I want some advice on what to do. Right now on my website I have a shipping calculator that returns shipping rates to the customer based on the zip code they enter. Now I will say they are more times than none when I end up losing money because the calculator returns really low rate and I have to make up the difference. I'm thinking about charging a flat rate fee, which one do you use and which do you think instills confidence and yields better results? thanks
I guess the first question is which platform are you using. And the second question is why is your calculator sending back low rates? Maybe you should make sure residential is turned on. Depends on if you are using UPS Fedex or USPS.
I did some research on how to help you with your problem regarding shipping rates and I have stumbled into this plugins. Hope this helps http://www.auctioninc.com/info/page/shipping_plugin PHP:
Get a better calculator. You should be able to get very close to the actual amount being charged. Make sure to select residential address by default because it's more expensive to ship, and most orders ship to residential unless you are a B2B company. You can also add a small packaging/handling fee to buffer for any errors in the projected vs. actual shipping rate.
It depends on the size of the item being shipped also. If it is small, but heavy, you are better off with a flat rate shipping box in most cases.
Just an idea: what if you build the flat shipping rate into your price and offer free shipping? You could make the free shipping a selling point...
I agree with psilocybin. What are you shipping and is it ok for USPS? Flat rate for usps is awesome, and it works for so many things. But it also depends on the size of what you are shipping. If you can fit everything in a padded envelope(16x11x1) you can use usps priority mail for $4.80 flat. USPS for the same thing to a residence is $11. Its also fast 3 days max to almost any location and of course saturday delivery.
What i did is i mark up the price for my product and make the shipping free, it did increase my buying rate like 15%
I also agree that shipping should be included in the price and advertised as free shipping. When i want to buy something i want to know the total price (including shipping) so having free shipping makes things easier.
I couldn't agree more. I blew my brains out trying to get a calculator working right, mixing with this that and the other thing, then ultimatly went to free shipping anyways. Most customer service geared sites operate this way IMHO.
Free is key. The power of free shipping will attract more buyers even if you are in heavy competition with other sites. When I see free, I think "less hassle".
But guys if we add shippin to the price the price will rise whereas the competitors will show a less price and charge more in shipping that way there are chances of loosing sales
I would strongly disagree with free shipping, unless pretty much all of your competitors offer free shipping, or all the big e retailers offer free shipping and consumers in your particular location are totally accustomed to it. We've tested Free shipping on two of our sites about 15months ago and it has proven to be a disaster. Most people are not that dumb and know free shipping is a rip off. We only use actual postage costs now. And we use it as a selling point (fair prices, fair service, fair dinkum) and expose our competitors with free shipping as being more expensive and dishonest.
depends on what shopping cart you use, you could provide a few alternative shipping methods. One use flat rate, then another use a expediated shipping with slight higher cost
Does your shopping cart allow you to mark up the shipping rates or charge a handling fee? What if you increase the ship weights of the products?