With online shopping comes, well, online shipping. Anyone who gets into e-commerce will need to consider how they ship their products and how they price these shipping options. The best option may vary depending on the kind of product and the kind of customer, so it’s best to know what’s out there before you make a decision.
Shipping strategies
According to market research firm Clutch, nearly half of all consumers expect to get their packages within 2 to 3 days. Meanwhile, logistics company Bringg found that in 2015, over a quarter of online shoppers in the US abandoned their cart after seeing a delivery time they weren’t happy with.
If you don’t want to be left behind, you’ll need to design your shipping strategies and methods with this knowledge in mind!
Two-day shipping
Today, two-day shipping is the bare minimum of what could be considered ‘fast’ shipping. You should strive your very best to fulfill this, if you want a reputation for solid shipping.
One-day/next-day shipping
One step above two-day shipping is shipping on the next business day. Amazon Prime only offers this for orders until noontime of the previous day, so you might want to consider adopting such a limitation to avoid clogging up your logistics.
Same-day delivery
The holy grail of all shipping offerings, same-day delivery requires one hell of a logistics network, and will no doubt be expensive to implement. But then again, 61% of consumers would pay more for same-day delivery! If you have the bandwidth to fulfill this, go ahead and offer it even with a surcharge - you can bet your store will soar.
Pricing
The next thing to consider is how to set your shipping prices. This all depends on how much you’ve scaled, how big your margins are, and the kind of products you sell.
Free shipping
Who doesn’t love free shit? I mean, shipping. A 2016 study by Walker Sands illustrates that around 90% of shoppers would be encouraged to shop online more often if e-commerce stores would offer free shipping.
Unfortunately, just like science fiction author Robert A. Heinlein once said, “There ain’t no such thing as free shipping.” Okay, he might’ve said free lunch, but shipping works too. The reality is that shipping can never be truly free - it’s only a matter of shifting who gets to pay it. And in this case, if you offer truly free shipping, then you pay the logistics provider out of your own pocket every time you make a sale.
One thing you can do with free shipping is to gently increase the cost of your products, covering the cost of shipping to restore your margins.
Another is to only offer free shipping after a certain minimum purchase. This will encourage increased sales, even if you’re still losing out on the shipping fee.
Flat-rate shipping
By charging the same rate for all shipping expenses, you’re making it perfectly clear to your customers how much the shipping costs. It even becomes something that you can use as part of your marketing if you think it’s a really good deal.
Flat-rate shipping is best when your products fall within a narrow range of dimensions and weights, such as clothing. It becomes significantly more confusing and inconvenient for you if you sell a very wide variety of products, all with very different sizes and weights.
Real-time carrier rates
If you hook up directly to a shipping API or use a plugin that connects to carriers, you can have your shipping estimates displayed in real-time at the checkout screen. This gives your customers the ability to choose what carrier they want to use, and decide how much they want to pay.
Putting it all together
Multiple shipping options? Carrier rates? Integrated logistics? Sounds like a handful. But if you choose the right e-commerce solution, you can have all these and more. And if you pick a solution that’s tailor-made for you? Even better.
That’s where Trailblaze comes in. We integrate with the shipping API of your choice, and can implement whatever you need for your e-commerce shipping needs, whether it’s a simple plugin or a bespoke tracking feature that you request. We can make your customers’ shipping experience as light or detailed as you want it to be, allowing you to truly cater to their needs.