The world's largest retailer has just offered free shipping on almost 60,000 items through December 20th with no minimum order. This means free shipping offers are definitely on the mind of consumers for the holiday season. Rival companies offer free shipping with a minimum order or when ordering certain items, so let's look at the "free shipping" offer marketing strategy.
Use free shipping offers to gain business, not just give away the shipping cost. It's a profit and sales tool, not a giveaway. And there's more to it than just posting "FREE SHIPPING". Generally, the best return from a free shipping offer is when it's matched to consumer products and services such as current products that have caught consumers' interest. Overstock merchandise sales do not benefit as much with free shipping offers. Also, a constant free shipping offer can reduce its success. Offering free shipping for a limited time typically provides better results.
Many articles have been written about how shipping cost "sticker shock" directly causes abandoned shopping carts and lost orders. Even when the total of the items and the shipping represent a great value, some consumers lose sight of the quality of an offer and will not purchase if they consider the shipping cost to be too high.
If your company plans to jump onto the free shipping bandwagon, your shipping system may be able to help you decide when you can offer free shipping. Our CPS shipping software provides a report that shows your average cost to ship each package by each carrier and service. Since your company's shipping data is used for this, you have the data you need to determine if you can offer free shipping on every order, on orders over a certain amount, on orders for certain product types, etc.
Or, if a free shipping offer might not work for your company, consider a "flat rate" shipping offer. You can use this same report to establish your flat rate shipping cost "break even" price and use the report data to decide about your flat rate shipping offer.
Both of these strategies help fight lost orders due to a shipping cost surprise. Whichever you decide to use, make sure it's plainly offered at your web site. Make the process easy and help your customer click "Buy" instead of "Bye".
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