Shipping and delivery costs can often be a contentious point in online shopping, and many people attest to the fact that high shipping costs will often cause them to abandon their cart and look elsewhere for what they need.
However, offering free shipping all the time isn’t always a viable option, especially for smaller businesses, and trying to compete with Amazon’s free next-day or even same-day delivery options can eat into your profits pretty quickly.
With this in mind, you must look at our shopping policy, your logistics company, and charges. It ensures the user is getting value for money, the charges don’t turn people away, and you can still turn a profit.
Choose the right shipping partner.
With over half of the online shoppers abandoning their carts because of high shipping, being able to find the right partner will work in your favor. For some businesses, it can be paid to use more than the shipping provider and look into the options available to adjust your costs and get the best prices. In many cases, you might find it better to use flat-rate shipping, where you pay one rate for a specific weight regardless of the size of the parcel as long as the consignment you send fits into your maximum agreed weight.
Use the right size packaging.
Companies like UPS charge more for larger-sized packaging, and if you are shipping your products in the wrong size packaging, you will find you are paying more for delivery than you need to. Suppliers like https://www.texanbox.com/ offer a wide range of packing boxes to meet the needs of various customers, meaning you can find shipping supplies in the correct dimensions to help you keep your costs low. Even better, find a supplier who doesn’t have a minimum order value to help you avoid buying in bulk and increase your outlay for shipping materials.
Offer local delivery or pick up.
If you have a physical location or the means to deliver in a specific radius, this can be instrumental in keeping costs down. Offering customers the chance to pick the goods up themselves or for you to deliver them can be an added incentive to complete the sale and not look elsewhere. This way, they get the convenience of shopping online without the long wait times for delivery and high costs associated with this option.
Use lighter packaging materials.
Lastly, pay attention to the packaging materials you use, including the boxes too. The heavier the materials, the more you are likely to pay. This might only have you a few cents per parcel, but it can be a different weight-wise to increase your load if you use flat-rate shipping by being able to add more parcels to that particular shipment. Or it can mean you get to save more money as these cents add up over the course of the year to increase your profits. Corrugated cardboard boxes are lighter than regular cardboard, and air pockets, bubble wrap, and foam inserts are also more lightweight packing materials to use to keep costs down.
Conclusion
When it comes to reducing shipping and passing these savings to your customers, it is the small details that matter, and you need to be looking at what you use and how you ship to help you identify savings and changes you make to benefit both you and the customer.
