| Title: | Cheaper Than Free: -$5 Shipping at AMZN’s Endless.com |
| URL: | http://www.rimmkaufman.com/rkgblog/2007/04/23/negative-five-dollar-shipping/ |
| Printed: | March 11, 2010 |
| Source: | The Rimm-Kaufman Group Blog, info@rimmkaufman.com |
- April 23, 2007
- 1 comment
This morning’s email brought the following announcement from Endless.com, Amazon’s new shoe and handbag site:
Dear Amazon.com Customer,
We’d like to introduce you to a new site built by Amazon and that is setting a new standard in service—meet Endless.com. Just as Amazon has revolutionized the way you shop for books and music, Endless.com will change your expectations of shopping online for shoes and handbags. Our new site allows you to shop your way—using our unique category, brand, size, heel height, color or price selections– and most importantly, for a limited time, we’ll pay you $5 for the privilege of shipping your order overnight. No more waiting or paying extra to get your package fast.
Shipping isn’t really free — even when retailers price it as such — but such offers train customers to think it is.
And overnight shipping for negative five dollars? The whole direct marketing industry shudders.
Thankfully, this is just a limited time offer.
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They’ve been advertising this ‘limited time offer’ since around the start of the year. Their offer forced Zappos to do free overnight shipping.
I’ve prepared profit and loss statements on free shipping since 1990. The p&l on this one isn’t good. And yet, as you say, the customer will be trained to think this way.