Shipping Strategy

An eCommerce store is a great way to sell your products from your site, but it is important to make sure you suitably cover your shipping costs with an appropriate Shipping Policy.

There are several ways that shipping can be calculated on your eCommerce store:

Free Shipping

No charge for shipping.  You’d generally incorporate the shipping price into the product price.

Pros – No complicated shipping table to calculate.  Good promotional tool.

Cons – Easy to become out-of-pocket especially for low-value but heavy items.

Flat Rate

A single fixed charge for every order regardless of its size.

Pros – No complicated shipping table to calculate.

Cons – Can appear to be unfair given no difference between large and small orders.

By Quantity

You define a table of charges based on how many items are in the order. You decide the breakpoints, and the charges, for example:

• 1 item - £3

• 2 to 5 items - £5

• 5 to 10 items - £7

• Etc.

Pros – A little fairer – the bigger the order size, the more the shipping.

Cons – Still a little disproportionate when comparing light and heavy items, so easy to be out-of-pocket if shipping heavy items, or appearing excessive if shipping light items.

By Price

You define a table of charges based on the price of the order. You decide the breakpoints, and the charges, for example:

• £0 - £5 order - £3

• £5 to £10 order - £5

• £10 to £20 order - £7

• Etc.

Pros – A little fairer – the bigger the order value the more the shipping.

Cons – Still a little disproportionate when comparing low and high cost items, so easy to be out-of-pocket if shipping cheap items, or appearing excessive if shipping expensive items.

By Weight

You define a table of charges based on the weight of the order. You decide the breakpoints, and the charges, for example:

• 1g to 250g - £3

• 250g – 500g - £5

• 500g – 1000g - £7

• Etc.

Pros – This method most accurately reflects actual postage charges and is the fairest option.  It also allows you to offer free postage on individual items by setting their weight to 0g.

Cons – More admin as every item in the shop needs to be separately weighed with packaging also taken into consideration.

Other aspects to consider:

Free shipping offers

We can set most of the above options to offer free shipping if the order exceeds a given value.

Order Collection

If you want to offer local customers the option to collect from you, we can set an option to do so.

Free delivery region

If you want to offer free shipping to local customers that you can deliver yourself, we can set a free delivery region which will automatically apply if the customer address falls within that region.

Shipping regions

We can set up the shipping table as above for separate regions, so there would be one for UK shipping, and then others for other regions according to the actual shipping costs. Additional shipping regions can have their own shipping strategy, so for example, you could charge by weight to the UK, by price to Europe and a flat rate to the rest of the world all at the same time.

Shipping to EU countries

Shipping to the EU must be compliant with GPSR.  We can set up shipping however you wish but you are liable for complying with the regulations.

Setting up shipping can be quite a task, but it is worth putting in the effort to define the strategy at the start as this will ensure you do not lose out when the orders start coming in.