Oh Ship, it’s the Free Shipping debate again.

The one thing we know for sure is customers love free shipping. I mean, who doesn’t? Even when I’m looking online for products I’ll always try and wrangle some free shipping. If it’s not urgent then I happy to wait a few extra days for an item to arrive. Sometimes even over a week. Well that’s all well and good but as a retailer it’s often not viable to offer free shipping, simply because we cannot afford it.

Here’s a few alternatives to offering free shipping that are worth a look

Offer Free Shipping once a threshold has been met.

You decide the threshold, however make it reasonable. For example if you are selling products under $50 each and the threshold is $500 that seems a bit unrealistic. Perhaps to encourage customers to buy more than one item you can drop the threshold to $99 ensuring you are getting a higher value order and they get the free shipping. win/win!

Upgraded Shipping

You charge for regular but they get super sonic express shipping which gets them the product quicker. You can really make yourself look great by saying, “hey, we know you want this item so bad and you totally deserve to get it as soon as humanly possible, so we have upgraded the shipping so you can enjoy it ASAP” 

Or something like that. This is an opportunity to make your store a good guy who cares about their customers.

Free Shipping based on loyalty

Ohhh… this one is GOOOD! Customers who spend more and are loyal to your brand get free shipping. This is as easy as pie to implement and encourages customers to return. You can use their invoices and email marketing to let them know what their status is (customise it to your business and don’t just go with silver, gold and platinum (boooring, zzzzzzzzzz) Make Free Shipping for VIP’s a THING for your brand and your customers will love you for it.