3 Effective Shipping Promotions To Run for Your Online Auto Parts Store
Auto parts shipping can be tricky. However, having an effective shipping strategy for your online parts store is one of the most important factors in growing your business. According to the Walker Sands Future of Retail 2016 study, 9 out of 10 of the surveyed participants said that free shipping was the number 1 incentive when asked what would encourage them to shop online more often. Consumers have a sense of entitlement more than ever — they expect their products fast and the shipping as close to free as possible. Companies like Amazon with their Amazon prime memberships and 2 hour deliveries have further fueled this expectancy. This can make it difficult for smaller companies to keep up — especially if their internal shipping systems aren’t as polished. Having systems that add proper product weights and dimensions, shipping destinations, shipping options etc.
Although free shipping may not always be the most realistic option for your online parts store, various shipping promotions can certainly help. Shipping promotions can make a big difference closing a customer, but you can also lose your shirt if you give away too much. It’s all about balance and fine tuning your internal systems. Maybe you increase your product price across certain price sets or negotiate a deal with your shipping supplier if you ship x amount of product a month. Every company will have different internal systems and various efficiencies — so not every promotion type will make sense for everyone.
Free Shipping on orders over X
This is a very effective shipping promotion because it’s something consumers are already accustomed to and frankly, expect. According to Pitney Bowes published shipping survey, 3 in 5 consumers have increased their total spend to qualify for free shipping. As a result, it creates a more frictionless purchase path and will ultimately increase orders. Offering the free shipping only for customers who purchase a certain amount of product will help protect margins a bit and the increase in order volume, if done correctly, should offset the discount given away from shipping. This is especially true if you are able to negotiate a deal with your shipping supplier. If you’re able to increase order volume from giving away free shipping, FedEX and UPS are known to cut deals.
X percent off shipping on orders over x
This promotion works well for companies that want to add a little sugar to entice customers to convert, but protect their profit margins as much as possible. Although this promotion isn’t as enticing as free shipping, and the barrier to entry is a little higher as customers need to spend certain amount to receive the discount — it’s still a discount. It’s better than no promotion at all and will surely help you stand out amongst the competition.
X percent off shipping on all orders
Giving customers a percent off their shipping total regardless of the amount of products they bought, is a low barrier to entry promotion. This means any customer can utilize the promotion given that all it takes is the purchase of any product. This type of shipping promotion is very effective in terms of usage rates. The only thing you need to take into a account here are margins. Since typically lower priced products have smaller margins, you need to safeguard yourself when a customer wants to buy a “cheap” product that may still cost a fair amount to ship given its size. Therefore, with these types of shipping promotions, we recommend a lower % off shipping. Even though the lower percent off shipping isn’t as enticing as the higher percent off in the above example, it has a lower barrier to entry. If you are currently selling a lot of parts below $100, this might be a good promotion for you.
Are you running any shipping promotions? We’d love to know how they’ve been working for you!
