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I see this expression in shopping carts, and it seems related to tracking the shipment, but I don't understand what it is. Could please anybody explain that?

3 Answers 3

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Shipping is an additional cost, in your case born by the customer and that will usually depend upon 2 factors.

  • Destination country.
  • Rapidity (e.g. express or normal delivery).

The ordering process will usually provide you with a quote (how much money you will be charged) for your order.

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As reported by the NOAD one of the meaning of quote (as noun) is "a quotation giving the estimated cost for a particular job or service."

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  • +1: I would have expected a shipping quote to be an estimate, and not an actual guaranteed price of shipping (that should be a shipping charge, shipping cost, or shipping fee). Looking at a few websites, however, there are definitely some whose shipping quote is the actual price they charge for shipping. The only reason I can think of for this is that some of these websites were designed by people who didn't speak English well, and copied other retail websites without realizing the difference between the terms. Jun 10, 2011 at 13:16
  • @Peter Shor They could mean the shipping cost is still an estimate, but it would not make sense if they use that expression on a page where it is reported how much my credit card will be charged; if they do that, I would understand they could charge me more after I paid. If I remember well, Amazon (USA) reported an estimated tax, but I don't remember when it was shown (e.g. after I selected the expedition address).
    – apaderno
    Jun 10, 2011 at 13:46
  • I looked at a few sales sites, and I saw one which said (paraphrasing), that unlike other sites, we do not change our shipping quotes. I think it's pretty clear that this site, at least, misunderstood the term. Jun 10, 2011 at 15:28
  • I've occasionally seen variants of "our webcart produces inaccurate quotes in X circumstance (generally international ordering), if this happens we'll contact you to confirm the correct value before charging your card" when it errors low or "...automatically refund the difference" when it errors high. Presumably these sites don't do enough international business to justify paying someone to troubleshoot the problem. IIRC I've seen similar wording relating to a site not knowing how to calculate custom charges as well. Sep 14, 2012 at 19:32
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A shipping quote is an element of online shopping carts, it represents the cost of shipping that product.

This varies based on (obviously) the weight plus the user's choice of shipping options such as Standard Post, or Fedex or Overnight Delivery etc.

This is the same as freight rate

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    It is important to note that "quote" means the cost of shipping is an estimate.
    – Kit Z. Fox
    Jun 10, 2011 at 13:10

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