Remember when gas station attendants filled your tank for you? Or when department stores wrapped your holiday gifts at no charge? Oh—you’re too young to remember those things? OK—how about when it was “bags fly free” on every airline?

You get the drift. We consumers used to enjoy a lot of free services. But then economic forces exerted their pressures and suddenly we had self-serve filling stations. And paid gift-wrapping kiosks. And—except for good old Southwest Airlines—fees for checking your luggage. 

Free shipping appears to be succumbing to similar pressures. Economists are predicting that this country’s free shipping “bubble” is going to burst eventually. Why? It boils down to simple economics: if shipping rates rise faster than inflation, online merchants will not be able to absorb shipping costs within their already-thin profit margins. And that’s exactly what’s happening.

High Shipping Rates are Killing Off Free Shipping 

UPS has been raising its shipping rates a minimum of 5 percent every year. Meanwhile, the U.S. Postal Service will be raising shipping service rates again in January—this time by an average of 4.6 percent. Then there’s the cost of cardboard, which is also on the rise. And the cost of oil to transport all those cardboard boxes? It has quadrupled in the last 12 years!

Predictions are that even giant online retailers like Amazon.com won’t be able to offer free shipping much longer, due to eroding profit margins. Ironic, isn’t it, since Amazon was the company that conditioned us to expect free shipping in the first place?

New Standard Shipping and Free Shipping Rates

At All Vitamins Plus, they’ve got their eye on the ball. They want to continue offering the same high-quality, natural products at the absolute best prices without “hiding” the shipping cost in the price of the product. Nor are they interested in cutting corners and shipping goods cheaply and unreliably, which some “free shippers” have started to do.

For these reasons, All Vitamins Plus decided to raise their eligibility requirement for Free Shipping. You now get free shipping on orders of $49.99 or more, everywhere in the United States.  If you ask me, shipping rates are still a good deal at All Vitamins Plus. Standard shipping on any size order (regardless of weight or cost) is $4.99 for orders shipped within the contiguous 48 states, and $6.99 for orders shipped to Alaska, Hawaii and Puerto Rico.

You also get great customer service—for free! Got a question about a product? Need advice choosing a gift? Just call (866) 437-4002 between 9:00 am and 5:00 pm EST to talk to a real, live human being.

Paula Detwiller, All Vitamins Plus contributor