What's More Attractive To Customers (Product Or Shipping Price)?

[olimits7]

Hi,

I was just wondering which option do you think customers are attracted to more when deciding to submit an order on your ecommerse site?

Option 1: Have slightly "lower" priced products compared to your competitors, but "higher" priced shipping rates?

OR

Option 2: Have "higher" priced products compared to your competitors, but "lower" priced shipping rates?

Thank you,

olimits7

[pdawg23]

DEFINITELY not option 2..
i think you need another option,

higher priced products but with FREE shipping

people love getting free stuff and they might not do as much research to find out your product price is higher than your competitors

[olimits7]

Actually, I forgot to mention I do have an option like that. I offer FREE "standard" shipping for domestic orders within the US.

So you are saying to have slightly "higher" priced products compared to other competitors but to offer FREE shipping?

Do you think that would drive potential customers away if they see higher prices compared to other ecommerce sites?

Thank you,

olimits7

[lgn1]

About 10% of customers do impulse buying.

There are sites out there that sell higher than MSRP, and do quite well as they catering to that 10%, and they make huge margins, with less orders.

Now it all depends what you are selling. You need to sell stuff that triggers the impulse buy.

[Demaestro]

I go with lower price and higher shipping.

I found my conversions went up when we did this.

Our product was also sold on Yahoo so we had to be cheaper than them for people doing price comparisons.

[olimits7]

I'm still on the fence of what I should try doing 1) higher price, lower shipping 2) or lower price higher shipping.

Anybody else have experience trying both these options? Which option worked out better for you?

Thank you,

olimits7

[digitalv]

I generally know what shipping is supposed to cost and can tell when a site jacks up the shipping - and when they do I shop elsewhere.

I might be the odd man out with this line of thinking, but to me it's misleading to charge $11 for shipping when I know it's really $4.90. I don't have any data on how many customers would notice though.

[pdawg23]

ok, after more thought i think it really depends on what you are selling.
i have actually talked to a pr company that told me in their experience, free something is almost always better.
so if i'm trying to buy something not so specialized, i wouldn't do too much research.
if the product price is somewhere in the ball park of what i expect, and free shipping is offered (all you're doing is adding the shipping fee on the product price and "offering" free shipping) i'd probably go with the free shipping.
obviously, if the price is really set, and ppl clearly know that you are jacking the price up, then u'd be better off doing the opposite.

[olimits7]

I know competitors of mine that charge $7.00 for shipping when I know the shipping really only costs $2.00.

Yes, it's definitely a tough choice to make! Hmmmmmmm...

olimits7