How to Offer Free Delivery

To better meet buyers’ expectations when it comes to postage prices, Etsy has three flexible options that can be used to offer free delivery to local and international buyers: free delivery guarantees, our smart pricing tool, and delivery profiles.

You can also learn strategies for offering free delivery in our Seller Handbook. 

Guarantee free delivery

Jump to a section: 

How to set up free delivery

The simplest way to make free delivery work for your shop is to price your items to include the postage cost in the item list price. 

You can choose to offer free delivery to buyers only located in your country, or to all buyers around the world based on your shop’s needs. 

  • If you frequently deliver orders to US buyers specifically and want to automatically offer them free delivery, consider including postage in the item price.

  • If you want more flexibility and control over your postage prices and prefer to make those choices yourself, consider setting up delivery profiles

What does offering free delivery cost me as a seller?

Sellers still need to pay the delivery company to deliver your orders to buyers. By bundling postage costs into the price of your items, customers will know what they need to pay for their orders upfront, and your overall cost to deliver it to them remains the same.

Imagine that you sell a 35 USD item, and you currently charge a 5 USD flat rate to deliver it. By adjusting the item price to 40 USD, you recover your postage cost without charging a separate delivery fee.

 

Current pricing

Pricing with free delivery

Item list price

35 USD

40 USD

Postage price

5 USD

0 USD (Free!)

Total price for the buyer

40 USD

40 USD

You can update your international postage costs to account for any postage prices that you included in your item prices. If you lower your postage prices for international delivery, your international customers don’t have to pay more than they did before you adjusted your item prices to recover your postage costs.

For example, you sell a 35 USD item, and you currently charge a 5 USD flat rate to deliver it domestically, and 10 USD to deliver it internationally. You can change the item price to 40 USD to recover the cost of delivery, and charge no delivery fee to deliver domestically, and 5 USD flat rate to deliver internationally.

 

Current international pricing

International pricing with free domestic delivery

Item list price

35 USD

40 USD

International postage price

10 USD

5 USD

Total price for an international buyer

45 USD

45 USD

 

To update your international postage prices:

  1. In Shop Manager, choose Settings.
  2. Select Delivery settings.
  3. Choose Edit next to a delivery profile. 
  4. Take the number you are charging for domestic delivery.
  5. Subtract it from your international postage cost. 
  6. Set the price and choose Save profile.

Sellers outside the US and India can set up a different listing price for domestic orders and international orders. This means you can price your items to include different postage costs for international orders.

How to set up a free delivery guarantee

A free delivery guarantee automatically applies free delivery for US buyers when they purchase the following from your shop: 

  • Any individual item 35 USD and up. 
  • Orders with a total cost of 35 USD and up.

Once you set it up, the free delivery guarantee will also be applied to new listings you create that are over 35 USD, no matter what your shop currency is set to. Your postage prices for buyers in other countries will not be changed from what you have set in your delivery profiles and item listings. The free delivery guarantee applies to both domestic and international sellers delivering orders to US buyers. 

If a buyer chooses to purchase delivery upgrades, they will be charged for those even if their order qualifies for free delivery. 

  1. On Etsy.com, select the Shop Manager icon
  2. Choose Settings
  3. Choose Delivery settings
  4. Choose Get started in the Free delivery guarantee tab
  5. Choose Next
  6. Choose Set free delivery

You can disable your free delivery guarantee from the same tab.  

After setting up a free delivery guarantee, you can recover your shipping costs by using our smart pricing tool to bulk edit your listing prices for items costing 35 USD+. If you adjust the price of your items to recover shipping costs using the smart pricing tool, turning off your free delivery guarantee won’t undo those changes. 

You can also use delivery profiles to recover shipping costs and include the price of shipping for buyers outside of the US, or if you want to offer free shipping for all orders from your shop. 

How to use the smart pricing tool when you offer a free delivery guarantee

Etsy’s smart pricing tool can help you adjust item prices in bulk to recover the cost of offering free delivery.  

​​You’ll have access to the smart pricing tool if:

  • Your shop is located in the US
  • You don’t already offer free delivery on your items 35 USD or more
  • You have set up a free delivery guarantee

  1. Set up a free delivery guarantee for your shop.
  2. Select Edit item prices.
  3. Choose if you want to edit your item prices for items 35 USD and over to recover postage costs. The options you see will depend on if you offer fixed postage prices, or if you use calculated postage
  4. Select Next.
  5. Choose if you want to edit your item prices for items under 35 USD to recover postage costs on orders. You can choose the amount calculated by Etsy’s data analysts to help recover postage costs over time, choose a different amount, or to keep your current prices.
  6. Select Review & edit.
  7. Under each item image, you can see the new list price you have chosen. You can also see the previous list price and postage price. 
  8. If you want to edit individual item prices, click the price under that item and enter the new price you want to charge.
  9. If you want to adjust multiple item prices at one time, click Edit item prices if you want to edit the new list prices of your items. 
  10. Select the items you want to edit.
  11. You can choose to:
    -
    Decrease amount by: Decrease the new list price for selected items by this amount.
    -
    Increase amount by: Increase the new list price for selected items by this amount.
    - Set amount: Set the new list price for selected items by this amount.
  12. Enter the amount in the text box.
  13. Select Apply.
  14. When you’re happy with the new prices you’ve set, click Publish
  15. Select Publish again. It may take a few minutes for the new prices to show in your shop.

The new item prices will only apply to all items in your shop that you reviewed and approved, and all items 35 USD and over will have a FREE delivery badge that’s visible to US buyers.

The new prices will be the same for all Etsy shoppers, including shoppers outside of the US.

Choose either:

  • Build in postage prices to recover postage costs: Increase your item prices to include the postage price you've specified for each listing. This helps you recover the postage cost for items with free delivery.
  • Keep your current prices: Keep your current item prices. 

Then select Review & edit to review your item prices. You can edit the amount your item prices will be adjusted by to recover postage costs as you see fit. The amount that you adjust your prices by to recover costs is up to you. 

Sellers who use calculated postage can choose one of the following options to recover postage cost:

  • Closest buyer: Increase your item prices by the amount it costs to deliver to buyers in your post code.
  • Average buyer distance: Increase your item prices by the amount it costs to deliver the median distance of your US orders in the last year. If you don't have enough orders for us to determine this distance, we use the median distance for similar items.
  • Farthest buyer: Increase your item prices by the amount it costs to deliver to buyers the farthest from you.
  • Keep your current prices: Keep your current item prices. 

Then click Review & edit to review your item prices, adjusting them as you see fit. 

How are built-in postage prices calculated?

The built-in postage price change would increase your item price by the average amount US buyers would pay at checkout on Etsy, plus any handling fees you charged, rounded up to the nearest dollar. You’ll still need to pay the cost of delivering orders.

How does this tool adjust my delivery profiles?  

The shipping prices in your delivery profiles will be adjusted to account for any price adjustments you made to your items. This means that most buyers will pay around the same total price they did before these adjustments.

US postage prices: US standard postage prices will be adjusted to 0.00 for any profiles with items with prices you adjusted. 

Postage prices outside the US: If you choose to build in postage prices for your items with fixed price delivery, your postage prices to other countries will be reduced by the same amount as your standard US delivery price.

Profiles with items 35 USD and over, and below 35 USD: If you had a delivery profile that had both items over and under 35 USD, all items 35 USD and over are moved to a new delivery profile. The new profile has the same name as the old profile, followed by (Reduced postage).

Delivery profiles with variations: The price of your variations will change by the same amount that your base listing price changes. For example: If you increase the price of a silver ring by 5 USD and have a gold variation of that ring, the price of the gold variation will also increase 5 USD.

How can I use delivery profiles to offer free shipping 

If you set up a free delivery guarantee for your shop, all orders 35 USD or more delivered to the US will have free delivery for the buyer. 

If you want to offer free delivery to buyers outside of the US, or you want to offer free delivery for all orders from your shop, you can use free delivery profiles.

Learn more about delivery profiles.

  1. Go to Shop Manager, then Settings
  2. Go to Delivery settings.
  3. Select Edit next to a delivery profile that you want to change to free delivery. You can also choose Add a delivery profile at the bottom of the page. If you’re adding a new delivery profile, complete the required information.
  4. If you want to add free delivery for specific countries, make sure to select I’ll enter fixed prices manually under Postage prices. Then, use the Add a location dropdown under Fixed postage prices.
  5. Select Free delivery from the What you’ll charge dropdown.
  6. Select Save profile.

  1. Go to Shop Manager, then Listings.
  2. If you want to edit all your listings, select the checkbox at the top left. If you want to edit some listing, select the checkboxes under those listings.
  3. Select Editing options.
  4. Select Change delivery profile.
  5. Select your free delivery profile.
  6. Select Apply.

Added postage costs can get in the way of buyers making a purchase. Free delivery is a great way to encourage shoppers to purchase from your shop.

Click a question to learn about how to offer free delivery, or to resolve common issues with free delivery:

The simplest way to make free delivery work for your shop is to include the postage cost in the item price. When you make this decision, remember that how you determine and set your prices is your decision.

By including postage costs in your item prices, buyers know what they need to pay for your items up-front, and you don’t lose money on orders with free delivery. Learn more about how it can benefit your business to offer free delivery.

Learn more about offering free delivery.

To better meet US buyers’ expectations when it comes to postage price, you can set up a free delivery guarantee for your shop. A free delivery guarantee applies to orders 35 USD and over that are delivered to the US.

Set up a free delivery guarantee

Even if you offer a free delivery guarantee, some orders with a US delivery address may not qualify for free delivery because of other account settings. Buyers must also:

Read the terms of the free delivery guarantee.

A free delivery offer covers the lowest-cost available mail class. If an order exceeds the weight or dimensions of a low-cost mail class, a mail service that can accomodate the order is used. For example, if an order exceeds the allowed dimensions for USPS’ First-Class mail, USPS Priority mail is offered free. 

To prevent this, check if you can update the dimensions of an item to fit within your preferred mail class. Remember that item dimensions used for delivery must be accurate, or you may incur a postage label adjustment fee from the carrier.

If you’re a seller outside the US and India, you can set up a different listing price for orders delivering within your country and orders delivering outside your country.

When you set up domestic & global pricing for items with free delivery, make sure to add domestic & global pricing to all the other listings linked to your free delivery profile. Learn how to add domestic & global pricing to your listings.

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