Businesses scramble to keep up with e-commerce merchants that enjoy big discounts from carriers
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Saratoga Olive Oil shipped about 5,000 packages last year, at an average cost of $12 to $19 an order. Photo: Caleb Kenna for The Wall Street Journal
“You can find anything, anywhere at this point” that ships free, she adds. That includes a step stool for her 5-year-old daughter and a barn-door slider Ms. Greer recently bought for her closet from Amazon.com Inc.
Of course, shipping isn’t really free. But building it into a product’s price tag, or offering unlimited deliveries for a flat fee, can make consumers blind to it. Ms. Greer pays $99 annually for “no cost” two-day shipping through Amazon Prime but, she says, “in my mind, that’s free.”
The number of consumers who agree with her is rising quickly. More than half the past year’s orders from 30 of the biggest e-commerce merchants were shipped free of charge, compared with 33% two years ago, according to mystery shopper StellaService.
For online retailers who can afford it, free shipping is becoming a loss leader—the e-tailing equivalent of selling milk below cost to increase grocery-store traffic.
How We Shop
A continuing series on how changes in Americans’ shopping habits are forcing big shifts across retail and other industries.The Web’s biggest retailers—including Target Corp. , Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and Amazon—often get volume-driven discounts of 70% or more on certain shipments, while boutiques like Saratoga Olive Oil Co., in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., get breaks closer to 5%.
“The barriers to entry are tough,” says Trevor Outman, principal partner at consulting firm Shipware LLC. He estimates that, after discounts, a megaretailer might pay about $14 to express-ship a 3-pound, 10-inch-square box from New York to a suburban Atlanta home. That same delivery could cost a small retailer about $74.
Saratoga Olive Oil, which sells gourmet oils and vinegars, knows that all too well. “We’re not having Saratoga Oil Prime anytime soon,” says Peter Koch, its operations analyst. “We’ll never be large enough.”
ENLARGE More-established retailers have struggled to adjust. About seven years ago, Amazon moved aggressively into home and garden products, squeezing specialty e-tailer Comfort House, which launched its website in 1994.
“When we started, there was no such thing as free shipping. And actually, today there’s no such thing as free shipping,” says Jeff Gornstein, president of the Newark, N.J., company, which he estimates generally spends about $15 to $20 per shipment, or about 12% of revenues.
“We are absorbing more and more of it because we can’t pass along the costs to consumers, because of Amazon,” he says.
Indeed, shipping costs are a new front in price wars. Last week, Amazon and Target.com both offered a 1.7-ounce jar of Neutrogena Hydro Boost Gel Cream for $17.99. Amazon offers free shipping to Prime members, as does Target to its REDcard members, who sign up for a Target debit or credit card. For nonmembers, the slowest shipping option cost $5.48 or $4, respectively.
Though financial terms of its deal aren’t public, Amazon is among the handful of top customers who pay the Postal Service an average of $1.87 a package to make the last leg of a residential delivery. Other retailers must pay for a package’s full journey. Though it can be costly for other merchants to sell through Amazon, many do so in part to take advantage of shipping discounts. Through UPS, outside vendors spending over $1,000 weekly to ship from Amazon receive a 37% next-day air discount.
Selling through Amazon eats into margins at Quady Winery in Madera, Calif., but gives the wine maker access to millions more customers. Quady recovers at least 40% of the retail price of its wine on orders placed through Amazon.
“Shipping wine is expensive. It’s heavy, and you usually need to do it in two or three days,” says Herb Quady, one of the family owners. “Certainly we pay a lot more for shipping than Amazon does.”
Write to Laura Stevens at Laura.Stevens@wsj.com ENLARGE
Amazon’s scale typically gives it an edge. A Shipware survey of about 560 shippers showed some who spent in the range of $100 million annually on shipping could qualify for discounts of more than 80% on overnight shipments, and up to 60% on residential delivery by ground.
Amazon shipped more than a billion North American packages in 2015, roughly seven times as many as its closest rival, Wal-Mart, according to estimates by software developer ShipMatrix Inc. Amazon says it spent $11.54 billion globally on shipping costs last year.
Barclays analysts estimate Amazon spends $4 to $5 on average per package, compared with the average $7 to $8 for ground delivery paid by an average business.
An Amazon spokeswoman said in an e-mail that the company has invested in infrastructure to support package delivery since the company’s founding. “We’ll continue to invest in innovations that support great delivery speeds for Amazon customers,” she added.
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‘We’re not having Saratoga Oil Prime anytime soon,’ says Peter Koch, operations analyst at Saratoga Olive Oil, alluding to the popular Amazon Prime program. ‘We’ll never be large enough.’ Photo: Caleb Kenna for the Wall Street Journal
