Small business owners who have rejected the idea of offering free shipping may want to rethink the situation once again. A survey's found that consumers love free shipping in a way that's not entirely proportional to the minor expense it represents.
Compete's Debra Miller recently wrote about the Compete Online Shopper survey, and while doing so, stated, "93% of respondents indicated that free shipping on orders would encourage them to purchase more products online."
She also noted, "When asked about their most recent shopping experience, overall customer satisfaction was 10 percentage points lower for those who paid for shipping compared to those who had free shipping," and "[h]igh shipping costs were rated as the number one reason why consumers were not satisfied with their online shopping experience."
Need another reason to offer free shipping? Well, consider this: have you ever ordered an extra DVD or book from Amazon in order to qualify for it? Lots of people will spend more money for the sake of a perceived savings.
This is something that businesses might experiment with, at least, now that the holiday season has passed and less money is at stake.
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Re: Study Identifies Free Shipping As Likely Sales Booster
We noticed a substantial increase in sales after implementing a Free Shipping policy on our big-ticket items. For a few products, sales were up by over 70% after making the change.
Customers order more to get free shipping
Free delivery is always an
Free delivery is always an eye catcher. Has anybody ever noticed in their Google webmaster tools how often a search term has 'free delivery' tagged on the end?
Customers are definately searching for the products that have free delivery.
It took a study..
I wonder how much was invested to learn that "free shipping" improves sales :) Reminds me of a client that had me add this option to their website. I did as requested but the website was poorly designed by them using an old online builder. The sales did not increase, I tried like heck to advise that the site need updated to something more "current" should I say.
You can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink. So, bring all the visitors you want to your website you can't make them buy! Websites have got to stay updated and look worthy of whipping out their credit cards, trusting and not take 2 mins to load etc..
Have a great day!
Snerdey
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Free shipping great to have,
Free shipping great to have, but depending on what you're selling, it may not be a good fit for that particular product, but overall Compete is correct "it encourages consumers to buy" Concrete floor coating is one of them.
Free Shipping
I am definitely one of those customers who appreciate free shipping. Often, when shopping for a particular item, I will make the purchase from the company who has free shipping - even if the item is more expensive (but the total is less than the company that charges shipping).
Free Shipping
It is human nature to value something that is perceived to be "free" more hightly than it should be valued on a monetary equivalent basis. A logical buyer would simply calculate the total cost of an item including shipping and compare apples to apples -- but that's not what most people do.
Free Shipping
Many online retailers have declared Friday as the last day that shoppers can order gifts online and have them delivered by Christmas with standard shipping.
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