To be annoyed at being charged more P&P the more I spend?

[M5tothesouthwest]

I'm doing a bit of shopping online with an independent retailer. I had just under £25 worth of stuff in my basket. P&P was £2.99. I then added a low value item, which took the order total over £25, and P&P shot up to £4.99.
I was a bit WTF , surely there should be an incentive to spend more money, not less??
What are your views on paying P&P when shopping online?

Well the more you order the more it is likely to cost to post.

Big companies may be able to absorb the costs but small ones can’t always

The retailer is probably making a loss on the P&P. I'd pay it or remove the item you need least.

P & P is calculated by weight and size. A smaller independent probably can not afford to lose money on postage. Its nice when postage stays the same however much you buy but not always feasible for the retailer

If you sell anything on Ebay you'll have a more realistic idea about how much P&P costs.

Sounds like you are dealing with a retailer that tries to charge about what it costs them for postage which is a fairer system really.

I feel your pain OP, I'm always annoyed at being asked to pay more when I add more to my basket in the supermarket... What a rip off

P&P costs money, despite eBay and the big retailers liking to pretend that it is 'free'.

For some items, the value of the item bears little resemblence to how much it costs to post. A tin of beans costs about 50 pence, but it would cost at least £3 to post.

The retailer is probably just trying to make sure they don't lose too much money on postage. Surely you can see that, if you spend more, there are more items, that are bigger and heavier, so cost more to post. Small retailers can't always afford to absorb the cost of postage or dictate negotiate volume discounts like Amazon etc can.

I am an independent retailer (shop and online). Postage costs are the bane of my bloody life. It sounds like the low-value item you added might have pushed the package up into the next weight/dimension category automatically. I try to keep my shipping cost structure flat (so things like that don't happen), and I don't even charge my customers the full cost of shipping, but it's still a pain as small businesses can't take advantage of economies of scale. Neither can I offer the very cheapest/most basic shipping option (I used tracked/signature services), because I can't afford to write off packages that go missing. Or that people claim have gone missing...

They have to draw lines somewhere, OP? It's either that or raise every price to cover it. You need to learn to juggle so that you pay the least possible - it's an art. I'm not sure being miffed about it will get you anywhere. If you go out shopping you'll pay bus fare or car expenses and parking fees or just ££ on a coffee, cake and sit down, right?

At least with an independent you know where your money is going

yabu
the purchases are not going to walk to your door on their own. the bigger the parcel, the higher the cost of postage.
low value item doesn't say anything about size/weight...

Oh I totally understand that costs need to be met so don't have a grudge against paying P&P at all. It was more the way that if the order was under £25, P&P was £2.99 but if it was over, it was £4.99, so it was putting me off spending more than £25.

I added an accessory that cost £1.20 but I would've ended up effectively paying £3.20 for it with the extra P&P charges, so didn't bother.

I think I'd have been less miffed if P&P was a flat rate of £4.99 in the first place.

OP, I agree. I bought a stud for my ear on Amazon which weighed less than the envelope it came in but they charged me £3.50 P&P. Fair enough, but when I wanted to order 2 they charged me double the P&P! I wrote to the vendor but he refused to lower it. £7 P&P for two ear studs is ridiculous so I only got one.

The thing is with some small/independent retailers is that they’re probably posting through consumer Royal Mail services. So the same prices that you would be charged for 1st/2nd signed for, which coincidentally increase with package size.

It’s the larger retailers that typically have business Royal Mail accounts, when you have tracked 48 etc services

*and they can pass that saving onto their customers

Live in the highlands so I basically pay a small fortune for most deliveries but it still annoys me! normally goes along the line of an advert of “free deliveries to mainland uk” plugs in postcode “£40 delivery” I am on the bloody mainland!

Fair points made.