How to Use Shipping as a Marketing Tool

Every day I talk to Shopify store owners who are frustrated by abandoned carts. And you know what's almost always the reason customers don't complete their purchase? Shipping costs. But here's the thing - shipping doesn't have to be just another expense. You can actually use it to increase your sales.

I've helped hundreds of merchants set up their shipping, and the strategy that works best is pretty simple: offer free shipping when customers spend over a certain amount. The tricky part is figuring out that amount. Here's what works: check your average order value, add about 25-30%, then round it to something that looks good. Running a store with a $75 average order? Try setting free shipping at $100. It's amazing how many customers will throw in one more item to get that free shipping.

Want to make this even more effective? Add a progress bar that shows customers how close they are to free shipping - it's a simple change that can really boost your conversion rate.

Want to take it up a notch? Try tiered shipping discounts based on quantity. Instead of just looking at the order total, you can actually reduce the total shipping cost as customers buy more of each product. One of our t-shirt merchants set up their shipping like this:

• Regular shipping rate of $15 applies
• First t-shirt regular shipping rate of $15 applies
• Second t-shirt reduces it by $5
• Fourth t-shirt makes shipping completely free

It's super effective because customers can see the shipping cost drop (and eventually disappear!) as they add more to their cart. You can set this up in Better Shipping using our tiered product rates - takes about 5 minutes. Even better, you can group similar products together, so all your t-shirts can share the same shipping discounts, while your hoodies have their own discount tiers.

Got a physical store? You can do some really neat stuff with local shipping. We've got merchants using zip code restrictions to offer special deals to nearby customers. One store I worked with recently started offering free same-day delivery within 20 miles - now they're competing with Amazon in their local area.

Shipping can also help move specific products. Need to clear some inventory? Want to push your new collection? You can set up different shipping rates for different products. One of our merchants offers free shipping on new arrivals for the first month - works like a charm for getting early sales.

Holiday sales are another great time to play with shipping offers. "Free Next-Day Shipping This Weekend Only" or "Free Shipping on Black Friday" can really drive sales. Just remember to test everything before you launch any promotion (learned that one the hard way!), and make sure your margins can handle it.

Starting small is the way to go. Try one change, like a free shipping threshold, see how it affects your sales, then build from there. Not sure how to set something up? Email me - I love chatting about this stuff and helping merchants figure out what works for their store.

Ready to try some of these ideas? You can test them out with Better Shipping's 14-day free trial on the Shopify App Store.