Free Shipping
By: Jeffrey Alan Henderson
Tags: Shopping, Ecommerce, Be Kind

Foe the last 7 years I’ve been on both sides of the cost of shipping. The conversations have increased with Amazon, COVID-19 and holiday surge pricing.

Customer is Always Right

The little squares on my phone are associated with numbers. Your first thought is to choose the smallest number with respect to what you, the customer, wants to pay. At times you may choose the larger number if you need the purchase to be delivered sooner that later. But you inherently might want to pay less because those are the only variables you are considering.

The last five decades of our shopping experience — including our first two decades of shopping online — have been dominated by big brands and not local shop owners. Customers rarely interact with an actual store/restaurant owner. If there is a face-to-face interaction with an employee, you typically don’t have access to decision makers without a request.

“My I speak to the manager’ is understandable when you want someone that has more sway in the conversation.

Decades of ‘scale’ has lead to an incredible increase in efficiency but an equal decrease in human understanding. The people behind the delivery of your $6 meal are far from your concern as a customer. The life of your driver is drowned our by headphones.

When the experience is far above average we acknowledge the company and the individual. However, when the experience is marginally below average we post a Yelp review of ‘meh’. And when the experience is subpar we let the world know because our experience as a customer should be their first priority.

Our experience as a customer — big or small — is how we measure companies.

Wait in Line

From the business side, businesses need customers. That’s the relationship. That’s the priority.

But the efficiency model of scale means that your happiness as a customer may outweigh every other variable. And your ‘scale’ as a customer plays into that efficiency.

The business margins necessary to stay alive vary from industry to industry. But ‘scale’ always matters. If the customer buys one shirt, you may charge them for shipping. If they purchase two shirts, you may be profitable enough to not charge them for the shipping. You may have already factored shipping into the cost but you want them to buy more — even if they don’t need more.

But the efficiency of scale drives those conversation to unreasonable boundaries. Your customer begins to take priority over your employees, your product, your brand. Because your business doesn’t interact with the customer, you spend money selling a shallowing version of your mission and priorities through expensive advertising agencies and algorithm mathematicians in social media.

You pay for efficiency and the less you pay the cheaper the experience.

For the customer and the business owner.

So scale wins.

But people often suffer.

Tip Your Driver

Studies show that the lower you travel on the economic scale, the higher percentage of annual income is spent giving to others. You could argue that this is a mismanagement of funds, but I think it has more to do with empathy.

If you work in the service industry you know how important tips are to the people who bring you your food and deliver your packages. You know the difference between an offensive tip and an average tip.

I was taught to ‘pretip’ by my friend Andreas.

When you have a sizeable party — say 5 or more — you pull the wait staff to the side and slide them what you think 20% might be. Maybe $20 to $40. You tell them that you know your crowd gets a little off track and might forget how to tip at the end so you want to make sure you put something on the front end so you get welcomed back.

You are almost always guaranteed average to above average service because you acknowledge they’re responsibility in the relationship as opposed to being judgmental with your coin at the end.

This is how a customer interacts with a business like a person.

The rise of online shopping has made the interaction with companies between customers and businesses more efficient and less human. Larger companies have the ability to create near human experiences — chats, DMs — while also keeping costs down. The death of Tony Sheih was so impactful because he prioritized the person-to-person interaction at Zappos. The customers are people. And those employees are people too.

But those employees are people whose costs need to be kept low in order to give each customer the best price and the best experience.

The employees are also someone’s customer and they need those prices to be low because they’re being paid less.

Efficiency.

That price of shipping can’t be high. They need to save.

They choose the box connected to the smaller number. They don’t tip. They complain of it’s not perfect or it’s late or it doesn’t work.

But they also complain if they believe they can a free trip or a refund or anything extra.

The system of big business has taught them the effectiveness of this tactic. If your business is big enough you include ‘shrinkage’ in your calculations.

People don’t include ‘shrinkage’ in their interactions.

Small Change

I started a Shopify account as a way to sell random T-shirt ideas between friends. Along the way I learned a ton about ecommerce because the framework — consumer facing to back-of-house fulfillment — gave me insight into online retail.

But I didn’t expect to have a deep connection with small brands and businesses that behave like people because most small brands don’t have a 10,000 sqft warehouse or a VC-fueled social media as budget.

So I love hearing tips on engaging with small businesses — order your food directly from a restaurant, pay in cash be patient on shipping. I can’t always do what I know is best (I’ve spent $200 in cash in the last 3 years) but I try to engage with human beings more than businesses.

I spend twice as much and wait twice as long for a hoodie from a musician that employs family to sell merch.

I give amazing Yelp reviews that focus on the staff at any place spend money in.

I always tip.

The Staples and FedEx on 125th in Harlem are the backbone of my entrepreneurial body of work. Very engagement I’ve had with their staffs have been amazingly friendly, even when their larger employer hasn’t functioned efficiently.

This is an Ad

So if you order anything from GoodThin.gs there is a good chance you’ve interacted with John. He’s a person. And I guarantee he tested you like a person. He’s an Air Force veteran from the south and he doesn’t know how to do it any different.

(I live in NYC so I’m avoiding eye contact, exchanges beyond ‘you be well’ and cash transactions.)

But John takes it personally if you’re not satisfied. We may not be able to solve every problem, but we are always trying to get better. Small businesses can’t refine their customer support team with an offsite and large compensation plans to recruit industry execs to rollout warehouse technology from Fast Company. Take it easy on John if we don’t have your color in stock or the package got lost at your doorstep.

He’s a person. Just like you.