Recent ecommerce survey indicate that about 73% of customers expect free shipping. As a matter of fact, most online business owners see free shipping as one of the few surefire ways to get more sales. However, you should know that rolling shipping costs into the price of your products actually takes a bite out of your profit margin. Considering this aspect, you can easily understand why analyzing whether free shipping represents a worthwhile ecommerce practice or not is something that you have to do. In fact, finding a strategy to offer free shipping without going broke should be your first preoccupation. But, is there a way to do this?
Should You Offer Free Shipping On All Orders?
The term “should” actually relates to whether you can afford free shipping or not. As free shipping represents a sales strategy that can help you to get more sales, you should definitely offer it. Still, it is very important to comprehend the implications of this strategy in order to decide if you can actually afford it.
Numerous surveys have shown that high handling and shipping fees can easily convince consumers to abandon their shopping carts. Besides this aspect, about 70% of online shoppers add products to the cart to benefit from free shipping. As this figure increases exponentially during the holiday season, finding a way to propose your customers some advantageous ecommerce shipping terms is something that you have to do if you wish to get the best out of your online activity during peak shopping periods.
In case that you are unable to offer free or discounted shipping on all orders, you can send emails with free shipping coupons only to your loyal customers. By using this simple strategy, you have the chance to convince your repeat customers to purchase more items than they would normally buy.
Tips On Choosing The Best Shipping Strategy For Your Business
You cannot deny the fact that free-all-the-time approach to ecommerce shipping is great for buyers. Unfortunately, it is not a very lucrative option for small and mid-sized sellers. As most of these retailers do not have the negotiating power of the big sellers, they only get some slim profit margins, which can easily turn a smart strategy for free shipping into an impossible task. If you are one of these retailers, it is imperative to know that you can also offer your customers free shipping even if this option does not accompany every single order. To understand how to increase sales by offering free shipping, you should take a look at the following five tips.
Understand Your Margins: This indirectly means to find your breaking point. Your profit represents a very important element that you must take into account before creating and implementing a free shipping strategy. By checking your profit margin, you can easily understand the level and type of shipping discount that you can provide. If you offer free shipping on all orders over a long period, your bottom line may be seriously affected, triggering unpleasant business surprises.
Promote Specific Deals: If you cannot afford to offer free shipping permanently, you may want to create advertising campaigns to promote certain deals. For instance, you can place a number of free or discounted shipping codes on your website or send emails with such codes to different customers. As well, you can use the power of social media to advertise special deals, which relate to ecommerce shipping.
Consider Locations: If you intend to ship different products internationally, offering free shipping is not a great idea. Evidently, this is because shipping goods overseas can be very expensive. Offering local free shipping, is an option you may consider at this point.
Evaluate Products and Orders: If you sell heavy or large items, you should consider setting restrictions on free shipping deals because most of these products are costly to ship. Additionally, never offer free shipping unless orders reach a certain value. For instance, you can provide discounted or free shipping only for orders over $50.
Set a Cutoff Date: If you choose to guarantee free or discounted shipping before Christmas, it is advisable to mention the date beyond which the offer is no longer applicable. Furthermore, offering free shipping only for Christmas-related products is a great idea if you intend to pinpoint the fact that it is a holiday deal.
Besides the aforementioned points, you can choose free shipping days, such as Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and FreeShippingDay and only advertise those. You can be sure of the fact that flourishing your online business becomes a simple task once you start implementing these ecommerce shipping strategies.
Checkout more Holiday Ecommerce Tips here on our blog.
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