Shipping is <i>never</i> free (and it&#x27;s often more expensive than most would assume). It just means the retailer&#x2F;manufacturer has baked into the product price, enough headroom to pay for shipping. In reality, you are still paying the shipping, you just don&#x27;t realize it.<p>Would you prefer to purchase a $60 product with $15 of shipping, or purchase a $75 product with free shipping? Obviously it&#x27;s the same, but psychologically, most people gravitate towards the latter because it &quot;feels&quot; like it&#x27;s less. Paying shipping fees, for most people, often feels like a rip-off, so the lure of &quot;Free shipping&quot; is very powerful.<p>In addition, it&#x27;s common for some of a retailer&#x27;s products to lose them money (due to having to subsidize and&#x2F;or pay for shipping out of the total invoice price), while they make very healthy profits from other products (meaning it averages out to a net profit in the end).<p>USPS&#x27; losses are purely due to being very inefficient. My company ships UPS, FedEX, and USPS. USPS loses the most number of packages on any given week, many of which they have to pay a partial re-reimbursement for (the retailer&#x27;s cost).