Abandoned shopping carts - 43% abandon due to postal charges - article

[mrs maggot]

found this artical useful, i dont charge p&p on our site, its included in all our costings, as i know myself i have booked something online, then seen the postage, and its made me think twice

anyway the article is here http://www.prestashop.com/blog/article/ ... e_policies

[John G]

I think its a case of you think the item is a bargain but when the postage is added at checkout buyers think twice. If postal charges were transparent, and listed beside each item before you buy, I think this % would come shooting down.

[JSR]

The trouble is that it's not as simple as that.

Postage for a mug might be almost £3, but postage for four mugs is around £6 while you can ship 50+ mugs for a tenner . If you put £3 postage next to the price of a mug, the customer will think that four mugs will cost £12 postage, or that 10 mugs would cost £30 postage.

It's the same for free postage. You'd have to increase the price of the mug by £3 - so if the customer buys four mugs, they don't know that they're actually paying £12 for the postage that only really costs £6. If they buy a dozen, they end up paying £36 hidden postage for something you can ship for under a tenner.

What do you do? Rip the customer off by obscurity, or be honest that you charge what the postage actually costs for the weight of the shopping cart? It seems that being "transparent", which may result in ripping the customer off, may result in more sales than only charging what the postage costs. That sounds like the backend way around of doing things.

And what if the customer wants urgent delivery? Do you put all postage options from cheap 2nd class all the way up to Special Delivery next to the price of the every item just on the off-chance?

I give customers different delivery options based on the weight of their shopping cart, with subsidised shipping for larger orders (eventually reaching free shipping). But I still see people abandon their carts.

[John G]

It seems that being "transparent", which may result in ripping the customer off,

By transparent I meant putting the postage cost visible beside the item before you click buy now - how is that ripping people off?

[Lee]

Maybe it would be a good idea to have a chart below each product description giving 'typical' prices

1 mug £x
2 mugs £x
5 mugs £x

I think I will do something like that....

[Lee]

...another thing....if you selling at a stall etc say a mug for £7 it becomes impractical to sell it onlline for the same price if you offer free P&P...obviously your online profit will be a lot less...and you cant really bump up the online price to cover the cost....if anything eople like to see things cheaper online..... how do you get around that?

[JSR]

By transparent I meant putting the postage cost visible beside the item before you click buy now - how is that ripping people off?

I've explained why. The price of postage for each item varies depending on the weight of the order. If you say you're going to charge £3 postage for each mug and the customer buys four mugs, he'll be paying £12 postage when it only costs you £6. The customer will feel that paying twice the actual postage cost is a rip off - even if that isn't the intention.

[JSR]

Maybe it would be a good idea to have a chart below each product description giving 'typical' prices

1 mug £x
2 mugs £x
5 mugs £x

I think I will do something like that....

Trouble is that you can't do that for every combination. Postage on a coaster might be £1, but if bundled with a mug the postage for the coaster would be £0 because the cost of mug postage would cover the coaster, too.

I don't profess to have any answer. Postage is a tricky thing to get right. The only real way to do it is to be big enough to ship 1000s of item each month so you can negotiate a favourable courier deal and charge everyone the same low price regardless of order size.

[pitkin2020]

...another thing....if you selling at a stall etc say a mug for £7 it becomes impractical to sell it onlline for the same price if you offer free P&P...obviously your online profit will be a lot less...and you cant really bump up the online price to cover the cost....if anything eople like to see things cheaper online..... how do you get around that?

Not at all, your probably making more profit offering free postage over the net selling it at the same price on a stall as you have no stall/travel costs etc.

Agree with JSR its hard to find a happy medium. Sites that advertise free P&P aren't actually offering free P&P (unless they like to give stuff away) as the cost of the postage has to be built into the product price. Free postage over X amount is a good alternative and sometimes encourages people to spend a little more aswell, as long as you items aren't in the £5-£10 bracket and you have free delivery on orders over £150, they have to be respective. Probably around 3 times more than your average product price is a good bar to set.

[djhutton]

I give 'postage included' prices for some lightweight items and also those where that's been negotiated into the price, say for a range of club merchandise. Otherwise I either (on one site) offer a standard delivery charge for each order irrespective of size (different for UK, Europe, Rest of the World) that seems to work well and its swings and roundabouts, a few I lose out, but most I'm ok so over the last 7 years or so my postal charges have been covered by customers payments.

On another site I set a price per item and list that alongside the listing, the website allows me to set up a p&p based on weight, so I use that to facilitate this system. A cap is set up so that it doesn't get ridiculous, as that's always a possibility, and to allow for the multiple purchase/less postage scenario I have on some items set up ' 'buy 2 get £1.00 off' type discounts and that seems to work as well. Its a bit fiddly to set up but worth the effort.

I don't lose any orders due to postage, the site tracks each order as it's entered so I get to see how far they get if it's aborted, and so far any aborted orders are due to payment issues, they are usually resolved by the customer entering their details again, failing that I can phone or email to see what the problem was.

Both sites are using Actinic, which although not being a cheap option do seem to work well and the support is good, so in my opinion worth it.

Just my 2 penneth

DJ

PS I'm pretty sure that with Actinic you can offer free or reduced postage for multiple buys like 'buy three get free postage', I'll have a look at that.