Smart Saver – Free Ground Shipping
Today, when searching for my favorite perfume I found a website that offered free ground shipping for it. Unfortunately the price was pretty high so the question was: is really free shipping worth it anymore?
Researching a little more I found another website that wasn’t offering free shipping but the price+standard ground shipping was way lower than the previous one.
Offering free shipping is an important strategy for any e-commerce merchant but buyers must be aware that merchants see the free shipping just another cost that will need to be covered from the margin of profit.
If you are a buyer, take your time and do a research to check if the “smart saver” which is “the one and only” free ground shipping really worth it.
If instead you are a merchant you may actually tell the shoppers that your smart free shipping saver is the smart way to go especially because the quality/price of your products are superior. All this info could easily be added in a new page called: “Why buy from us?”
I definitely agree with the overuse of free shipping on websites. Free shipping should really be something that’s a discount for the customer and not a hidden fee.
We’ve always done it where if Canadians spend over $89 they’ll get free shipping, otherwise it’s calculated. It works pretty well because it truly is free and not hidden and we get to reward loyal customers who do big orders.
Everyone Wins!
Pete
http://www.WickedOverstock.com
you are very right, I offer free shipping for every order, no matter the amount on one of the dropshipping sites I have, but I haven’t seen improvments in sales.
I will try your aproach too to see what will happen, however the shipping costs the supplier offers me are per product not per amount. So it’s like buy 2 and receive free shipping.