Online shoppers have sky-high expectations for every purchase they make these days. This has made creating a flawless customer experience the necessary goal for most online retailers, and that includes shipping. These expectations are largely the result of what’s known as the “Amazon Effect,” which has shoppers expecting ever-faster delivery for little or no cost.
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Welcome to the Transportation Impact Audio Blog. Our mission is to provide shippers, like you, actionable tips and advice to help lower logistics costs in every part of your business. Did you know Transportation Impact can tell you what your shipping costs should be to within 1/10 of 1% guaranteed? We have the market data to know precisely what a shipper like you could be paying and the expertise to help you negotiate those markets’ appropriate rates. Visit https://transimpact.com/ to learn more.
Can online retailers still charge for shipping in today’s market?
Online shoppers have sky high expectations for every purchase they make these days. This has made making a flawless customer experience the necessary goal for most online retailers. These expectations are largely the result of what’s known as “the Amazon effect,” which has shoppers expecting ever faster delivery for little or no cost.
Eretailers realize that to grow market share, they need to be able to meet these customer demands. Those that don’t are seeing climbing rates of cart abandonment and lost sales. Figuring out how to offer the right balance of cost and service, is one of the biggest challenges for every online seller today.
So do online retailers have to offer free shipping? What an online retailer charges for shipping has become a strategic decision. Now sellers must balance the wants of consumers with the reality of a business.
Needing to maintain acceptable margins.
Someone has to pay for shipping. It is never free, but consumers often feel that paying for shipping is never acceptable and they will seek out other websites to make a purchase based solely on whether a store charges for shipping. Does this mean that sellers need to offer free shipping all the time to save sales? Or do retailers need to charge for shipping to protect margins regardless of the impact on sales. For most stores there is an identifiable middle ground, thankfully. But finding it comes with hard work, and many considerations on the retailers part before deciding how to charge for shipping.
Do the research.
The first place to start, when evaluating how and what to charge for shipping, is to study top ecommerce companies as well as competitors within your industry. A good first goal is to determine what’s normal in your company’s particular marketplace because perception in what buyers are use to is important.
There will be patterns that emerge from the research which likely fall under a few broad types of methods, including free shipping, flat rate shipping, and shipping based on spend thresholds. These, and others, are identified and can then be evaluated.
Test.
When it comes to finding the right shipping formula for your business, the best way to start is with a test. The goal of the test is, of course, to identify the options that maximize sales and profits for the sellers. An ABC test of different cost structures and shipping options will measure the impact of each strategy on sales and allow for analysis.
The data from the testing phase can then be used to determine which model works best for your customer and how to proceed to solidify your shipping strategy. Testing the different alternatives is the only way to quantify the impact that the shipping cost has on the customer and on the bottom line.
Roll it out.
The result of the exercise will be confidence that your shipping policy is optimized to balance the needs of your business with what your customers want. Better yet, doing so immediately puts you one step ahead of most competitors because few if any will have done this amount of work on this make or break business decision.
Thank you for listening. For a free, no obligation, analysis of your logistics spend visit TransportationImpact.com. Have a great day!