Would you expect this (I didn’t) and would you have a problem with it (I do)? I know that when they send you a free item and you pay shipping only, that the item costs a nickle to make and they make five bucks on the padded shipping, but what about when you order one item, and they offer you something else free, and quote “just pay separate shipping”, doesn’t that imply that the items will come in separate packages- a lame trick I know, but one I agreed to when I made the purchase. But I still expect them to go through the charade and send me two boxes, so techincally there was some sort of “separate” shipping. But when you put the second item in the box with the first one, and the second item weighs an ounce at most and 20 of them could fit in the first items box, if I wanted to sue for my 6.95 back (which I don’t) would I be in the right?
“if I wanted to sue for my 6.95 back (which I don’t) would I be in the right?”
Are you asking if you’d win such a suit, or if you’d be morally right? In either case it seems to me the answer is no. As you said, you agreed to these terms when you made the purchase. The “separate shipping” is a separate shipping fee, which means an extra charge. They do this because shipping is not refundable. So you get the extra doodad thingamagig that’s worth X amount by paying X + shipping, and then if you want to return it you have to pay shipping again. Unfortunately this is legal and they can do it. Caveat whatzit.
Did I miss the first part of this conversation? Who are ‘they’.
I don’t think you have any legal basis for a claim (IANAL of course) - you paid a known value to have the items delivered to you - so you’re not being pressed to pay unexpected costs (you had the option of just walking away from the offer). How would it have been better for anyone if they had put the items in separate boxes?
Also ‘shipping’ isn’t just the cost of carriage for most businesses - it includes handling (picking, checking and packing the item - which takes longer if you have more items, especially different ones), maybe also an element of insurance against loss in transit. Sure, they probably make a profit on that - it is business, after all.
I ordered one item, and they offered to give me a totally different second item “free”, “just pay separate shipping”- I don’t want to tell the item because they pissed me off and I’d hate for someone to buy them item after I mentioned it. 
But no, I’m not pissed, and I probably give away more than 6.95 a day to homeless guys on the streets, and I wasn’t suckered, I paid willingly knowing it was b.s., but was just wondering if to others, “just pay separate shipping cost” is technically fraudulent if there are no separate shipping costs, as they were shipped in one box with a half ounce extra weight for the second item.
If they said they’d give me the second item if I donated 6.95 to NAMBLA I would have agreed, but doesn’t pay separate shipping imply that there will at least be some separate shipping costs? Additional shipping costs I could see in this case, but not separate. And maybe I’m getting hung up on semantics, come to think of it.
Separate shipping charge (= fee = ccost, etc.) is different from charge for separate shipping. The second shipping charge was listed separately from the first shipping charge. It was also additional, the concepts of separate and additional not being mutually exclusive.
The point is, the word separate modifies the word cost. The separate shipping cost is a separate cost, and it is a shipping cost. The word separate does NOT modify the word shipping. So in a nutshell, it’s a separate fee, not separate shipping. The company’s interpretation of the words they wrote is well within normal English usage, and you don’t get to specify what they meant by it.
IAAL, but not yours and likely not licensed in your jurisdiction. What follows isn’t legal advice. Which means: (a) read on at your own risk and (b) don’t rely on it. I offer it merely as educational information to address a hypothetical situation.
Should you choose to make a claim, your best argument is “false advertising,” or, if you’re in California, a claim under the Consumers Legal Remedies Act, or CLRA. Essentially, your argument would need to be that you believed that “pay separate shipping” meant “if we have to use a separate box, you gotta pay.”
But I’d argue that the statement means what it says, namely, “you must pay a separate shipping for for this item.” Don’t know if I’d win, but at least under the CLRA, you have to give me a chance to cure the problem. I’d refund your fee, and you’d be left with nothing.
But didn’t the website tell you what the total was before you made the final click? That’s frankly the strongest argument that you don’t have a claim. Now, if they didn’t tell you, maybe we could talk about a class action…