Web Podcast - Episode 43: Why offer free shipping?

Read the transcription of this podcast:

Hey Everyone, Episode 43 Today! We're talking about Free Shipping

Now, free shipping is everywhere or not everywhere but on most websites anyway and there's a reason why it's in most websites guys, it's because people love free shipping, people sell more when they offer free shipping. If you think about it... You go and buy an item online and you know straight away from the get-go it's all free shipping, you can see a price and you can feel confident in that what you're buying is what you're paying or what you're paying for is what that price is on the field there, you don't go to the checkout and then get a $10, $20 shipping cost. So, free shipping is a great way to get more people to buy on your website and it can be especially good for people that have items that are over $100 for example because the actually cost of shipping then is quite diluted in that cost where-as if you're selling something that's cheaper. You guys are selling say gift or little knickknacks and stuff online for $10-$20, then it can be quite hard to offer free shipping. So, there's two real ways to do this, you have one... You offer free shipping regardless, Blanket Free Shipping Offer. Buy whatever, you get free shipping. Now, you're obviously gonna have times when you win and you lose, you might make an order for $10-$15 and you're probably gonna lose on profit, you're not gonna make alot of profit and then you're gonna have some customers who'd buy quite alot. It's free shipping, they'll buy quite alot and you make money. So, it's abit of a tricky one but at the end of the day the best thing about a blanket free shipping cost is that people can feel comfortable buying what they want, they know whatever they buy they get free shipping, they don't have to wait till the checkout to see that "Oh, there's a $10 shipping cost," and they leave. So, that's a great way to offer IF you can digest that cost of shipping.

Now, the second way which is a little more common and you would've definitely seen all over the web, probably is... When people offer a free shipping incentive based on a certain value. So, if you spend $100 you get free shipping, you spend $50 you get free shipping, you spend $200 you get free shipping. So, that's a great way to get people to buy aswell but also on top of that is it's also a great way to do it because people can/they might put say... Let's say you offer free shipping for $100, their basket might have $95 worth of stuff in it and they're going and they're at the checkout and they're seeing the shipping cost estimate and they think "Awww." But then you've got a little alert box that you should put on your website that saids 'Hey, spend another $5 and get free shipping', then that really gets people to go "Oh, what the heck? I'll spend another $5, I'd spend that on shipping anyway and get myself something else." So, what can you do is actually use this option to actually up-sell people, to up-sell customers and get them to buy something else on top most likely and you should really only advertise just lower cost items. They don't wanna go buy twice of what they've bought if it's $100 item or $90 item, whatever I said before. So, you can use that to actually make them spend and buy more and award them with that free shipping... So, it's abit of an incentive to get them to spend a little bit more money.

So, to be quite frank, I think personally that option's a better way to go and I've done this on several websites, I don't have may clients that offer free shipping but I do have quite a few that offer that sort of tier, you know... Spend $X and get free shipping and we often find that people are actually spending that amount of money to get free shipping. So, it's a great way to get people to buy and just a further back this up guys I read something the other day from the Walker, Future/Walker Sands: Future of Retail. 2016 study, it's a couple of years old now but their study concluded that 9/10 people said that free shipping was the number 1 incentive to get them to buy. So, basically what we're saying here is 9/10 people are saying "Give me free shipping and that will be one of my biggest judges on whenever I buy this product or not, whenever I place the order or not." So, it's important really that you do offer free shipping instead of giving them free coupon codes and emailing them this and emailing them that. Just simply put on your website... 'Spend $X, get free shipping' or 'If you can afford it or if your products are over $80, then free shipping regardless.'

Now, just another quick tip guys before we end this podcast... If you're offering free shipping at a certain value, most companies say "Free shipping on orders over $100." Now think about it, how many companies or chain stores do you go into and everything's $9.99, $99, $199, $14.99, blah you get the drift. What I'm saying is with your free shipping option, offer your free shipping on orders over $99 not $100 because physiologically $99 is a two digit number and it looks a lot less than a three digit number like $100. So, yes it's only $1 less but it can subconsciously effect the buying decision that someone's gonna make if you offer free shipping on orders over $99 or sorry, $99 or over. So, if you advertise that people go "Oh yeah, $99" just like people look at $100 price tag and it can actually effect someone and go "Oh, it's $100... Ohh, it's actually $99 now, I'll buy that now." because it's $1 cheaper it doesn't make much difference but it's just that physiological sort of effect it has on us. So, try this out guy's, give it a go and let me know how you get on. I'm actually quite excited to get this going on a few of my own clients, i'm just tryin' get that across to them.

So, I hope you found that valuable, give it a go and let me know what results you get because I'd love to get your feedback. So, anyway guys, that's Matt from the RAZOR Web Design Wire Podcast and join us again next time, Cheers.