The
theory that shipping is included in the price is flawed in several ways.
1) Shipping costs for anyone that qualifies for free shipping is going to be different depending on how far away they live from the warehouse. There's no easy way to calculate that.
2) The price they sell large items, like Grand Galvatron for example, are priced at
Asian MSRP just like Robot Kingdom. Considering they also have the added cost of shipping these in from China they've already spread their own profits thinner than RK would being in China. So logically if they were adding shipping to the price it should have cost more, but it didn't, TFS and RK both charged $160.
3) The free shipping isn't just on the big ticket items they can sell for over $150, it's for any order over $150. That means if you were to buy $150 worth of clearance or sale items or even just items sold at MSRP you'd still get free shipping.
The model that TFSource uses is one that encourages buying multiple items in one order. It helps them sell older stock that may go on clearance anyway and entices repeat customers. This same store also uses a points program, effectively paying you for buying from them and rewarding loyalty. Ultimately they're built on small gains multiplied over high sales volume allowing them to afford free shipping if you're willing to spend your money on them. I suspect they also own their warehouse, otherwise they wouldn't be able to do order stacking which greatly reduces their overhead as they won't have to pay to lease their warehouse space.
On a side note, way back in 2000 BBTS did
$4 flat rate shipping. In 2002 it became $4.99 and in 2005 it became $6.99, but it didn't last as they dropped flat rate shipping when they
introduced Pile of Loot that fall when they overhauled the site into what we know today. So BBTS has experimented with discount shipping, but they couldn't make it work for them.
Emerje