Cheaper Shipping

Like any online company out there, shipping costs are a continuous issue. The reality is this: customers seriously dislike paying shipping. In fact, shipping is one major (if not #1) reason for shopping car abandonment, and it is our number one complaint from customers. People just don’t like paying shipping no matter how cheap the product is.

First, we tried to reduce all standard shipping rates by 50%. To our dismay, people continued to complain and cart abandonment only improved about 1 to 2%. Some readers might conclude that 2% is awesome, but it wasn’t enough for us to justify absorbing the extra costs. An improvement of 10% or more would have been a significant sign that shipping was inhibiting buyers.

One thing we did know is that cart abandonment did reduce by almost 2%, and we believed that was still worth exploring. How could we offer cheap shipping for prints and still make money? Prints get heavy and shipping gets pricey. Another notable obstacle we discovered was that many customers are simply unaware of how expensive shipping costs can be.

Many online companies offer free shipping once a specific amount is met. This strategy leads to people buying more to avoid shipping fees. They save money. We make more money. We are finding that people who order small runs of prints (small orders) understand that free shipping would wipe our profit. The key for us was finding the magic number that made sense for us and would attract more orders. That number was $150, but that differs for every business.

Our number one priority is customer happiness. If customers feel like they paid too much in shipping, they can’t possibly be 100% satisfied. This is why we are hoping that free shipping will create more smiles and bring in more customers.