Even though shipping is not, or should not, be that complicated anymore, it’s still relatively human intensive (as even technology-driven shipping requires someone to scan the labels, read the response, and load the products into the right boxes and then into the right truck for delivery to the right recipient) and will always costly. Why?
- Every form of transportation requires a vehicle
and all vehicles have acquisition and maintenance costs
- Every form of vehicle requires some form of power
and all forms of power have a cost, even if they are based on some form of renewable resource (as windmills have to be maintained and biomass has to be grown) — so energy costs will never go to zero
- Every vehicle requires an operator
even if the operator is the programmer maintaining the system that controls the drone or the self-driving truck
And not all goods are simple consumer goods that can be put in a box on a truck and handed to you by an average FedEx delivery driver. Some are fragile and require extra packaging. Some need to stay cold or frozen. Some are hazardous materials. Sometimes shipping a single small item can cost thousands, especially when you add in the extra costs in packaging, handling, pick-up, and delivery.
In other words, shipping is expensive. And anyone giving you free shipping is including it in the price, probably at a padded mark-up. So don’t fret the shipping, fret the total cost of the purchase relative to the value received. Sometimes if you shop around you can get a better product at a lower overall price, shipping included.
This is especially true if you’re buying from online marketplaces, Amazon NOT excluded. (Going back to Amazon, as the doctor has noted before, by now consumers should have caught on to the fact that many of the less-reputable third party merchants that use Amazon Prime Shipping mark up their merchandise to cover the shipping costs. the doctor has seen $40 to $60 mark-up on small items that probably only cost $10 to ship with Amazon’s massive shipping discounts.)