Understanding how to price your eCommerce product shipping model can be confusing. Using a fulfillment center like Shipfusion frees you from navigating the shipping and receiving landscape with zero stress. Below are some tips and insights on when its time to take your business to the next level.
You’ve set up a visually appealing eCommerce store and have stocked it with some amazing products. Everything is in place except the shipping rates.
You have yet to decide which type of product shipping pricing model you should opt for so that your profits do not suffer, nor do your customers find it overwhelming.
Free shipment, flat rate shipment, matrix rate shipment, dynamic rate shipment or a combination of multiple shipping rate types – confused? It’s the final piece of your eCommerce puzzle that still needs solving.
eCommerce Product Shipping
We suggest that you start from the bottom, that is, first find out how much an average product shipment will cost you and then decide what to offer to your customers.
Because let’s be honest, every customer wants zero shipping, but can you afford to offer free shipment to your customer? If you can, then good, but of course it’s hard to tell at this stage whether you can or you cannot until you’ve worked out the actual shipping cost.
To calculate your product shipping costs, you’ll need to factor in all the overheads. This includes:
- Handling costs, which are the wages you pay to your packaging staff to process a single item. Simply, take the average number of minutes it takes your employee to package one item, divide it by 60 and multiply the result with the minimum hourly income you pay to your employee.
- Packaging material cost, which includes the cost of boxes, tape, filling material etc. Of course, you need to work with averages since it’s impossible to track material costs for each order.
- Postage, for which you’ll need to calculate how much your carrier will charge for shipping an order to its destination. To establish a baseline for reference, work with average weight and packaging dimensions and test out different destinations to reach an estimated figure. Every carrier provides a shipping calculator on its website so you don’t have to worry about how you’ll get the postage price from your carrier.
Add all three, and you’ve got your average shipping cost. Now you can proceed with choosing a shipping rate type for your online store!
eCommerce Product Shipping Options
Free Shipping Model
As the name suggests, your customers don’t have to pay anything in shipping charges. If your previously calculated average shipping cost is too low and you feel your profit margins will be healthy enough to accommodate the cost of shipment, this the best option to go with.
If you think you can’t afford a free shipment model for every order, you can offer it over a certain cart value. As a suggestion, set the threshold a bit higher than your average cart value.
Flat Rate Shipping Model
In a flat rate shipping model, you offer a fixed shipment price on all your orders – big or small. The good thing about this model is that your customers know what to expect in shipping rates. Just make sure that you don’t set your flat rate shipment too high. A good strategy would be to set it at break-even; you aren’t here to earn a profit on your shipping costs.
Matrix Rate Shipping Model
Determined by calculating: Product weight x Cart value x Shipping cost x Destination. If you sell big-ticket items, this could be the pricing model for you. However, it also carries a disadvantage – your customers don’t know what to expect in shipping rates until they’ve entered their address.
The final price can take them by surprise and may force them to abandon their carts. To get your way around this problem, you can try incorporating a shipping calculator on the product page. This way, your customers will know about the expected shipping rates in advance.
Dynamic Rate Shipping Model
Last but not the least the dynamic rate shipment, also known as real-time shipping rate model. In this, you connect your customers directly to a carrier by integrating a redirect link on your checkout page. All the calculations are performed by the carrier.
While this certainly helps establish transparency in your shipping pricing model, it’s also one of the least liked among consumers. Again, the reason is, that your customers don’t like surprises when it comes to calculation of shipping rates. You can provide a redirect link on the checkout page but still, it’s a model that you should try to avoid.
You can also try a combination of the above pricing models, just be sure that whichever product shipping model you choose is convenient for your business and super convenient for your customers.
Shipfusion sets your business on autopilot and combines flexible, reliable fulfillment with powerful, real-time technology. Shipfusion has multiple fulfillment centers across the US and Canada – making it easy to manage your eCommerce business. For more information on how to set your business on autopilot, contact one of our fulfillment specialists today.
