The biggest trend we have seen these past two years is offering free shipping for all online orders regardless of the size or amount of the order placed. Though this is the recommended way to go to stay competitive, it might not be an option for your business and industry. Let’s review the idea of free shipping and why it started to be used as an online marketing tool.
Data collected from various eCommerce websites have shown that it was very common for a prospective buyer to add items to their cart, go all of the way to the checkout page and stop their action once the shipping cost was added. You may understand what the visitor was thinking “I think I might be able to get this to the store and skip the shipping cost”. About half of the people surveyed actually said that the shipping added to the cart was the only reason why they did not buy online. With that information, many larger companies changed their way of doing eCommerce, increased the price of their products and started to wave the shipping cost altogether.
Note that many businesses offer free shipping with a minimum amount spent. This offer usually includes ground shipping which is the most affordable method for the business owner. More expedient ways are typically charged (example: overnight would have a fee).
So let’s imagine that you own or manage one of the companies online that need to add shipping, what are you options?
=1= You can use a 3rd company that handles your entire order including shipping methods. Often times, you can keep your website and have the cart and shipping handled by them. Of course, they charge a fee for their service. Sometimes they have a set-up fee and/or a monthly fee, other times it is transactional. Using this method makes it easier to deal with shipping since their programming team is the one with the headache of keeping up with the shipping companies’ ongoing changes. That said you are “stuck” with “them” and at the mercy of their service and fees … good or bad.
=2= You can integrate directly to major shipping companies like UPS or FedEx. They offer web masters a way to link your cart to their shipping engine. It is called an API. These companies do not charge a fee to you but you do have to pay your programmer to perform the API integration the first time around. Also it can happen that the shipping company has technical issue (perhaps slow server during busy times) which may affect your cart’s performance.
=3= A 3rd option that works very well for companies which do not have many products is a flat fee. You can set up a flat fee per item or per package in your Content Management System and control how much to charge the buyer. What is nice about this option is that you can decide in the back-end which shipping company to use. Changing the flat fee(s) in the CMS should also be fairly easy if you have a good admin center. Again this option works best if you only sell a few items.
Each shipping method has its pros and cos and the selection should be based on your specific needs, business situation, budget and online goals. Discuss them carefully with your website designer to understand which shipment option you should select and offer to your clientele online.
Remember to consider the idea of offering free shipping to your online buyers. This removes the technical headaches of any shipping integration and may also give you an edge over your online competitors.
We invite you to watch our 15 minute-video which highlights the different options. Simply click play! You can also visit our web page discussing our eCommerce services here.
Never hesitate to contact our friendly team by phone at (707) 794-9999 (Pacific Standard Time) or by email here. Have a successful day!