Many experienced online shoppers understand that ordering a product from an e-commerce provider, is a convenience.   They don’t have to waste that valuable time driving to more than one brick and mortar retail outlet, park, fight the crowds in the store while searching for the goods they want, and then stand in long lines of tired people to buy what they want.   And for most busy people, bypassing that exhausting time sink of a process is worth paying a few extra bucks, to have their products delivered safely to their doorstep in a box.

4. Free Shipping Can Increase Sales

Some people are digital natives and have been shopping for quality goods at a bargain price online for years.  These early-adopter’s and pro-level consumers are the most experienced at searching for the same product and evaluating the best deal from both asia mobile number list Big Box stores and independent e-commerce retailers.  They are not necessarily looking at the brand or culture of the online retailer but looking almost exclusively at two things; the cost of the product, and shipping and handling.  That will help them decide where they will buy the product (because they know enough about e-commerce to understand that they have many different resellers to choose from).

Other consumers weigh the cost of a product they want online, against one simple factor; the added cost of shipping and handling.  Sure, ordering a product online means that you are going to save time going in and out of stores looking for it, and that is a bonus.  But when you tack on extra costs for shipping and handling, that advantage quickly fades into the background.  Especially if the shipping and handling costs are more than the amount that the average customer feels is fair. 

If you do offer free shipping, use it as a promotional angle to entice new customers to your store.  It’s definitely viewed as a benefit to online shoppers, so include it in banners on your site, as subtext to your blog posts, in your sponsored advertising and on your social media profiles and cover art.   

“If it’s not going to cost me anything extra, why shouldn’t I just order it online?”  That is the value proposition you are creating when you incorporate free shipping into your pricing strategy.

And don’t feel trapped into offering free shipping 365 days per year.  Take a page from the marketing tactics of Big Box stores, who break out ‘free shipping’ as a huge incentive right around peak holiday buying periods like Thanksgiving, Chinese New Year, Christmas, Ramadan, Easter and Valentine’s Day.   

To use free shipping as an incentive, market a special limited time offer code that your shoppers can input at checkout.  Why does a code work as a sales incentive?  When the cart adds up the total of goods purchased, the shopper can also see the amount that they would normally pay for shipping and handling.  (Don’t hide that feature!  They need to see what it would have cost them without your special free shipping offer).

Seeing the cost of their purchase go down, after they have applied the special “free shipping code” is a valuable experience, that excites online shoppers.  They know that they have saved money, and that promotes completed orders (lower cart abandonment at checkout) and a real sense of satisfaction for your shopper.   And guess what?  Shoppers love sharing bargains with their family and friends, so they are very likely to share the coupon code for free shipping.    In fact, there are apps you can add to your Woocommerce and Shopify store that make it easy to create a popup of the special ‘free shipping code’ that your customers can share on Facebook or Twitter, in just a couple clicks.