How can you increase sales this Xmas for your ecommerce business?
Customers love free shipping. That’s not news. Over 56% of holiday orders had ‘free shipping’ in 
one form or another, and these orders were 30% larger than paid shipping orders overall. But offering free shipping doesn’t have to mean sacrificing your margins for a bigger market share.
- Use fashionable shipping methods to increase the perceived value of the product. Yes, that means padding the price. Many customers will happily pay more for the same product if your shipping is marketed as ‘eco-friendly’ or ‘sustainable’, and still get excited about free shipping. Remember to sell the idea of the product, and make them proud to pay a bit more. There may be rewards on your end for using sustainable methods as well.
2. Limit free shipping to VIP members or for orders over a certain size. We know that you’d lose your shirt offering free shipping on 99p pen and pencil sets. The customers know that too. Only offer free shipping above the break-even point, obviously, but calculate it correctly.
VIP clubs let you make sure that individual orders may lose money, but each VIP customer as a whole turns you a profit. It also encourages them to do more of their business through you rather than the competition. More efficiency for both of you.
3. Use free shipping as what it is, a marketing tool. Many businesses ‘pay’ for free shipping from their own marketing budgets. They find that every pound spent on ‘free’ shipping gets them more business than a pound spent on traditional advertising.
Don’t drop the marketing budget entirely, though, else how will they know about the free shipping?
4. Keep your shipping costs down – you’re paying them now. This only works if your orders are packed efficiently. Develop a matrix for your packers showing how the most common order combinations fit into your boxes. If you have the budget, bring in optimisation software to make some of the packaging decisions.
If need a little helping hand with your pick and pack services, packaging and sending of your goods this Xmas, call DMG Freight Services on 01279 452 468 and see how we can help. We specialise in this line of work and continuously work with each customer to ensure their requirements are met. We appreciate that each business is different and offer a personlised service to help you stay in control of your goods without the headache of storing and sending them, especially at this busy time of year.
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