Yeah, the shipping has to be in the product price. If let’s say you have to get to whatever it is at Macy’s, I think its $35 dollars. If I need to buy one shirt, I’ll buy five shirts, or like, two shirts, or whatever… I will buy enough to cross that threshold and get the free shipping. Then I’ll return the extra items.
And it depends on the total price. I would say that there are almost no brands that make you pay shipping, regardless of the amount your paying. Usually there is a threshold, and I will try to reach the threshold.
Anne, Brooklyn
I was kind of taken aback when I heard this. Do people really want to go to all that trouble just to get free shipping? The time it takes to return the items is probably worth more than the shipping cost.
The problem with shipping fees is that people almost always abandon checkout when it creeps up at checkout.
Here are some numbers from Sleeknote:
The average website has a 69.5% abandoned checkout rate
and 55% of those are abandoned because “extra costs are too high.”
Yes yes, those “extra costs” mean shipping. So that line on the checkout page that says Shipping calculated at next step… that is a dare. Customers see that and think, Alright, buddy, let’s see your next move. I’ve got Amazon Prime.
The struggle is real. Can you, as a business, always cover shipping? Maybe. But maybe not. Depending on the weight, size, and your shipping carrier, you don’t have much room to lower that cost. But you do have control over the pricing.
Pricing is really important. Baking in the cost of shipping to the product price is easy if your average order value is high enough. Doing some math with those numbers above, free shipping could lower your abandoned cart rate to 32%. That could be huge.
When Anne wanted 1 shirt but needed to go over $35 to get free shipping, she found a workaround. I can’t blame her though… after all, she just uses a workaround to get around the workaround you have in your pricing strategy.
Do you have a shipping minimum suggestion? Tell me in the comments below!