Tips To Offer Free Shipping For Your Merchandise

Tips To Offer Free Shipping For Your MerchandiseDifferent buyers behave differently online, inspiring the evolution of e-commerce and the creation of better customer-oriented business ideas. Whatever their buying preferences and patterns are, customers tend to look for one common thing to enhance their shopping experience and it is nothing other than free shipping! In fact, you can try using a free shipping offer to boost sales with a comScore report claiming that 81 percent of customers are more likely to view free shipping as a top priority, 93 percent of customers will adopt certain measures, such as adding more items to the cart or searching online for promo codes, in order to be eligible for free shipping, and 83 percent of customers will decide to wait for two additional days if the seller makes a free shipment offer.

Additionally, another comScore survey found that Free Shipping Day 2012 was effective in boosting pre-Christmas sales by 16 percent compared to the previous year. While all these stats may inspire you to offer free shipping every single day, you may find it a bit difficult to implement the idea practically if you are running a small business with limited budget. On the brighter side, you may still offer free shipping and make the most out of your small e-commerce business by following a few simple yet effective strategies.

Try implementing free shipping on holidays when the orders are most likely to be high, which will help you cover the costs of free shipping to a considerable extent. Alternatively, you may offer free shipping during a specific holiday, such as Valentine’s Day, Fourth Of July, or New Year’s Eve. Another way by which you may offer free shipping while keeping your profit margin safe is by setting a minimum order value that your customers will need to purchase in order to qualify for free shipping. Play around with numbers for a while to determine the minimum order value that will keep your profit margins intact and allow you to offer free shipping to your customers.

Consider offering free shipping to your email subscribers who receive notifications of your new products and sales offers before others. Your loyal customers form a steady source of revenue and you may want to offer free shipping to them to encourage them to buy new products from you and to establish a long-lasting relationship. Additionally, offer free shipping for returns. This will not only create a feeling of trust in your customers’ minds, but it will also encourage them to purchase from you again. You may not bother bearing the additional charges for a few returns with a Washington and Lee University study claiming that businesses can boost their sales by 357 percent by offering free shipping on returns.

If you think that you really cannot bear the additional costs of free shipping, you may try it out for a few selected products. Make free shipping applicable for best sellers, sale items, or products that gain significance during special events. Again, you may promote new products by offering them with a free shipping guarantee. This way, you will not only encourage your customers to try out a new product, but you will also feel confident to order it from your supplier depending on the response that you receive from those who bought the product. For free shipping to work for you, you will need to tailor free shipping strategies effectively to be able to capitalize on them.

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