Free Shipping!

There is really no such thing as Free Shipping. Someone has to pay for it, whether it is the seller or the buyer, but shipping is not free. The term free shipping is more of a strategy than what it actually is saying.

In today’s blog post, I will talk a little bit about shipping. I am going to start by giving you some statistics of what I have found online. Fifty-two point eight percent of all online consumers expect free shipping and they rank it as their top priority when considering who to buy from and what retailer to choose but it wasn\’t just free shipping.

It was also fast shipping. They rank these as top priorities but we\’ve already known

consumers want products fast and free. We have seen some amazing strategies coming from Amazon. They offer fast and free if you are a premium subscription member because they can offset the shipping costs with these paid subscriptions.

Now how can smaller ecommerce stores compete with large companies such as Amazon?

The answer is not straight forward but you can start by building your own brand and to make sure that your customers can only buy your product from your store.

If that is not possible you will need to try to drive down that average zone that you\’re shipping from. Finding a centrally located distribution center can really help you lower that average zone and by lowering that average zone you\’re gonna slowly start to lower that

average cost of your shipments.

Another option, especially if your products do not have the margin to offer free shipping is to drive the cost of the shopping cart by offering shipping over $50 or $100, or something like that.

You can even take it a step further by negotiating with the carriers. Most of the time, if you can show them the potential business they can get from you, they will negotiate a lower shipping fee.

At the end, whether you are offering free shipping, flatbox shipping or regular shipping where the shipping is determined by the dimensions of the product, you will need to negotiate with your carrier, decide whether you will ship locally or globally and then, depending on that you will need to ensure you get a central point for distribution that can help you drive down the costs of shipping.

In Builderall we have multiple options in Supercheckout to help you bring your shipping strategy to live. You can have free shipping, flatbox and regular or you can have either of these options and add a transport zone, giving you more freedom to charge differently for each zone.

If you need to learn more about shipping or how to sell a physical or information product online, make sure to join my Facebook Group.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/bainfoandphysicalproducts