In the Buddhist tradition, the Middle Way describes the one true path to liberation. Also known as the way of the middle, it describes how we need to embrace both sides of every coin in order to be truly happy.
In practical terms, ancient Buddhist monks stumbled across a formula that leads us to a place of equilibrium and balance: a place where you’re never too cold or too hot; where it’s never too dark or too bright. The middle way is your guide to achieving fulfilment and contentment in life, and it’s analogous with many aspects of both professional and personal life.
So, what does this have to do with converting more customers with shipping?
If you want increase sales and your average order value, you shouldn’t go all in on free or fast shipping. The path to business growth is the middle way: offering both free and fast delivery options to customers. Still not convinced? Check out our shipping and conversion facts for 2019, and see how you can take advantage of them below.
Increasing sales with shipping
Dissatisfying options increase abandoned carts
There is no doubt that shipping is becoming one of the most critical aspects of ensuring your customers have a seamless checkout experience. And while we focus our efforts on the latest and greatest payment tools, we often forget about the shipping experience we offer customers. It’s becoming best practice to offer your customers more shipping options in the checkout, and as a rule of thumb, it’s best to offer free flat rate shipping, standard shipping, and express options. This gives customers a little leg room if they want to wait longer for free shipping, or pay extra for faster shipping.
Learn more about profitable shipping tactics and watch our webinar with Shippit CEO Rob Hango-Zada and 99 Bikes eCommerce Manager, Tom Dodd.
Customers spend more to get free / fast shipping
If you’re unsure how to make shipping more profitable for your business, you need to remember these two words: shipping threshold.
Your shipping threshold is how much your customers are willing to spend in order to receive free or fast shipping. Understanding your threshold can only be done by assessing your average order value, and see how much you can increase it with the offer of free shipping. You’ll come to the final figure through a lot of trial and error, but the additional value you can gain from it will be worth the increase in revenue.
71% of customers are willing to add more items to their basket to take advantage of free shipping offers, and 82% of customers prefer free shipping with a longer delivery time compared to paying for short delivery times. Get your shipping threshold right and it will reward you in dividends in the future.
Customers will spend more for same-day delivery
62% of customers will pay more for same-day shipping which means you’ll need to make sure these orders leave your warehouse or distribution facility the day the order is received. To get this right (and avoid disappointing your customers) there are few things you should know:
- You need a reliable, same-day courier service that has multiple pick-up slots through the day
- You need to make sure you have a fool-proof pick and pack process that gets orders out quickly
- You need to make sure you let customers know your cut-off time in the day
- You need to make sure you let them know what areas cater for same-day shipping
Looking to offer same-day shipping? Hit us up and we can walk you through your delivery options based on your location.
Customers love to click and collect
For multi-channel and omni-channel retailers, offering free click and collect is one way you can stand out from the competition. For customers that don’t have the opportunity to receive their online packages, click and collect allows them to collect their items on their own terms. And we’re not talking about a small number of customers….
64% of customers use click and collect to retrieve their online orders from their closest branch. There are a few ways you can start offering click and collect, but the two most popular ways include:
- Shipping items from your warehouse to the allocated store
- Shipping inventory from other physical stores to the location your customer selected
Click and collect requires clear visibility of inventory across all your locations. Read more about it in our Ship-from-Store eBook.
Customers want flexible shipping options
There’s no one shipping option that can grow your business. As mentioned above, the Middle Way to the ultimate customer experience means offering your customers a diverse range of delivery options so they can pick and choose according to their needs. Remember:
- Failing to offer the right shipping options at checkout increases abandoned carts
- Customers will spend more to get free / fast shipping
- Customers will spend more to receive their items the same day they ordered it
- Click and collect is becoming increasingly popular among customers
If you want to learn more about how more shipping options drive more sales, get in touch with our team to see how Shippit can help. We live and breath to grow eCommerce and retail businesses, so hit us up!
