I have had items sit forever at free shipping (everyone knows that there is really no free shipping), and sell when I change to a flat rate shipping…with a lower item price, more times than not..

I truthfully have never seen any difference

I agree with the others.
Free shipping does help sales and everyone does know that there is no such thing as free shipping….
But….
Here on Bonanza, the first $10.00 of shipping does NOT get calculated for fees.
So you can save a little in selling fees in separating shipping costs out.
(Separate shipping and item price if over $14.50 combined. $14.50 is the minimum .50 cent fee.

I think the buyer understands that “free shipping” means that shipping is included in the price, but I believe it does make it easier for them to compare your price with other similar products.

I had all of my products on calculated shipping, since In believe that gives the buyer a sense that you’re not overcharging for shipping. However, Google Shopping calculates shipping estimates incorrectly, and the result was it was showing outrageously high shipping costs for my products – often as high as twice the cost of the product. I’d been wondering why I wasn’t making sales. That explained it! I changed to free shipping on all my products, and lo and behold, it looked fine on Google and I began to sell again!

Lowerwholesale, a long while back Bonanza set the listings up to where they would reflect a calculated shipping price from out of Hawaii in Google shopping due to a change that was made in Google shopping. It “should” only be the sellers that live in your own state that see the calculated shipping price.

I have heard it spoken of one time in the past on Bonanza about possibly choosing a more central state in the United States other than Hawaii when it came to calculated shipping in Google shopping….that way it would not look so bad for someone that sells on the east coast.

Yes, I think Free Shipping helps our sales. We sell from many sites including our own web site and we use free shipping on every thing that we can.
The Customer can look at the price and know that, that is all that they will pay.
I think it makes it easier for the Customer to match your price against any other price for the same item they might find elsewhere.

My belief is that it helps. My customers have told me they like it. Granted a significant part of shipping is factored into the price. If it didn’t work big box stores wouldn’t use it as much as they do. IMO

Calculated shipping is such a worry for buyers, and myself. It “looks” like each and every item “must have” each and every item sent separately to me.
I wrestled with this for many years here, now I have simply adjusted to exact cost and hope the buyers will make offers on multiple items.

I have most of my items listed with FREE Shipping and have not found it benefits my sales at all. I’m an old school Bonzale who recently (since April) opened a both on Etsy and make 100 times more sales there than on Bonanza, I feel people expect to pay for shipping, if it is something they want they don’t mind paying. Etsy also has worked a deal with USPS that gives seller’s a nice discount on shipping that can be passed on :) I haven’t had any sales on Bonaza for sometime but did make a couple when I advertised on eBay.