Free Shipping Is the Most Expensive Way to Buy Cartons
There is a number every carton supplier puts in front of you, and it is the wrong one.
It is the price per carton. Twenty cents, thirty-five cents, whatever the sticker says. Producers compare those numbers the way drivers compare gas stations, and suppliers know it. What almost none of them break out cleanly is the freight, and freight is where the real price of a carton hides.
Cartons move by LTL truck, and that truck costs about the same whether the pallet is packed or half empty. Freight is a flat cost per shipment, not per carton. So a low sticker sitting on top of a big freight bill is not a low price. It just looks like one until the pallet lands.
Run it on a half pallet of large cartons, 2,500 of them. From us that is twenty cents a carton plus about $225 to truck them to your farm. From a seller who ships "free," it is thirty-five cents flat, freight already folded in. Here is where the two actually land.
| Half pallet, 2,500 cartons | Iowa Egg Cartons | Free-shipping seller |
|---|---|---|
| Carton price | $0.20 | $0.35, shipping "included" |
| Freight to your door | $0.09 (~$225 ÷ 2,500) | $0 shown, baked in |
| Landed cost per carton | $0.29 | $0.35 |
| What the order actually costs | $725 | $875 |
Same carton, same 2,500 count, and the "free" one costs you $150 more. On an order you will place again next month, and the month after.
That is the thing about free shipping. It is not free, and it is not a discount. It is an average. Everybody pays the same padded freight whether they are down the road or across the country, priced so the far shipments do not sting the seller. If you are close, you are quietly covering the ones who are not.
We do it the other way, on purpose. We break freight out and charge you what the truck actually costs to your address, quoted live before you buy, with nothing added on top. Not to nickel and dime you on shipping. The opposite. An honest freight line, priced to where you actually are, almost always lands under freight that has been folded into a sticker and marked up to be safe. That is the whole reason we can charge for shipping and still come in cheaper delivered. Every time we have put our landed price next to the free-shipping sellers, we win it. Not most of the time. Every time.
One more lever, and it is yours to pull. The truck costs about the same for a half pallet or a full one, so the more cartons you spread that freight across, the less each one carries.
| Order | Cartons | Freight | Freight per carton | Landed per carton |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Half pallet | 2,500 | ~$225 | $0.09 | $0.29 |
| Full pallet | 5,000 | ~$225 | $0.045 | $0.245 |
Same truck, twice the cartons, less on every one. Buy the fullest pallet you can move.
So here is the only number worth comparing. Take the carton price, add the freight divided by how many cartons are actually on the pallet, and that is what a carton costs you delivered. Do it for every supplier you are weighing, us included, and the lowest sticker almost never wins.
Cartons are close to a commodity. Freight is where the money actually moves, and free shipping is the trade's way of moving it without you watching. So watch it. Run the number yourself.