for Canadian vendors. We’re not that socialist. 

The argument you always hear in defence of high shipping costs in Canada is vast land mass small population so no economy of scale. I call BS on that. About 90% of Canada’s population lives within 200 miles of the 49th parallel, ie the Canada-USA border so it wouldn’t be hard to integrate transportation/shipping logistics in a cost effective manner. It’s regulations and ideology that keep costs up. And economics. Small population means small market and less competition so higher prices. It’s what monopolists do in that situation.

 I remember a few years back when Target opened stores in Canada. People were delighted as many Canadians have travelled to the USA and experienced Target. Good prices and selection.  The president of the Canadian operation said publicly when they opened that Canadian shoppers shouldn’t expect the same products and prices as in USA stores. Different market conditions (less competition) means different business model. They went bankrupt and closed their Canadian operations in under 5 years. We may have to pay more for products and have a less choices but we aren’t completely stupid.

Great points on everything you said and mentioned don’t know why shipping to Canada is less expensive to ship to USA than USA to Canada vice versa..

Personally I love this DFS shaving community and at the moment I don’t have job and don’t work as I’m still looking to get something as I lost my contract from Transport Canada.

Now I don’t have much to spend on things and buy new things I’m happy I can find little things here and there and if I have something to trade or sell I’ll just pay shipping out of my pocket as great community here helps out and don’t care too lose $15-$25 As I get in return by great folks here.

I agree with you and get frustrated same as you do lol for ex. I want to get Swiss Formula Pitralon for my self and bullgooseshaving they have in and can’t ship to Canada as it’s alcohol contained inside I hope they do something or hopefully our vendors here will bring it eventually..

Anyhow hope things get better soon enough 

Take care

Alan H

Swiss Formula Pitralon is not worth it, poured it down the drain.

eBay and Amazon have kind of forced everyone to re-think their shipping costs.

As far as I know, sellers who offer free shipping on sales greater than a certain amount are picking up the shipping charges. Of course someone has to pay the shipping charges. The seller makes some money on their ability to mark up the price of every item they sell. So if their volume goes up then not only does the dollar amount of their total sales but so too does their ability to purchase products at lower prices due to greater volume. When you hit that magic number, to the seller it becomes worth it for them to pay for the shipping. If there's more to it than this, then let me know. But I don't think there is.

I don't have time to answer in an extended manner, but here are 2 things.
1. We knew early on buyers don't like to see shipping fees. It's built into the price. There's no free.
2. It costs us way more to ship to Canada from here. Maybe one of the Canadian vendors can answer, perhaps there's some government subsidy in the Canada to US shipping to encourage exports???

Man, could I make political "hay" out of that, but I won't. 

It's also in Economics 101. Literally. Usually under the title "There's No Such Thing As A Free Lunch". Literally.
It's an important yet basic topic/concept.
This is how they teach "opportunity cost". Unfortunately not everyone gets the message.