When running an online store, there’s always a chance that your customers will start second guessing their decision to buy once they take a look at the shipping and handling rates. In some cases, they will go through with their purchase despite the increased price but sometimes they will abandon their cart and start to look elsewhere. In order to prevent this from happening, you should develop an efficient shipping strategy for your store. And here are a couple of tips that will help you do so.
Offer Free Shipping for Domestic Orders
Offering free shipping is one of the best ways to get the attention of your customers but it can also cut into your profits. First of all, customers would always rather buy from an online store that offers free shipping, which means you will have an advantage over your competition. You can try to offer free shipping by slightly increasing your prices in order to cover it. Another way to do this is to offer free shipping with a minimum order amount. This will drive up your average order value and guarantee you more money to compensate for the shipping cost. Deciding whether you should offer free shipping usually depends on your margins as well as the niche your business operates in.
Set up Real-Time Shipping Quotes
Another thing you can do in order to make your shipping strategy more efficient is set up real-time shipping quotes. This means your customers will get a chance to pay exactly what you would otherwise pay in order to ship an item. If you do this, in most of the cases, you will break even between the shipping charges you collect and the amount of money you spend on shipping an item. Even though this way isn’t as effective as offering free shipping, it will still assure you that the shipping costs don’t drain your budget too much. Still, this way is quite effective when you are shipping some over-sized items. Using a real-time calculator will also help you when it comes to the trust of your customers.
Offer Flat Rates
A large number of online stores also opt to offer flat rates to their customers. However, this method may require some time until you figure out how much you pay for shipping on average. The best thing about offering flat rates is that you will be guaranteed not to overcharge or undercharge your customers. Once you find the right cost, chances are you will be either a bit over or under, but everything should be even at the end. This way you won’t lose money and you will still manage to keep your customers happy. Let’s face it, no one wants to pay too much for shipping and flat rates might just be what will help them choose your online store over another one.
Turn to Some Useful Apps
It is no secret that we are living in the age of technology and that our smartphones play an important role in our everyday lives. This also means these can be of much help when it comes to running an online store. First of all, there are apps that can help you set up and run your online store. We are talking about the apps that you can use to manage your inventory, track your sales and manage your customer list. There are also apps as Instatruck that you can use in order to save both money and time when shipping a product. Apps like this can match you to the right truck for shipping your item according to its size and pickup location.
Of course, not every business is the same, and the best way to come up with the right shipping strategy is to test what works best for your business. Make sure you follow all of the above-mentioned tips and you are guaranteed to come up with an efficient strategy for your business.
Lillian believes that the question of business goes far beyond the maximization of profit through different money-grabbing ploys. Instead, she likes to think that ethical principles should be at the core of every commercial venture, paving the way for much more balanced distribution of wealth on a global scale. As a seasoned business consultant, she tends to advise her clients to always focus on long-term goals and sustainability, rather than on some questionable get-rich-fast schemes.rn
