Losing customers because shipping charges shown too late in checkout process

[Concept]

Hi,

I have a small site (LE version) that offers a few products for sale online but have had a complaint from a customer that he got authorisation from his boss to make a purchase then found out several steps later that there was also a shipping charge.

Looking at the site you go
'Add to Cart' - brings up the shopping cart status page and then redirects back to where you were
Ideally this should show the shipping charge at this status page.
Is this possible?

If I do 'view basket' it does not show the shipping charge
nor on the 'checkout now' page (ok there is a link to T&C's here but this guy obviously didn't take any notice of it!!)

So hit the next button and get again the same confirmation of order with no shipping charge and the boxes to enter my details - only when you scroll down below the initial screen of view do you see anything about shipping charge (we have a message saying all are subject to £9)

Is there a way of making this show earlier in the checkout process?
Think it may be why we don't get that many orders!
Thanks

Jo Taylor
http://www.meadex.co.uk/acatalog/Type_B_Domed.html is where I started from

[pinbrook]

you probably could do with better info on the website re terms and conditions.

It is one of the first things I do when shopping is to find out shipping costs, I do not expect to have to go to the checkout to find them I expect to find them one click from the index page.

It may be worth searching through other posts in this forum on the word "credibility" and "terms" to get better ideas for to present this type of info

Foe some reason you don't show your terms and conditions until the checkout, and then this is what you say...

Shipping And Handling Shipping is charged for all orders which are sent out.

2 things to do here

place a link in the horizontal navigation to terms and conditions
actually say how much shiping is rather than just saying there is a charge

[Legends]

Plus Delivery

I notice that you have put the phrase 'Plus Delivery Charge' on each product.

why dont you make that a [LINK] to your terms and conditions where you should state the actual cost of delivery and methods used.

This way people would be able to find out exactly what they are going to pay quickly.

cheers

[Concept]

Thanks for those - easy to miss the obvious ways of doing things. Shall get that done now - thanks again

Jo Taylor

[oldhasbeen]

You'll never get customers to see what's right in front of their eyes mind - we have our UK flat rate delivery charge at the top of every shop page, in our T&Cs, FAQs and How To Order pages - still people miss it.

Even on our contact form we state that we cannot answer general queries already covered in our FAQs and How To Order pages (with links provided!) and still get enquiries for "do you have a catalogue" - "how much is your postage"...........

As Jo says, one of the first things I always do when thinking of buying from an ecommerce site for the first time is check out things like T&Cs, FAQs, address (PO box only, run a mile), telephone/contact numbers (mobile only, run another mile).... I guess as we're all in the ecommerce business we're attuned to these things - the general public doesn't seem so keen to verify a business before purchasing and then wonder why there are some many charlatans out there ready, willing and able to fleece them of their dosh (thus giving the rest a bad name!).

2p from me!

Regards - Helen

[TraceyHand]

I could be way off here, I don't have the right site open in Actinic at the minute, but if you choose to "request location information early" in the checkout, does it not then recalculate the cart to include shipping based on this information?

Is there another business setting needed too to make this work? I'm sure our JTB site does this..