The ‘free’ delivery myth

When we’re quoting on an order, every so often, one of our customers is surprised when we say “Plus delivery”.  It’s probably because many companies advertise ‘free delivery’ these days.  But really, there is no such thing as truly free delivery.

So, what does it mean when a company states free shipping, or free delivery? It just means that the actual cost of the delivery is covered by the price of whatever product you’re buying.  Which means that delivery fee is just hidden out of sight.  When pricing is done in this way, the customer ends up paying a lot more for delivery then it actually costs to deliver as the hidden markup is designed to cover delivery anywhere in the country.

At Mayfair Furniture, we believe it’s fairer and more transparent to separate out the cost of delivery, and list it out on every invoice that we send to our customers.  That way, everyone knows exactly what they’re paying for, and only pay the specific cost of delivering to there address.

And, that’s why we always ask for the postcode of the place that a customer’s furniture is going to before we send a formal quote out – each individual customer pays for their own delivery.

Of course customers wanting to avoid a delivery fee are more than welcome to pick up their items directly from our warehouse, but that would still probably involve hiring a van, the fuel costs and time spent on the road.