People don’t like surprise fees, don’t like being nickle and dimed, and don’t like to pay for shipping.

Simple pricing, bags fly free, give me a set of easy to understand options – that’s the world smart marketers live in today.

Pricing your goods and services has actually become very easy these days as long as you understand the ideas above. Create a good, better, best set of prices, point people towards the better option as the most popular, and that’s it. Yes, you may have to absorb the shipping expense, but somehow paying a higher price for the goods with no shipping seems better than paying the same amount broken into two. Free shipping also allows you to promote something for free. Pricing is a bit of a perception game.

Charging for things like shipping is quickly becoming a thing of the past if you want to compete.

I participated in a round of conferences for eBay this year and one of the hottest topics was the dramatic impact free shipping as an option had on sales. Yesterday Wal-Mart announced it was offering free shipping on online purchases for the holiday – a move that I suspect will linger into next year and beyond.

Look at your pricing and look for ways to simplify and unclutter – the good, better, best approach, with no add-on fees is a great place to start.