&gt; Shipping is never 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<p>No, in this case the shipping is not part of the price. When you want to send a post card to someone anywhere in the world you pay USPS for the stamp, but the post service on the other side doesn&#x27;t get a share - it&#x27;s delivered for free. If they mail you back they buy a stamp, the proceeds go to their USPS equivalent, but USPS doesn&#x27;t get a cut. It makes sense as long as the amount of mail sent abroad is similar to what&#x27;s received from other countries, which probably was the case when postal services were used for actual letters. Shipping goods as &quot;letters&quot; skews the system, because Chinese vendors get to send whatever they want for nothing (subsidized by their govt) and national postal services in destination countries have no other choice than to deliver it for no compensation.