How Do They Do It?

[Caran]

I ordered a necklace on line, nothing flashy, just black beads and white pearls alternating.
It cost £5.74. When it arrived I saw by the envelope it had cost £3.00 in postage.
Is it worth it to make just £2.74 profit, that's not counting the packaging either!

[Cloverjo]

I bought a thing costing 1p with free postage from Amazon Marketplace. I guess it’s a loss leader. You’ll go back and buy something more expensive.

[douglas9401]

Slave/child labour, a labour of love, terrible business sense?

[TonyV]

If it cost a £1 to make then yes.

[Maydup]

It will have cost tuppence to make a box of them in China.

[ummmm]

I bought a bag for 45p from Amazon and they sent me 2. It's a nice little bag as well.

[Caran]

I ordered some earrings on line. I received 3 pairs. Maker said she had a lot going spare as a trade fair had fallen through and she thought I would like them- I did!

[sherrardk]

Amazon quite often give me a refund, tell me to keep the original thing and then send me another (I do loads of shopping online). Boy #1 ordered something through our shared Amazon prime but it got delivered here, rather than to him at uni and they kindly said they’d send him another and to keep the first.

[ummmm]

That's happened to me as well. They always tell you to keep it.

[AuntPollyGrey]

// Is it worth it to make just £2.74 profit, that's not counting the packaging either! //

It depends on volume. Most retailers work on a 30% profit margin, if the retailer is selling 100 of those necklaces a week then they are making £274 gross profit.

If you won it on ebay then the seller may have made a mistake and put 'free postage' on the listing -I've done that once and sold something for £0.99 and had to pay £2.80 to send it.