The Free-Shipping Threshold Math That Quietly Costs You Money
Free-shipping thresholds exploit a simple bias: filling the cart feels like winning. The arithmetic says otherwise — if the threshold is $75, your cart is $63, and shipping is $7, adding a $12 filler item costs you $12 to save $7. The filler is only worth it when it is something already on your list.
The better move is stacking a code that lowers the cart onto the threshold instead: a 10% code takes the $63 cart to $56.70, further from the threshold, which makes shipping-only the right call — or pushes you to find a free-shipping code, which many stores issue specifically for cart sizes like this.
Store pages here label every free-shipping offer and show minimum-order terms in the offer card, so the two-line calculation takes seconds: cart minus code versus threshold, then decide.