I’m sitting here umming and ah-ing about postage (and have been doing for a while now!!!) That age old question, to include or not to include, so I thought I’d pop in here to see how folks are finding things.
About a year ago I started including postage in the overall cost of my items to see if it made an obvious difference with sales. Tbh, I don’t think I can tell if it has or hasn’t, so I was thinking of changing back to separating item cost and postage. But I’m nervous about it 
It would be good to get an idea about what you prefer as a buyer and also what you think as a seller. Thanks x
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I tired including at one point but was a bit hit and miss. Now charge a flat rate, had no complaints and certainly has not affected my sales at all. Some say a flat rate is unfair but most times I have to pay fractionally more than the £3 I charge sometimes 30p under. I send 2nd class signed for and tracked.
At the end of the day postage is never free and if a customer multi buys they are paying several times over.
I tend to pay flat rate to most companies I use such as John Lewis, Boots etc. unless over a certain amount. At the moment Folksy has no facility to offer free postage over a set figure, hope that is sorted soon as a must for selling.
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That’s an interesting thought. I had been thinking for larger items about a charge that falls somewhere between what I pay but including a small amount of it in the cost of the item.
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So difficult, it’s a question I have always wondered about! I have always kept my postage separate, I just feel it is more transparent. It helps keep everything straight in my brain too! Also, if postage jumps up and cannot be absorbed, I would worry about having to increase all my prices (not a good look).
I know when I go onto the e-auction site to buy something and there’s lots of choice, I sometimes look for free p&p, not because I think it is free, I know it has to be paid for somewhere, but because it makes it easier to compare. However, I wouldn’t here because everything is so unique.
About the larger things - at a workshop once, someone asked what to do because his items sometimes cost between £30 and £40 to send (goodness knows what they would cost now 
) and it looked such a lot for the customer. The advice was to do as you said and split the cost of the postage between the price of the item and P&P charge.
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Gosh yes, you’ve hit the nail on the head with the auction site and probably Amzn too…I like ‘free’ pp as I’m comparing like for like. Hadn’t thought about it that way.
I suspect I’ll end up doing the half and half option (and your example is an interesting one). I think £2.50 pp for example, would sound less painful than £4.00 or £5.00 when buying something.
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I have a flat rate across my whole shop now, but for items that are sent by special delivery I have added £5 to the item price. Seems to be working ok.
I have “free post” with costs in item price on another platform, but it doesn’t bring in more sales.
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Remember that you only pay commission to Folksy on the actual price of the item when sold.If you include postage in the cost this will increase your comm bill.
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Flat rate makes it easier when the post goes up.
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Likewise, I’ll probably end up keeping it ‘free’ on the other side!!!
I’ve definitely been considering this
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Packing and boxing ceramics takes a lot of time, and necessitates a lot of packaging materials to send them safely. In addition all the services I have used do not include ceramics or glass in their insurance, so if something breaks I have to issue a full refund. I have offered some of my more expensive items with free shipping but it has made no difference to sales, so I am going to go back to charging for it, though in many cases the postage costs more than I estimate/quote because of the extra weight and size of the packaging materials, so it’s a bit of a lottery for me!
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Snap. However, I think I’m going to add ‘Postage Included’ on the description page so that my customers know that there’s no additional charges. I do add the postage into my sale price just to cover my costs.
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Gosh, that sounds even more complex… especially as I don’t think customers even give a thought to the cost of the actual packaging
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Absolutely, it’s always included somewhere in the price and I wonder if psychologically seeing the entire price in one is an advantage. I sometimes pop free p&p in the title but I’m not sure that makes a difference either 
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As I sell through galleries as well as online and the galleries expect the price I sell online to be the same as the price in the gallery I feel that I can’t really roll the cost of the postage into the item price. (£100 in the gallery would only be £92.50 online once I’d taken the postage off the £100 sale price).
Because of the size and weight of my items it’s easy for me to offer flat rate shipping - I know I can get several items in a pip box before I get to the top of the weight bracket (and if they’ve bought enough to go into the next weight or insurance bracket then I’ve made enough profit to pay the extra bit of shipping!). As a shopper I prefer a flat rate - no nasty surprises when I get to the basket and find that it’s shot up with all the extra items I’ve added to my basket.
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As a buyer I am not keen on ‘free’ shipping - I prefer to see what I’m being charged for postage so I can compare the cost of the actual item - so I’ve never offered free shipping in my shop. But then these days most of what I sell is low-value and will go in a large letter envelope with a stamp on it. At the moment I’m charging postage at cost and including the cost of packaging materials in my item price. At one time I would charge a little bit more than the postage cost just to cover packing materials and the odd thing that gets lost and has to be replaced, also I have always offered combined postage so a little bit extra helps to cover the cost if a customer buys multiple items and the the package goes into the next weight bracket. Might have to either do that or (gasp) raise my prices a tiny bit when the post increases kick in and I’ve used up the big sheet of stamps I’ve just bought…
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That’s a really good point. I think I will end up with some version of a flat rate. Maybe a little less than the actual cost and add the rest into the item cost. As I don’t sell in person at the moment, this is probably the best way forward. I’m really interested all the ideas and thoughts here. X
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That’s interesting to hear 
…if you put a few items in one package, I guess you might end up over the £20 insurance limit for RM. Do you then go for tracking?? X
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I still don’t know what to do for the best with p&p costs in terms of offering a flat rate. All my jewellery goes in large letter size boxes, until this week when I added rings for the first time. A ring box is too high and pushes the parcel size up, so I’m asking £1 more for UK shipping. Maybe it would be better to stick with my usual £3 and add the cost to the item? But the real headscratcher is with the international shipping. A small parcel is £8.20 for international standard delivery, so I’d have to ask £9 to cover packaging too. I don’t think anyone’s going to pay that for a sea glass ring! So I’ve put in my description that I can send it in a cotton bag for my usual international large letter rate of £4.99, with the option of the ring box if they want to pay the extra.
So I think, if you’re offering international shipping, you could make less on international sales if you’re including the P&P in the item cost?
Question: does offering free shipping affect how our listings rank in search results, the way it (I think) does on Etsy?
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I always add an additional charge for international shipping even if UK shipping is ‘free’. Although I don’t sell very much abroad so it’s not too much of an issue.
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