No such thing as FREE Delivery

One of the questions we’ve been asked is why we don’t do free delivery.  The reason is simple because THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS FREE DELIVERY!  When a company puts ‘free delivery’ what they really mean is ‘the cost of the delivery is recovered from you as part of our mark up of our prices and is bundled under the heading of overheads‘.  We discussed this policy and decided it was actually better and a clearer policy to charge a stated fee for delivery.

As a social enterprise and in the name of transparency we try to share with people how we do stuff.  We have a duty to make a profit so we survive, but we also have a duty to act in a socially responsible and clear way.   Green Futures is not like ordinary businesses.

Any delivery service has a cost, be this the running costs of the vans including, purchase, maintenance, fuel and of course the cost to the environment.  To us Free delivery sends the wrong message as there is always a cost, no delivery is truly FREE.

By having a clear and fixed delivery fee there is a benefit to you calling to site and you know exactly what it is costing you.  With a  delivery charge, anyone that calls to site can get the delivery fee off the price of the boxes.

We currently charge 50p for delivery to most locations in North East Lincolnshire and £1 for areas on the edge and out of North East Lincolnshire where we only have a few customers. By having a clear and fixed delivery fee we are able to remove this charge for customers who collect their box from site.

We hope this answers your question and helps you think about how similar projects operate.