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We all have been tempted by online shopping because we think it is easier to get what you want with just a click. It all goes pretty well at first, and we choose what we want while we see different products with their prices. We go on adding products to our cart.
Then we are confronted by something that makes our whole idea of online shopping an expensive exercise. We take a second look at all this when we see how much we have to pay for shipping and handling purposes. At this point, many of the online shoppers will just leave the website thinking of the hassle and higher rates associated with shipping boxes. Thus online retailers lose many their customers as a result of their flawed shipping strategies. Various studies have shown that shipping and handling rates associated with online shopping are the top factors that dwindle online shopping.
What should online retailers do to keep their customers interested in online shopping? Here are some shipping strategies that online retailers can use:
Making Shipping Free
Though providing free shipping can be a handy bait to gain the attention of customers, it can also cut a retailer's profits. But it is highly advantageous for an online store to have 'free shipping' option on their websites and not many online stores offer such a generous offer, the one offering will stand unique for customers. For this either the company will either have to bear the costs or put slightly higher rates on the products to make for the shipping costs. An online retailer can also do this by conditioning free shipping with a minimum order amount or with a minimum number of products. Such a strategy should enhance the sales thus magnifying profits making free shipping still doable. To this end, online retailers should also run advertisements making their free shipping reach as many people as possible.
However, whether a company should offer free shipping also depends on the type of products it deals in. For instance, a retailer dealing in luxury or handmade and unique items, attaching a shipping fee is the right course of action, for there will be less competition in the market. However, dealing in products in a highly competitive market where free shipping is rampant, charging money for shipping box is a bad idea. Here one of the above strategies can be used to make for the free shipping costs.
Charge the Actual Shipping Costs
If you are an online retailer that still wants to charge for shipping boxes, you should charge the actual costs you get charged from a shipping company. In this way, the customer pays roughly as much for shipping as the retailer has to pay. There can be minor disparities in this; however, the retailer can still avoid these by breaking down the costs between how much it collects and how much it pays to a shipping company.
Give Flat Rates
Finally, an online retailer can come up with a flat rate for every product, or even flat rates for entire orders. This way of charging for shipping demands some preparation on the part of the online retailers for they should find out an average cost for shipping a product. Thus offering flat rates could be the best method to make for the shipping costs while maintaining higher sales.
Sustainable Materials
I’m quite a big fan of sustainability, which I’m sure comes as no surprise based on some of the content I’ve written. In fact, if it’s out there and I’m able to reduce my use of products that are wasteful and harmful (looking at you plastic), I’ll do it.
Looking back, I never used to care about anything I did or the choices I made based on what I consumed, because I truly didn’t think of it as my consumerism. In fact, I didn’t pay any mind to the foods I bought, the materials I used, the bags I went through, all that. I never cared to think about those things because my mind was elsewhere, thinking about my video games or my schooling or even petty things like how I looked.
As I’ve grown older, however, these things have begun to weigh on my mind. It matters where my money goes, because buying the same unsustainable products only encourages companies to keep pumping them out. So what I can do, instead, is move the money going towards those products to other companies that are lesser known and not as well supported. Eventually, the minority of sustainable products will start to overtake the majority out there.
I will say that I’m grateful that cardboard is the main material used in shipping. Now, while it does suck that products within may still be packaged in plastic, I at least feel alright about shipping boxes being made of a highly recyclable material that is also able to be composted or reused for many things in the future. Cardboard is, quite honestly, a very useful and ideal material for shipping things around the world.
You see, the more we can be held accountable for things like overflowing landfills and plastic waste killing animals, the more we are able to do something to make a change. But when those things aren’t highlighted in the media, or they’re written off as inevitable or “not that bad”, progress is halted.
Again, I’m quite thankful that the products I order online come in shipping boxes made of materials that aren’t nearly as harmful to the environment as plastic is. If we were shipped items in plastic boxes, I think the state of the environment and our planet would be far worse off than it already is. Let’s just hope that somewhere in the near future we find a material that’s like plastic but cheaper and more durable that has far less impact on the environment at large.