Let's imagine that a new customer comes to your website, find a product you want at a price you like and add it to your cart; They get to the checkout page and then it happens. They are hit with shipping and handling fees and suddenly start to guess at your decision to buy.
Suddenly, a product that they thought was priced fairly starts to look a bit expensive. One of two things happens later. Either they decide to go ahead despite rising costs, or they abandon their cart and leave their disappointed website.
So what can you do to influence this decision?
Let's take a look at some shipping strategies and how you can use them in your business.
Offer free shipping
Offering free shipping, usually for domestic orders only, is a sure way to get your customers' attention; however, depending on your margins, you can also reduce your profits.
Charge what your customers buy
In some shopping carts it is possible to configure shipping estimates in real time; in other words, your customers pay more or less exactly what they would pay to ship your products.
This strategy doesn't have the same power of persuasion as free shipping, but it's an easy way to make sure you don't drain your earning shipping costs and that your customers get the best deal possible.
Offer fixed rates
Your third option is to offer a flat rate for each package, or flat rates for weight ranges and order totals.
This particular method of charging for shipping requires a bit of preparation as you need to calculate the average cost of shipping a package. This is a best practice that you should do anyway to make sure you don't drastically download or overload your clients.