Shipping charges effect on customers buying

[janeread]

It's interesting you are shipping by weight. I've always thought that customers wouldn't like this - I don't as a customer - because you don't know how much your shipping charge will be until some time into the order, and then if you want to reduce your shipping charge you don't know necessarily know which products to remove.

The other thing is that customers who buy more pay more for shipping ..

[pinbrook]

Our products are light, average postage is £2.00 - £3.00 well within acceptable postage cost in my view.

shipping by weight allows us to send some items at £1.25 (min charge)

I think this thread shows there is no one easy solution, but by seeing how others do it you can make a better decision on the best solution for your own situation

[janeread]

yes, I think you're right, Jo. No one solution but this discussion is really good; it's certainly given me lots of food for thought.

Our products vary a lot in weight - we have self-hypnosis CDs which are very light and a Migraine relief product that weighs in at half a kilo and gifts that are 1-2 kg.

At the moment we have a flat rate of £2.20 for the UK, and shipping by weight for outside the UK.

Jane

[bentleybloke]

One business that I am involved with offers free UK shipping on orders over £49. Orders £49 or under are charged flat 4.95 for delivery and mainly go out Parcelforce 48 or Royalmail. It's amazing how many £45-49 orders go through when there are plenty of cheap items which are related to the ones that people are buying which could trigger free shipping.

[janeread]

this seems to be a common comment- that free shipping over a certain amount in general doesn't trigger additional ordering

[Stereo Steve]

Jane, thats a good thing for us. We do free over £50 but actually make more on orders in the £30-£49 range! The offer is there as a gimmick to make us stand out from our competition. It seems to have done this in spades. Many people will order £50.02 worth of stuff to get the deal, many don't bother. The upshot is that we eased up prices to make the £50 order profitable and it has had the effect of making the lower orders much more profitable, driving more traffic to the site and making big orders super profitable.

Really, for us, it's a loss leader as we have to get up to about £75 to make the same as a £49 order but it gets punters in and they seem to like it. OUr average profit per sale has risen by 40% since doing this and we are getting more and more sales by the day!

It won't work for everyone but it's worth a try, maybe as a limited time offer. We have done it for the long run.