"Free Shipping".....I think I might turn it off. (9)
We offer it right now on a $25 supplement product.
Everybody and their mother will tell you it's best practice to offer free shipping yada yada yada.
However, I think with our product price isn't quite as dominant. Our product treats a medical issue. It's not an impulse buy. I would argue it is a price-insensitive kind of product. The only reason to keep free shipping around is we're already pretty expensive relative to competitors.
Obviously, if we turn it off we net an extra $3-5 in profit per sale. That sounds nice! The simple KPI to watch is how turning it off affects conversion rate.
Not really a way to know the answer here besides testing it, but has anyone else had success turning free shipping OFF?
Ive seen products sell 20x stronger at $39.99 with free shipping than $34.99 with $4.99 shipping. There is a reason everyone likes it, does it and will continue to do it. But as you said, only way YOU will know is a split test.
Hmmmmm you make it sound like offering it is just playing with people's psyche's more than anything.
--> $30 and free shipping BEATS $20 and $5 shipping.
Yes, it is. But that's also WHY it works.
Because it's how your mind works.
Simple things like it's expensive SO it must work better isn't just fooling ourselves, it can to some extent.
Same as the taste. Medicine isn't supposed to taste great, so it would work better if it tasted like medicine. Bitter.
My advice:
- Keep the free shipping, because it's another hurdle psycologically than a high price. You pay the high price because you want something that works. You pay for shipping only if you have to, as it's another hurdle for people to take (in a way it's like asking them to pay twice. Which isn;t great)
- Test an even higher price, like 59.99 (we're a lot more expensive, because we're the best (or something of that nature).
- Read Alchemy by Rory Macdonald - there's more background to what I wrote above, including an analysis of Red Bull from an effectiveness point of view. It'll cost you $25 and some time, but you'll easily make that back with your offer.
Good luck
I can imagine people getting bombed/annoyed last years with free free free and experience bad products, sneaky tactics to lure people into a paid subscription or other snakes under the grass. More and more people growing up with the internet and it's cowboys. So I can imagine, especially on certain products/verticals, people are looking for quality after all the deceptions (and so don't mind a few bucks extra if that gives them a feeling of "this is more trustworthy")
Again it depends on the vertical and audience too ofcourse.
Have you tested with "free returns" on/off already? And/or "not happy, free return". I can imagine a free return would always be nice... perhaps it also gives a signal you are quite confident about the product.
I used to help a local company to setup and fine-tune a couple of online stores. After a number of tests, what worked for us the best was free shipping after certain order size, don't remember the exact number but it was something around 100eur per order to qualify for free shipping.
It's important to add that the products they were selling were a bit higher priced, so large part of the products was above the 100eur price tag, which automatically gave them free shipping even when ordering one product.
What we also noticed quite frequently, was people ordering "one more small thing" in order to reach the 100eur barrier in order to get free shipping. So for example, they would order a mattress for 95eur and then add a pillow to cross the 100eur order value. In the end, we were able to sell more items which increased the final profit.
Might be worth it to experiment with this too.
@matuloo - we use €100 threshold for free shipping as well
Originally Posted by pekadis
The crucial part is to set the threshold wisely, it must be easy to reach with the products we are selling. I would say: look at the price of the best selling product and set the threshold a bit above it and of course, offer small supplemental things that people can add to cart easily.
@pekadis
"- Keep the free shipping, because it's another hurdle psycologically than a high price. You pay the high price because you want something that works. You pay for shipping only if you have to, as it's another hurdle for people to take (in a way it's like asking them to pay twice. Which isn;t great)"
This logic is pretty convincing.
...also, I'm super scared to raise price! We're already pricey for the market, so I thought getting rid of free shipping is a backdoor way to "raise price". I want to use this price raise to do stuff like make cute boxing for shipping etc. The product is for women - I hear packaging matters.
@matuloo
Yes I very likely will make "free shipping" only on a bundled product (extra upsell included) rather than just the solo bottle for a $33 bundle price instead of $25 solo bottle. So like "free shipping on orders above $30" would be the line.
@stickupkid
We offer 30 day money back guarantee just because we're so confident in our product. 9,000 sales later we've only had to fulfill the money back guarantee less than 5 times. Our product is stellar, but we also know that at a low price point people are too lazy to go through the process of sending a $25 bottle back in the mail. People threaten to return the product, then just never do it even when we tell them what to do to get their $$ back.
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