Proimpact7.com E-commerce Blog » Free Shipping

Discover Why USPS Shipping Can Boost Your Bottom Line

Jan Petrovic — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 20:51:52 +0000

Anybody who has to do with online retailing has to be concerned about the shipping. In this webinar presented by endicia.com you will learn why USPS (United States Postal Service) can boost your bottom line.

The shipping challenge:

brick and mortar competition
large online merchant competition like amazon.com etc.
order processing cost
free shipping

Key Advantages of using USPS (United States Postal Service):

Surcharge Free
USPS offers flat rate boxes, which in some cases can work out cheaper than standard charge per weight
USPS boxes provided are FREE of charge

Opens in new window. Registration prior viewing may be required.

Do You Know How Good/Bad Your Delivery Company Is?

Jan Petrovic — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 12:11:04 +0000

Econsultancy has published this very interesting post “are retailers really this bad at delivery“. Basically the post is about a survey conducted by Which? on deliveries by online retailers, which found that nearly 7% of customers were unhappy with their delivery.

One of the most shocking revelations was a customer experience when the delivery service threw a laptop over their 6 foot wall, another was thrown in the delivery package via the open window or the package was left on the doorstep visible to any by-passers, thus open to stealing.

As delivery of the product is a very important part of consumer experience, what can you as a retailer do to improve it to please your consumer and to protect your business from the goods being stolen thus facing a charge back and loss of revenue?

1. check with your delivery company how they deal with packages which can’t be delivered due to the fact that the receiver isn’t at home, which could be common as a majority of your customers are very likely to be at work between 9 to 6. Do they leave a note with a phone number to rearrange the delivery and do they have a collection point close to your customers?

2. to check how good or bad your delivery company is send all your customers a post-purchase survey soon after the delivery has been received, asking them if they were happy with the delivery. Plus you can get this transactional email to work harder for you by placing product recommendations in there (this will require using personalized product recommendation tool from providers like Coremetrics, Omniture or ChoiceStream to be able to do that). Note: transactional email open rate is between 60-80%, the highest open rate of all email campaigns so don’t waste this opportunity.

Free Shipping vs. Flat Rate Shipping

Jan Petrovic — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 23:10:03 +0000

Free shipping is a nice incentive to have and it helps with conversion, but it also eats up your profit. The fact is the cost of shipping has for a long time been one of the leading causes of shopping cart abandonment as buyers realize that the cost of the shipping has made the item too expensive. And according to the study below, 72% of website visitors abandon their shopping cart because shipping charges were higher than expected. But stop here for a second, cost of shipping higher than expected, not because FREE shipping wasn’t available. The reason is “shipping higher than expected”!

Most ecommerce web sites can’t afford free shipping . So is there any other solution for website owners to compete with online store giants? I think the answer for some online retailers could be flat rate shipping.

Let me explain on overstock.com, a very well known online retailer with quarterly revenues of around $250+ million. Overstock.com is one of only a few large retailers offering flat rate shipping and based on their quarterly revenue of $250+ million, people are clearly buying from them even though they don’t provide Free Shipping, but instead offer flat rate shipping of $2.95. Obviously the question is, what if overstock.com offered free shipping? Would their sales increase along with their conversion rates?

Reason why flat rate shipping could work:

we all expect to pay a reasonable shipping cost, as on average only the top 100 retailers offer free shipping, the rest of stores will charge you. Personally I have purchased things from stores not offering free shipping and I consider for example, $2.95 shipping cost to be reasonable. What I find painful is when I have to pay $4.95+ as that to me seems unreasonable. Just my thought.

How to promote flat rate shipping to make it look like a good deal.

I believe if you display in your header, for example, $2.95 shipping on your entire order, then you have already psychologically prepared your visitors that shipping isn’t free, plus you have removed friction in the buying process. Why? Because suddenly your visitors don’t need to worry about the shipping cost. They know whatever they buy will only cost, for example, $2.95, which for many is a reasonable price to pay.

Important – don’t hide your flat rate shipping if you have it. Promote it clearly in your header so your visitors can see it on any page.

If you came across a study about flat rate shipping then please email it to me at jan@proimpact7.com.

Is Free Shipping More Attractive Than A Dollar Discount?

Jan Petrovic — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 13:16:21 +0000

Plenty of studies suggest customers want demand free shipping:

• 61% online shoppers prefer to shop with a retailer that offers free shipping than one that doesn’t. — Forrester Research (2007)
• 43% of shoppers abandon their shopping carts because of unexpectedly high shipping charges. — PayPal, comScore (2008)
• 60% claim free shipping is a reason they are more likely to shop online. — Harris Interactive (2008)
• 90% believe free shipping offers would entice them to spend more online. — The Conference Board (2008)

Read the full story….