Forum Moderators: buckworks
I am seriously considering free shipping on all orders, but raising proces on products to compensate (based on historical average costs, order amounts, etc..)
Has anyone had good conversion increase by doing this?
from a technical standpoint, free shipping just sounds good - no ups / usps http calls, no wrong estimates, nearly instant checkout procedures, etc...
Kevin
As I've said many times over the years, shipping is a very real expense and it only gets more costly.
Free shipping, IMO, was a stupid gimmick Dot Com's used at the end of a financial reporting period to juice sales. It was about unloading shares, not widgets.
You don't see experienced catalogers using it much. In fact, they use shipping as a major profit center. I'm guessing they know more about this topic than does www.50-pound-bags-o-dogfood.com
j/k
Your right, i should have done more search hear first. Our items are pretty heavy, so I'm sure it would not work in practice.
thanks!
Kevin
Unfortunately, the online consumer is spoiled by "free shipping", because of Amazon et al. So that is why I think it is worth while for orders that reach a minimum amount.
But then a "FREE Shipping on order less than 20$" would be counter productive, huh?
Other Popular Sites Charge Additional Money For:
Shipping and Handling .... WE DON'T EVER
For West Coast Delivery.... WE DON'T EVER
Residential Delivery.... WE DON'T EVER
The Price You See is the Only Price You'll Ever Pay
I still am going to go with the UPS rates. I have been testing it againsts our order history, and It is pretty accurate so far.
Free shipping, IMO, was a stupid gimmick Dot Com's used at the end of a financial reporting period to juice sales. It was about unloading shares, not widgets.
I would have to respectfully disagree. Depending on your product & market, free shipping can be a very usefull tool to increase conversions. Of course, doing it at a loss is foolish but a properly set up "free shipping" campaign should be looked into.
However, I'd say (without the figures in front of me) that around 90% of customers haven't actually hit the free shipping figure and it doesn't seem to tempt anyone to add more to their basket.
We're keeping it as our model for now, as it's the simplest way for us to do things - but it's not made a huge difference.
As it happens, we're starting a free shipping promo this week, only the second time I've tried it. Preliminary results are very unimpressive. Didn't boost response to the email and free shipping is very costly (for us, anyway)
HOWEVER now that full results are in from our week long email promo, offering free shipping was adequately successful. Note that we didn't raise product prices. And this was an email promo presented only to established customers. We'll probably give it another test soon.
---
Yes, offering free shipping to all customers who buy over a certain amount is becoming common. One thing that triggered this trend is that some suppliers are trying to eliminate destructive web discounting by requiring sites to sell at minimum prices. Deep discounters undoubtedly see free shipping as a way to get around these price minimums.
I ask for a shipping charge for the rest of the Country.. As I have already added a part of the shipping cost to price ( for local delivery), my 'rest of country' shipping charge 'appears' much lower than the competition. It is a big hit.
Try to negotiate with courier agencies for diffn. delivery charges for diffn. parts of the country.. It works in my country.. It should work in yours also.
i order at least 2 times a week online - all kinds of products. truthfully, many times I've bulked at buying a product if i see shipping charges or taxes, especially if i think they're exaggerated ($5+).
example: I wanted to buy crocs shoes - online at their website, they were either $8 or $10 shipping a pair! cost was only $30 for a pair. I bulked, and went to amazon where i have a 'prime' account - amazon directly didn't sell them, but there was a seller who had $0 shipping/order but did not have the style i wanted. so i didn't buy at all - otherwise, if i saw free ship in the site, I'd buy them - what's another pair of shoes anyway?
Usually, when i see shipping charges for something i want and I'm not already on amazon, i go to amazon to investigate, if not, i go elsewhere or not buy at all online. I love amazon not only because of free shipping, but because they're one of the last online stores which does not charge tax.
I have been toying with adding free shipping above a threshold and all of my projections assume an increase in average order size.
My problem is, with 4 of my direct competitors offering free shipping, whether the consumer will really be able to differentiate the total delivered cost of an item.
I sell an inexpensive product that is (for the most part) readily available from a several sites (several of which offer free shipping). Testing free shipping with no minimum on my site, I did find an increase in conversions, but a drop in total profits. When I tried free shipping on orders over a certain dollar value (high enough that I wouldn't lose money on most orders) I actually found a decrease in conversions but an increase in order size - profitability remained about the same. Another test actually increased the shipping charges. This resulted in slightly lower conversions, but higher profits.
Test, find out what works for your products and customers. Don't assume that because it works for Amazon it will work for you.
