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The Power of Free Shipping: Boosting WooCommerce Sales and Customer Satisfaction
Free shipping is a powerful tool for e-commerce businesses to attract and retain customers. Not only does it provide a tangible benefit to shoppers, but it can also increase sales and customer loyalty.
Free Shipping is a phenomenon shoppers can no longer live without. Industry competition and the time factor push shipping fees lower and lower – until they drop to zero. And free shipping has become one of the most effective ways to increase sales on WooCommerce e-shops.
The external manifestation and motivating factor is the free shipping bar. Its biggest job is to entice shoppers to add more products to their carts and qualify for free shipping.
In this article, you will learn what free shipping is, what effect it has on the economics of your WooCommerce e-shop and how the free shipping bar works.
What is Free shipping and Free shipping bar?
Free shipping program is one of the most popular offers in WooCommerce e-shops. In most cases, it works so that the customer does not pay delivery fees after reaching a certain order amount.
This amount is usually displayed by the free shipping bar – either at the shipping cart or mini-cart level. Or both.
The customer is thus motivated to increase the value of his order. Moreover, it is transparent for him, because the price structure of his order is limited only to the price of the goods. This economic incentive contributes to increasing the competitive advantage of your WooCommerce e-shop.
Why is free shipping bar important?
Even though Free shipping is considered standard today, its use and display of the free shipping bar, still has several benefits for your business. In this part of the article, we will focus on the most important ones.
Motivates customers to buy
Studies have shown that human psychology works in a strange way. It turns out that a $6.99 shipping savings is more attractive to customers than an outright $10 discount on the order value. This means that in the online world, free shipping is a strong motivator, even though the customer often pays a higher amount for the order.
Increases the average order value
Orders with free shipping have an average of 30% higher value than orders without it.
This insight was complemented by the finding that 31% of online shoppers are willing to pay more than their original intention to qualify for free shipping.
There are obvious reasons for this. Customers love free stuff, and when you offer it to them, they often don't look at the context. They see that they are being offered benefits, so they buy more.
This has a positive economic impact for your WooCommerce e-shop. When you increase your average order value, you increase your economic efficiency. You don't have to create a new customer card, process a new order, or search for a new box in the warehouse, or even create new labels for the shipping company. You simply pick up one increased order and send it by courier. More money for the same amount of work.
This means you can increase your average order value by over 30% by spending less than 2 minutes setting up your free shipping bar.
But remember, your free shipping costs shouldn't cut into your profits. You need to calculate your average order value (AOV) and average shipping cost. The threshold for free shipping should be at the level of 25-30% above the AOV value. You'll need to test this, as setting the threshold for free shipping too high could negatively impact your conversions.
Eliminates the number of shopping cart abandonments
Online shoppers abandon shopping carts for a variety of reasons. The main ones include:
- Customers want to see or try the goods before buying (37%)
- Delivery costs are too high or were not visible (36%)
- Concerns about the quality of goods (26%)
- Complicated method of returning goods (20%)
- Uncertainty about the size of the goods (16%)
- Larger selection of products in the local store (15%)
According to these statistics , it is possible to logically conclude that 36% of customers who abandon the shopping cart can be saved by offering free shipping in your WooCommerce e-shop. You will solve their problem in a simple way.
We will only add that 60% of online sellers use free shipping as one of the most powerful marketing tools.
Improves your competitiveness
There is little chance that new e-shops will get into the same economic league as Amazon or Walmart, but at the level of sales psychology, you can belong there. By offering free shipping, you join these giants. If the visitor of your WooCommerce e-shop has clear information about free delivery, ideally supported by a free shipping progress bar, or already has experience with your e-shop, it is possible that he will prefer you over global brands.
Brings you new customers
Up to 65% of online customers think that shipping price is the most important deciding factor when ordering online. All of these customers said they would consider shipping costs before making their first online purchase.
This means only one thing for your WooCommerce e-shop – free shipping is no longer seen as just an advantage. In the eyes of most online shoppers, it's a must-have – something that's considered an essential service, in some cases a consumer right.
How to calculate the limit for free shipping
The minimum threshold for an order without paid shipping is a very important business decision of every WooCommerce entrepreneur. If it is too high, not only will the e-shop not experience the expected increase in sales, but it may even lose part of the sales. If the threshold is too low, it threatens the profit margin and overall profitability of your business.
To determine the minimum order value for free shipping, it is important to know the average order value of your e-shop. Knowing how much money a customer spends per transaction will give you a better idea of what your free shipping limit value should be.
The minimum order value for free shipping should be approximately 30% above the average order value (AOV). For example, if your average customer spends $100 per transaction, consider setting your free shipping threshold to $130.
Procedure for calculating the limit for free shipping:
- Subtract the average order value (AOV) from the value of the proposed minimum order value without shipping fees (proposed free shipping limit).
- Multiply this number by your gross profit margin as a percentage.
- Subtract your average shipping cost from this number.
If the resulting number is less than 0, the free shipping limit is not economically feasible. In other words, the free shipping offered would be at the expense of your business profit.
If the result is higher than 0, the free shipping limit is economically sustainable for you.
ThisPlugin Free shipping bar
Offering free shipping is not enough in itself. It is equally important to present it correctly. A tool named free shipping bar serves this purpose. It's usually a simple progress bar that shows customers how much money they still have to spend to qualify for free shipping.
In WooCommerce, the free shipping bar is implemented using a plugin in which you set all parameters, such as appearance and location.
ThisPlugin Free shipping bar is the simplest and most comprehensive way to implement this sales technique on your WooCommerce e-shop.
Functions of ThisPlugin Free shipping bar
Free shipping bar plugin from ThisPlugin, in addition to the basic function of displaying the amount missing for free shipping, adds several other features. Customers are shown a message that they have reached the limit for free shipping, they can also see percentages of limit fulfilment, you can also insert a flag for international shipping.
Other features include the ability to place a progress bar in the cart, mini-cart, or both. The ability to enable or disable it for mobile devices, set shipping zones and countries.
Plugin settings
In order to preserve your corporate identity, the Free shipping bar from ThisPlugin allows you to completely set the display of colors, texts and icons. And so that you can display the free shipping bar anywhere and, for example, personalise the texts for each of its displays, you will definitely appreciate the option of using shortcodes.
ThisPlugin Free shipping bar benefits
It is a comprehensive tool that will help you increase average order value and sales. At the same time, it will reduce the number of shopping cart abandonments and attract new customers to you.
In general, it will increase the user experience of shopping in your WooCommerce e-shop. In addition, it gives you a great tool that you can promote and include in your marketing strategy.
Moreover, you are not risking anything. Free shipping plugin from ThisPlugin is free and you can set it up in 2 minutes.
Conclusion
Shipping costs are one of the main factors that determine whether people decide to buy online or in a local store. If the costs are too high, customers in most cases decide not to buy from the e-shop.
Thus, free shipping has a significant impact on online retail sales. You have to decide for yourself whether this business strategy is suitable for your WooCommerce e-shop or not.
But there is a good chance that offering free shipping with a free shipping bar installed will bring in more visitors and convince them to buy from you. How much of a difference will it make to your e-shop performance? Try ThisPlugin Free shipping bar, measure and see.
