Which postage method works better?

[plymgary]

Hi,

I am working out how to do the postage charges on my new website and can not decide which of these two methods is better:

1. Offer a 'free postage' where the postage price is actually built into the price. Customers will then receive a discount (say 10%) if they buy two or more items so that they are not overpaying in postage.

The downfall of this method could be that customers looking at the same products on competitors sites (where postage is added during checkout) could consider my site to be more expensive.

method 2. Add postage to the customers cart based on the weight of their purchases. This means that customers will be charged different prices for postage based upon the items in their carts.

The downfall of this is that some customers may find that having to calculate the weight of their items and work out how much the postage will be might be put off.

Which method would you use? I actually use method 1 on my exisiting site with great success however, the new site is in a much more competitve industry.

Thanks,

Gary

 

[Fuzzy]

We offer free postage and works well for us

 

[Coppock]

i'd use free postage. it saves people time working out how much extra it will be, plus if your competitors don't shout about how much extra postage is people can get put off...

use the keep it simple theory I suppose!

 

[plymgary]

Thanks for the replies. I actually decided to charge a flat rate of £1.99 for each UK customer regardless of order size/weight.

Overseas customers have their postage charged on a tier structure depending upon weight.

 

[Kernelpower_Ltd]

i think as long as you are fair with your charges you will get plenty of orders

 

[EfficientEnergySolutions]

I can't stand websites which don't readily publish delivery charges.... especially ticks me off when you need to register with the site to see what the delivery total comes to!!
I just click straight off the site unless their prices are undercutting competition by a significant amount.

I would say offer free postage, then there's no frustrating customers with finding delivery costs and I am much more likely to buy from a site offering free delivery than one which doesn't when the prices are the same.

 

[1-4-me]

We offer free delivery and you dont have to register either

 

[Rhyl Lightworks]

We offer free delivery on any order over £10 (the cost of processing, packing, etc. orders below £10 makes it necessary to make a small order charge, currently at £1.65 - this also encourages some customers who only want a small item to look at other products, to bring the total cost up).

Some customers seem to ignore delivery charges and will go by the cheapest priced product, irrespective if the delivery charge makes it expensive. Others calculate the total price including delivery charge. You can't win them all, and I would say go for one or the other, preferably the latter.

I would say there are 2 golden rules for delivery charges:
1. Keep it simple, so that customers can easily calculate them, if there are any.
2. Make it very clear and prominent on the home page what these charges will be. Like others, I have left websites where I cannot easily find their delivery charges.

Barrie

 

[davidjgoss87]

Our sites offer free delivery on all orders. Our average basket is over £100 and the delivery costs us about £5 per parcel, but those numbers will be different depending on what your product is and may eliminate free delivery as an option financially.

If you are going to charge, keep things simple. I hate websites that offer several different tariffs for lengths of time and saturdays and AM etc - it just isn't necessary. The customer has already made their decision to buy from you, they don't need to be presented with more choices to make if it's not essential.

If you do free delivery, make sure you mention it in your site's layout so it's visible on every page, and use it in pay-per-click and other marketing to draw more people in.

The other advantage with doing free delivery is that you don't have to mess around with refunding delivery costs when you have things returned.

Either way, give your courier service a ring and ask them if they can reduce your rate as you expect your business will increase this year - it worked for me recently.

 

[Monica_ChilliApple]

Thanks for the replies. I actually decided to charge a flat rate of £1.99 for each UK customer regardless of order size/weight.

Overseas customers have their postage charged on a tier structure depending upon weight.

If you've decided to charge postage at a flat rate of £1.99, why don't you just add this amount in your product prices & tell clients about free shipping, I think that's what most of other people offering free postage do.

I'm not sure about your product line but if it's a pricy product, won't make much of a difference to your customers. Hope this makes sense.

 

[lemonhemispheres]

Hi all, I've just been writing shipping charges for my new shop site and have decided to go with free delivery for all orders over £35. I have quite a few small, light items £2 - 8 in value so I felt I needed to charge for the packing of some of the more delicate items, and it didn't seem right to include the £1.08 royal mail charge in the price. I've gone for a tiered structure based on weight (for under £35) and the website calculates the weight of each items automatically so that customers don't need to worry or add this up themselves. I think this is better than the 'per-item' charge that I've seen on some sites.

I also wondered if the free delivery of orders over £35 means that I don't have to charge VAT on the delivery of those items? Anything to reduce admin lol!

 

[KateCB]

We fell foul of that one with the VAT man - you can only NOT charge VAT on the delivery if the supply is Zero rated or tax free - however if you are offering free delivery and not showing delivery as a separate item on the invoice, then there IS no delivery and therefore no VAT!