Absolutely! I prefer free shipping, but I’m more willing to pay $5-$10 for shipping if it’s going to be substantially faster. Sometimes, “free shipping” can end up taking almost two weeks!
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It does for international shipping. If it ends up costing as much or more than the items I wouldn’t do it. Etude House and Selfridges, looking at you both.
It sure does and it’s just one of the reasons I’m not keen to order online. Exchange rates, duty, shipping….it can all add significantly to the cost of purchasing online. I do purchase from Sephora because I can see the Canadian price, I know there won’t be duty on top of that (our sales taxes are high enough add-ins) and I get free shipping.
As someone in Canada shipping speed means nothing as everything here take time but shipping cost is huge here
Due to the pandemic, shipping speed these days means absolutely nothing, unless it’s an express service like DHL or FedEx. I live in Europe, and shipping from anywhere in Europe takes no less than 3 weeks now, where once it took as fast as 4 days. ColourPop orders take at least a month to arrive, and a Makeup Geek order last year took 4 MONTHS, long after I had reported it lost and gotten a refund for it. Express shipping to where I live costs upwards of €15 from anywhere, so now I just opt for free shipping, and don’t expect to wait less than a month for anything to arrive.
ALSO! Where I live, a 19% VAT is tacked on to all shipments valued at over €17, so I end up paying at least 20% in taxes and fees when I pick up packages coming from the U.S. and post-Brexit U.K. That plays a large part in trying to get free shipping whenever I can
I’m also in Europe, EU. We have 25% VAT from €0 and a fee to the post for about € 7.5, including the VAT. We used to be able to buy for about € 19 or so until it seemed everyone started buying stuff from China, Ali Baba, Wish and sites like that. It became impossible to get packages delivered in a reasonable time, so they added the VAT from €0.
Now I try to just buy from places that prepay the VAT, and have reasonable shipping costs, or the cost for delivery and tax is far to high.
YES! I do not choose to bump up my order with superfluous product in order to gain ‘free’ shipping. I try to buy within Canada. I’m buying a fraction of what I used to buy and I’m finding I am more willing to pass up on items which take longer or are more costly to ship.
Some irony here my one and only Clionadh order is shipping from Canada…
Irony is right! ⏳😉💀
Shipping cost is absolutely a factor. I don’t mind $5 or $7, but sometimes shipping gets up to $15+ and that just isn’t worth it to me. I understand why certain brands (ie: Indie or International) have higher shipping costs, but for me personally I dislike paying such high fees so I’ll just skip the product. To me an extra $15 could buy another shadow/lipstick/etc or two! Now, I can reason with myself that if products are half price then basically the money I’m saving covers shipping… but full price with high cost of shipping I just can’t convince myself to do it!
Shipping speed is less of an issue to me. I will not pay for expedited shipping on makeup because nothing is a “must have now”. I have waited days or I have waited months and as long as I get the product I’m perfectly fine with that. I just prefer to know up front if there are delays to be expected.
Lots of Canadians weighing in here 🙂
I don’t mind a nominal fee if it speeds up the process, but saying that, who’s in a hurry these days?
But if there is a massive difference in shipping times based on spending, I take that into consideration.
For example, Beautylish has amazing delivery, truly fast, if you spend $100+ you get free express and it’s like 2 days. If you don’t get express it can take weeks. I’d rather know that in advance and save up enough items in my cart and ship all at once.
Charlotte Tilbury has great shipping, speedy and free, and they ship within Canada, so no duties.
Pat McGrath has free shipping but it’s slow as heck.
Colour Pop was slow too, but I’ve stopped buying from them. I just don’t use their makeup anymore, even though it’s inexpensive it’s still not worth it.
Sephora has the market cornered here in Canada in shipping for sure.
Our Canadian Shopper’s Beauty has wisely picked up shipping speed, but the site is just not appealing and intuitive to me, if they have a big discount sale I will order from them though.
Also international sites need to show Canadian prices and include any duties in the price at checkout–we’re seeing more and more of it and I prefer that!
I know shipping costs money, but I still hate paying for it, so when I buy something online I’ll avoid doing so by finding a promo code or waiting to order until I have a large enough purchase to meet the free ship minimum. Neither of these strategies worked when I ordered from Pyrex this month, because their free ship minimum is $99 and up to that point, they charge more when you buy more 😩
Usually don’t really care about speed of shipping when I purchase, and yet I will obsessively check the tracking and get annoyed when a package is stuck 15 miles away for two days or supposedly went out for delivery at 4 am but still doesn’t arrive by 9 pm, and doesn’t until the next day. There’s also the odd occurrence of packages being marked delivered hours or even a day before they actually are?! I think order tracking might be a curse in disguise…
YES!
I’m probably annoying in other posts when I rag on shipping costs, but it 100% determines whether or not I follow through on a purchase. My shitty state already charges their exorbitant tax on out-of-state purchases (why? where the fuck is it going? our roads are trash, our education is trash, our healthcare is trash, we don’t have a real public transit system, and the power grid is so shaky a little snow almost shut it down. explain to me where the tax money you insist we need to pay on things not even created in this trash state are going.) and seeing an additional $7-15 for shipping deters me every time. Cosmetics are small and I know exactly how much money can be spent on materials and shipping (which companies get slack on, even if it’s as simple as using paypal’s system). I ship heavier things than cosmetics in larger boxes and don’t break the $4.30 very often. Where is that extra money going? Your profit margins are built in to the price tag of your products; also scooping it up via shipping is too annoying for me to deal with.
All of that is moot is there is a free shipping threshold…though I will grumble if it’s a very high one that I’ll never hit.
Yes! I am adjusting to pay for shipping because the free shipping these days take so long.
Since my buying has pared down, I realized how much I would add to my cart just to get to the free shipping threshold. I’d rather pay the $5 or $6 and get exactly what I want than add the extra fluff for free shipping that arrives 3 weeks later.
It’s a turn off though if shipping is exorbitant. Most sites aren’t but if we’retalking $10 or $11 and the free shipping threshold is over $75 that’s a turn off and I will buy elsewhere.
While of course I love free shipping, I don’t want to wait a month to receive my order! Probably why I don’t own many indies….hmmm.
I track my skincare, makeup, haircare and body care with due diligence, so most of my purchases are very well planned (especially to take advantage of sales); I don’t mind shipping taking more time, like 7-10 days, because it’s never that urgent.
I do hate to pay for shipping, but I rarely have to. I buy from few sites and usually it’s a planned stocking up purchase, so I hit the free shipping threshold most times. If not, I just check in my spreadsheets what items I would need replenished in the next 2-3 months and add items until I get free shipping.
The only thing I would pay a small extra fee personally, it would be if brands offered options for shipping plastic free / fully recyclable packaging / no waste or allow offering carbon footprint.
My wordy wordy shipping costs do apply to me. Having to purchase many beauty items (especially eyeshadow palettes and lipsticks) from online beauty retailers, the shipping costs are definitely a big factor when purchasing items. Of course, I do prefer free international shipping, but that is fairly rare these days. Most online retailers do try to keep their shipping costs minimal to encourage international purchases though -CP is pretty good, so too is PMG and Beautylish.
Needless to say, ebay’s international shipping costs are often exorbidant – far more than the cost of the product at times, which is a nuisance when I want to repurchase a favourite lipstick, like Maybelline’s Spice for Me (Maybelline sent the ‘For Me’ range to Aus, but left off Spice for Me’) We only get a curated version of DS products here.
Between the international shipping costs, dollar conversions, cosmetic taxes – the price of a product can be inflamed by up to or more than a third of the original cost of the product…..
I try very hard to wait for deals with free shipping or when I will spend enough for free shipping or when there is a discount code I can use that will cover the shipping. I have chosen not to place orders several times due to the cost of the shipping. It’s become even more important to me to somehow get free shipping since the pandemic and pretty much every purchase I make is online. I also will not make purchases that have shipping that isnt tracked. Been waiting on an order for almost 3 months now that Ive been told has definitely been sent and will definitely arrive… Wont be making this mistake again.
I always try to shop around for a good deal so I think I often weigh shipping cost more than shipping speed when determining where I purchase products. I find free shipping tends to arrive in a timely enough matter. However, depending on promotions/coupons, I have saved money in the end even after paying more for shipping at one retailer. It’s always worth shopping around even if free shipping isn’t offered.
Shipping speed only matters if I *need* the product sooner. If I don’t need the product right away, I’m usually willing to wait to save a few dollars. That said, we DO have an Amazon prime account and we do enjoy the prime shipping.
In the end, I’m also willing to wait for slower and/or more costly shipping to purchase from a reputable retailer.
100%. I have a couple malls, Sephora’s and Ulta’s near me so I can just pop in for anything I want. Customer service plays a big role, as well. I’m actually waiting for an online Sephora order to get to me and it’s been 3 weeks today since I ordered and no product.
So, tl:dr, I don’t shop online anymore because I can drive 10 mins to get it in person. Only with Colourpop will I order online.
My pet peeve is shipping fees. It burns me to no end when I always see free shipping to U.S. addresses. Whatever happened to free trade to Canada?
I didn’t really answer the question. I usually purchase makeup and skincare from Sephora which is free shipping. Otherwise I will wait until I have enough items so I do not have to pay for shipping. I don’t really care about the length of time it takes as long as it arrives. Otherwise unless it’s something I just have to have I just will do without. I used to have a list for my US shopping trips, hopefully we will be able to travel again soon, I really miss it!
Sometimes I wait for the product to be available in my country, sometimes I just can’t wait and pay for shipping… last time I bought PMG’s Mothership Celestial Divinity, even paying for the shipping it took almost a month to be delivered, but I am happy as I love it!
Yes, for sure. I won’t pay $10 shipping when I’m only buying a $$10 eyeshadow single or a small mascara. I usually wait until I need enough things to get me free shipping on the MAC or Charlotte Tilbury websites. I never hesitate to buy beauty items from Nordstrom.com, though, as they have free shipping all the time, not matter what you buy. That’s a big plus. And I qualify for free shipping through Sephora, too, so they get a lot of my business.
Ditto, of course! I don’t purchase (or extremely rarely do so) when shipping is more that 15% -20% the cost of the product.