According to Amazon "The Add-on program allows Amazon to offer thousands of low-priced items that would be cost-prohibitive to ship on their own."
I ordered something for $42, needing another $7 to qualify for free shipping. I found an $8 Add-on item and put it in my cart. All-set, free shipping.
The next day I got 2 emails, one for each item, with separate tracking numbers and different delivery dates. Apparently the Add-on item "that would be cost-prohibitive to ship on its own" did just that.
I needed it anyway and it was basically free, so I'm not complaining, but it doesn't seem to go along with their description of the Add-on program.
Just for fun, this RadioLab podcast features a reporter who got a job as a picker for an un-named order-fullfillment company. It's not a job I would want. I loaded UPS trucks for about 15 minutes in between high school and boot camp. That sucked too.
I think that is correct. They just want you to get in the habit of ordering one or two other things you don't really need for "free" shipping. I also know they get a huge discount on their shipping. My wife screwed up and had a toy for the kids shipped here and we decided I would just pay to ship it to Michigan. It was a big bulky item that triggered the extra cost from UPS and USPS so it cost me more to ship than she paid for it originally, shipping and price.
Seriously? They would show $0 for shipping on the order screen and then add it onto actual invoice? How often do you think they would get away with that? It wouldn't work even once on me.
Walmart has similar issues. If you order something online for pickup in the store, they ship it to the store as a separate FedEx package, even when it is on the shelf at the store. I expect they get a big FedEx quantity discount, but with the online order discount and shipping, they probably didn't make much on my purchase.
Probably cheaper overall to do everything the same than to try to intervene in the automatic system protocols.
That may be the "behavioral science" behind it, but as long as you only order things that you "need" then it's not an issue. In this case I ordered a blade for my oscillating tool. $1.50 cheaper than the HF version. I know I'll use it so I don't feel like I got suckered.
Now, if the blade turns out to be a piece of crap compared to the HF version, I will rationalize it away by saying it was "free". ;-)
"Marketing, merchandising" have nothing to do with the "functioning of the business"? In whose world?
4.1 Typical business organisation departments and functions
A typical business organisation may consist of the following main departments or functions:
Production Research and Development (often abbreviated to R&D) Purchasing Marketing (including the selling function) Human Resource Management Accounting and Finance
I ordered something from Home Depot that they don't stock.(Like Walmart, they have an enormous number of things on the webpage, many iirc that aren't even related to their "mission", home repair, although what I got was a humongous extension cord) I assumed they had it in a warehouse and would deliver it to the store with what I figure are their daily, or semi-daily (or weekly?) deliveries. Why else would delivery be free except that it takes no added effort. (Since the effort of putting it on the truck and taking it off the truck is parallel to and barely more than the effort of taking it off a shelf in the back and walking it up to the front of a store.)
But when I went to get it, it was in a shipping envelope and shipped from Texas iirc (to Baltimore) by a shipping company.. Not their local warehouse and not their delivery truck!
It seems to me there is a cheaper way, but since they pay people to spend all day thinking about this, I suppose they have good reason(s?) for doing it their way.
I don't know why I let myself bicker with you, but...
Amazon doesn't do production.
Amazon doesn't do R&D in the usual meaning of tthe words.
You want to include the selling function (in which you probably include the shipping) in marketing.
I think they are often separate and that they certainly are here and that's why the marketing department portrays the item as an add-on that wouldnt' be worth shipping on its own**, but the shipping department thinks it is worth shipping on its own. Neither department cares what the other department thinks or what the other department is doing. They might not even know all of it,
**Even though a couple years ago, there were no add-ons and small inexpensive things were treated just like big things. So then they were worth shipping on their own. Did they find out that they were wrong, they really weren't worth it? I doubt it, since small inexpensive things are shipped all the time by other companies. For some it's their entire business, and they find a shipping charge that makes it worth while. Amazon too could have adjusted its shipping charge schedule.
I think there is some marketing advantage, some psychological advantage (maybe to give customers the feeling these things are so cheap, why hesitate to buy them; or maybe, better buy them now while I am spending
49 other dollars) and iirc the cost of these add-ons isn't included in the $49 needed for free shipping, so calling them an add-on is an excuse for getting you to spend more money, because they don't help you get to
None of this has anything to do with the actual shipping.
Yes, exactly. This is part of the psychological advantage to pricing this way, that I talk about in another post later in the thread,
I only wish I'd bought stock in UPS or Fedex or the USPS before this enormous swell in mail order began (as it was called when people ordered by mail). Many retailers have prospered, but the industry that has benefitted the most in percentage terms has been package delivery.
They are willing to take a small loss on shipping some items to get you to buy other items.
I worked at a place that made polyester to be shipped to mills and tire companies. In order to get and keep the large orders, we often made small batches of special products at cost or maybe a loss.
Maybe because you feel a need to defend a ridiculous statement?
It wasn't about that.
Or that either.
Your claim was that marketing has nothing get to do with the functioning of the business. That is all I was responding to. Are you sticking with that claim? If so, you are still wrong.
It doesn't matter if one department doesn't know (or care) what another department is doing. You claim was that marketing has nothing to do with the functioning of the business.
Thus making marketing a *major* part of the functioning of the business - something you claimed it wasn't.
Wrong again. It was precisely the add-on item that got me to $49 and eliminated the shipping charge that was showing in my cart for the ~$42 item. The message in my cart suggested adding $6.75 in purchases to qualify for free shipping. I chose a $7.50 item that was designated as an Add-on item. As soon as I placed that item in my cart, the shipping went to $0.
Why do you think I started this thread? It was because the reason they gave for designating certain items as Add-on - not being cost effective to ship on their own - apparently is not a hard and fast rule since the Add-on item is indeed being shipped on its own.
I think that is correct. They just want you to get in the habit of ordering one or two other things you don't really need for "free" shipping. I also know they get a huge discount on their shipping. My wife screwed up and had a toy for the kids shipped here and we decided I would just pay to ship it to Michigan. It was a big bulky item that triggered the extra cost from UPS and USPS so it cost me more to ship than she paid for it originally, shipping and price.
It's interesting that both of those are 3rd party tools, not something available on the Amazon site itself. I guess Amazon would rather you search Amazon for an item on your own, hoping you'll spend more than the minimum needed to get the lower shipping.
It may hav something to do with actual shipping. If you are in Philadelphia and you order two items, one an add on and they come from Baltimore, they save money shipping a low priced item. If, however, the Baltimore warehouse is out of stock but Dallas has a thousand of them, it s cheaper and faster to ship it direct rather that get them to Baltimore.
I imagine Amazon has some idea of costs and their Prime commitment and how best to handle it. They also know a customer will be POd if their Prime promise is not met and that has a cost too.
You would have to know when to sell too. Amazon has been acquiring their own airforce and is looking at methods for the final mile delivery. When you spend as much as they do on delivery sooner or later you ask yourself "Why aren't we in the delivery business?"
I had a programmer working for me who ultimately decided to hitch his wagon to FedEx. At the time he said Amazon was concerned by UPS's union activity and was going to switch to FedEx. As far as i know that never happened. I've received a couple of Amazon parcels by FedEx but the bulk has been UPS or USPS for some periodic deliveries that aren't covered by the Prime 2 day deal.
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