Shipping Charges On Your Website

Shipping Charges On Your Website

Marketing tactics are a dime a dozen, some are effective and some do more damage than good. When you are in the start-up or redesign phase, working with a website design company, it's a great time to review your policies regarding shipping to see if you can transform those policies into sound marketing devices. A professional website design firm should be able to help you to develop sound policies regarding shipping and to ensure that your website development makes the best use of whichever tactic you choose to exploit.

Consumer psychology is a huge factor that should be considered in your policy and website development. Even with the most professional website design on earth, if your pricing or shipping policies aren't inline with what consumers expect your conversion rates severely suffer. Many folks may even leave your site in the middle of placing an order when they see what your shipping rates are.

There are three basic tactics relating to pricing/shipping and consumer psychology. First, a company may choose to use low prices and high shipping charges. This will attract customers who are searching for the lowest price, but if they are on their toes, the high shipping charges will send them packing. It is a strategy that often works, especially with first time customers, but sometimes it hampers the company's possibility to get repeat customers and really, repeat business is a lot easier to get than new customers.

On the other hand, some folks just go in search of free shipping and are a little less concerned about the base price of the product, figuring that it all comes out in the wash so to speak. You've got to understand though, that customers evaluate your offering first on price, and then they check out the shipping. Their perceived value is what is important. If you offer free shipping and your prices are somewhat comparable to your competitors, you can come out ahead using this tactic. You can also offer a "rush order" upgrade, not meaning that the shipping method will be faster, but that the package will receive priority handling, getting it processes and in the mail quicker than usually. Same-day order processing is a concept that many customers value.

Because consumers just naturally love "free" stuff. Free shipping can be used as an incentive to increase the amount of a purchase. This is one tactic that can really boost your revenues and give you a marketing advantage. Rather than offering free shipping on everything, for instance, you would offer free shipping only on orders that exceed a certain dollar amount. If a customer is making an $80 purchase and they saw something on your website that they really wanted, but didn't want to spend the additional $20 for it at the moment, they are likely to go ahead and purchase the second item as well if you offer free shipping on purchases over $100. The way they see it, if they would be paying a $10 shipping fee, they are really getting the second item for half-price.

Whichever tactic you choose in regard to your shipping policies, make sure that your website design company understands it when they are developing your website and that their services aren't limited in regard to their ability to set thresholds and implement the strategy you choose. Sometimes this requires a little programming expertise that not all website development companies have.


Related Articles

  • Abandoned Shopping Carts
    Are your customers abandoning their shopping carts prior to closing a sale? If so, you need a professional website design company to review your site and to provide website development services to ensure that your shopping cart system is effective in closing sales with your customers. Online shop...
  • Creating Good Pay-per-Click Ad Copy
    Your goal in pay-per-click marketing is not to drive clicks, but to drive qualified clicks. Theres a big difference between the two. In this article, Im going to talk about some strategies you can use to send a message a that can enhance the likelihood of a qualified click...
  • Feeding Internet Spiders with Site Maps
    A site map is an effective tool to improve your search engine position. See how you can give those spiders-bots the best possible treat.
  • Business Web Hosting: Which is Right for You?
    Business web hosting is what you need. You have a website you need to put online. When you look around on the internet, there are thousands of choices. How do you choose the right web hosting package for your business?...
  • How To Find Cheap Web Hosting?
    There are plenty of cheap web hosting companies on the net and sometimes it can be very difficult to decide which one you should go for. After all, once you have decided on one web host, it can be difficult to switch your websites to another one.
  • Is Choosing Affordable Web Hosting Difficult Task?
    Getting the right web site hosting plan is mandatory for budding businesses. With so many hosting companies providing different web hosting plans, it is becoming more and more difficult to choose an affordable web hosting provider.
  • Earning Customer Trust Online
    Building customer trust online is a combination of good branding, good design, and good content. A website needs all three components to be successful in creating a climate of trust that encourages sales.
  • 10 Tips For Buying Domains on Ebay
    There are bargains to be had buying domain names on EBay. I buy a few every week and bid on lots more. Heres a few tips for a successful domain buying experience on EBay.
  • Where to Get Some Scripts
    You may find the list of basic scripts here.
  • osCommerce - What is it and its benefits?
    You should have come across this word

Contact Web Design Outsource and get started today

Need Website Designing, Development, Redesigning, Maintenance and SEO services or help growing your company's web presence? Request a free Quote Now.