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How to Use Free Shipping as a Competitive Weapon

How to Use Free Shipping as a Competitive Weapon

Published by Programme B

The purpose of any business resource – sales and profit making. This means that you need to provide ongoing traffic to your site. If you think logically, then it turns out that the more users you can bring, the greater number of them will become buyers. Realizing this, the owners of online stores will begin to invest in advertising and an increase in traffic.

But it`s possible to act in a different way, that`s, to try to squeeze out more from an existing client stream. For example, you have an average of 1 purchase per 100 visits. Instead of attracting more than 100 users, try to increase sales to 2-3 with the same traffic. There`re a lot of different ways of doing this and everybody can choose the one which suits them the most.

Tell clients about yourself and make a good portfolio of products

Customers need to be persuaded to trust you. For this purpose, a quality page “About the Company” is created, where you can show the production photos of the entire team, managers, indicating which of them at what stage and for what is responsible. Describe the details of cooperation, demonstrate quality certificates, rewards, and more.

If business specificity allows you to create a good portfolio, do it. You can show the results of several projects or where and how the goods you have purchased are used. Customers will see the real activities and the people who stand behind it, not just the catalog of goods.

Add photos and videos

Photo and video content is a very important part of Internet marketing. After all, the human brain is arranged so that the visual information is processed 60 percent faster than text. A visitor to the online store cannot personally inspect the product. And then photos come to the rescue.

It`s important that they are as clear as possible, of high resolution, representing the goods in various angles, showing all its small details and functional parts up to the texture of the fabric, seams on shoes, ports on gadgets, and others.

In professional photography, goods may look even more presentable than in life. Dresses on a slim model, textiles in a beautiful interior, an inflatable mattress on the background of the blue sea look much more attractive than chopped things on hangers or dishes in storage gutters. A good picture seems to promise a potential buyer the same good life. And the client is willing to buy the goods.

Also, sometimes you can even abandon the word-for-word product description in favor of video content. Informative videos are a great way to increase sales, because the customer can see the product that interests him, almost live. Watching videos increase visitor time on a page that`s positively evaluated by search engines. It always finds its way, like there.

Post customer feedback

The opinion of other people influences the decision to buy one or another item more than a detailed and good description of it. Real customer feedback is perceived by visitors as friendly advice, and friends are used to trusting. And reviews are additional unique content on the site.

Only the problem is that it`s not always possible to get these reviews. Moreover, if the client didn`t like something, then he`s more likely to write something on the site than if he was satisfied. You can ask your customers to submit feedback by e-mailing a message, promising bonuses or other types of incentives. And the more valuable a review (like a video), the more serious a gift.

Experiment with discounts and promotions

Shares raise interest in products, help sell more, stimulate buy now, and not later. The main condition is to make real discounts. Let not be much, but the promotional product should cost less than it cost before it fell into this category.

Some even very large online stores on the eve of stocks and sales increase only the “original” cost of goods in percent and money, creating only an illusion of discounts. The pictures below represent examples of “stock” goods and goods at the usual price.

You don`t need to think that buyers will have a short memory, or they will not be able to compare the prices of goods from different vendors. Such a dishonest move will only undermine trust and deprive you of regular customers.

Customize your site for mobile devices

Many users make purchases on the Internet for a lunch break, a trip to work, to rest and at any other place where they are difficult to imagine at least with laptops, not to mention stationary PCs. The functionality of any mobile gadget is enough to easily replace a personal computer. And if the site is not correctly displayed on a tablet or smartphone, then nobody will endure the inconvenience. As a result, the online store will lose two-thirds of its traffic.

In modern realities, a commercial site must necessarily meet the requirements of the adaptive design. You are refermenting an existing site or developing a new one – you will have to make additional investments. But in the case of adopting a web resource for mobile devices, this is a necessary expense.

Offer favorable shipping conditions

Almost all transport companies offer various cooperation programs for corporate clients. Taking advantage of them, you can develop interesting offers for your customers. This can be free shipping and return from a certain amount of purchase, for some groups of goods, before holidays, orders that are issued on weekends, etc.

This can be overnight delivery, free shipping and buyers love free shipping. It was hardly possible for someone to ask the buyer if he was ready to pay for what he could get for free. But many stores forget that the buyer may need non-standard terms of delivery, for which he will be ready to pay – bring the order very, very urgent (literally, to the train), or not urgent, but at a strictly agreed time. Leave for such cases, paid delivery, it may partially cover the cost of a free service. 

According to research by marketers, for 59% of online store customers, the delivery price has an impact on the purchase decision, and 44% refuse to buy anything at all because of the high shipping price. Statistics say that most of the baskets are thrown at the payment stage when delivery is also added to the value of the goods. Having reached this point, the buyer begins to doubt whether he really needs this product. If the delivery is free, then there will most likely be no doubt. But not everyone can afford to deliver goods for free.

A free shipping strategy can be a profitable campaign for those specializing in the sale of small and light goods and for a business with a large number of repeat sales, for example, products, ready-made food, water. Since you don`t need to spend money to attract new customers, they can be redistributed to pay for the delivery of existing ones. Leave for such cases, paid same day delivery, it may partially cover the cost of a free service.

Bio

My name is Erica Fleming. I support the effective adoption of new technologies or ways of working within writing by communicating complex information in an informative and inspiring way. I’m fond of writing articles for students, helping with essays. 

Photo by rawpixel.com from Pexels

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