How To Offer Free Shipping on Your Ecommerce Store & Still Make a Profit – Episode 2

Welcome to the second episode of the Ultimate Guide to Profitable Free Shipping. This week we are going to talk about clever pricing strategies to recover your shipping costs. If you look at any product page in Amazon, very likely the seller with the lowest price gets the buy box. This price expectation puts pressure on sellers to list a price which is just right. How do you set an attractive list price and recoup your shipping expenses at the same time? Let's look at point 6 through 10 to answer that question. 6. Include shipping costs and product prices Remember the last time you were irritated about hidden resort fees during hotel checkout? Similarly, online customers are put off when you charge shipping separately right at the end during checkout. Many studies have shown that the customers prefer an inclusive list price compared to last minute. Additional charges on a low list price, including shipping costs and product prices may slightly lower the total traffic but will decrease your cart abandonment and improve your customer perception. This means higher eventual sales and better reviews for being transparent. It is highly recommended for products where shipping costs are a small fraction of the product prices. Number seven Offer free shipping on select items only. Sellers often struggle with shipping costs on items that are heavy in weight and large in size. But if you have a catalog of items big and small, you can thoughtfully select which items to offer free shipping on. The key to doing it is effective communication. Be clear and upfront about the products you offer free shipping on so it's easier to navigate without any surprises. A customer acquired through free shipping sales can be upsold on other items in your catalog in future. 8. Enable free shipping on large orders. This is an alternative to setting minimum order value mentioned in the first episode. Minimum order value may not work for every seller, especially if they don't have variety of products in their catalog. The customer may abandon the purchase because they can't find anything to fill that gap. Instead, offer free shipping if the customer buys multiple quantities. This works well in consumable categories such as such as personal care or household regulars, which customers require over and over again. The end goal is to ship less and sell more, increasing your bottom line. Number nine Introduce flat rate shipping. If you are unable to include shipping costs into your product prices, there is still a way to manage customer expectation of no surprises. Let your customers know upfront about a flat shipping charge irrespective of what they buy. In such a case, they are more likely to find an item they want and complete the purchase. A flat shipping charge makes things easier for customer it is one less thing they have to worry about at the checkout. It is recommended for online stores where shipping cost does not vary a lot from product to product number. 10. Adopt a dynamic shipping charge if your warehouse is geographically closer to most of your customers, you might want to offer low shipping charge on your products. But a few orders from far away can eat into your slim margins if you offer same shipping charge to all your customers. Instead, get real time estimates of shipping rates from your shipping software. It will consider distance, time to delivery and surcharges to give you the best rate every time. This can be done by connecting you shipping software directly to your online checkout card and you don't have to bother about getting your shipping costs right anymore. To summarize this 6 include shipping costs in product prices 7 offer free shipping on select items only 8 enable free shipping on large orders, 9 introduce flat rate shipping and 10 adopt a dynamic shipping charge thanks for watching the second episode of our series. If you enjoyed our content, please share this post with a friend or colleague who might benefit from this series. Subscribe for more such content and keep an eye out for episode three next week in which we will talk about profitable shipping by choosing the right carrier options. And lastly, sign up to our newsletter for even more awesome content delivered right to your inbox. See you next time.