How to test unconditional free shipping?
-
Hi everyone,
I am considering a switch to offering unconditional free shipping. By this I mean no minimums or contingencies. Before I do this I would like to be able to test the concept for a period of time, or for a section of my audience before fully committing. The issue is it will take a lot of time and $$$ to convert the website to market the free shipping properly. I have thought about using a promo code but I am not sure that will give a proper sample due to people getting confused. Has anyone seen how to test this concept?
Thanks!
-
Well first see if the promo works if it does and numbers make sense, you can apply the unconditional free shipping for a while if the behavioral economics of peoples choices are similar in a sense that they treat the promo and actual shipping change the same way, you can leave unconditional. shipping as is, if not revert back to the initial pricing.
3 Stage:
-
Promo test
-
Change shipping rate on the website, and try unconditional for a while
-
Keep or revert back
Hope this helps
-
-
Thanks. That was what I was thinking. The harder part is getting an accurate sample. I have a flat rate shipping rate posted everywhere on my website. So if I just drop in a message on the home/landing page it may be confusing. And if I just add it into the shopping cart then it will not be accurate because I did not market it.
So the only option I can think of is to market a promo code on the website and through PPC.But I am not sure if that will be an accurate sample due to it essentially looking like a promotion, instead of an ongoing benefit of the company.
-
Also if you would like to run it for more than one day. You can perform A/B Testing if this is something you are comfortable doing. Depending on your website or platform there are free plugins or paid services that will allow you to do it in a randomized fashion. If you are looking for a larger sample with which to make your decision.
Hope this helps
-
Consider offering it on a random day as a surprise for your visitors. Then see if the size of the shopping cart increases and the conversion rate increases.
This allows you to do it without long-term commitment and test how it hits your visitors mentally. This offers it to everyone equally and might avoid your best customer writing to you asking... WHY DIDN"T I GET FREE SHIPPING?!
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Requiring customer agree to shipping terms at checkout
I work for an ecommerce company that has many of its shipments go by LTL freight. Our customer service team has issues with a few customers per month that aren't equipped to receive freight shipments which leads to returns and other issues. In an effort to better inform our customers, the customer service team is requesting that we add a checkbox to the checkout that requires customers to agree to our shipping and returns policy, including a link to the policy page. I am wondering how concerned people here would be that requiring the customer to check a box agreeing to those terms would lead to more customers abandoning during the checkout process. Or do you think it's not a concern? Thanks for your thoughts.
Conversion Rate Optimization | | Kyle_M0 -
User Testing a Website
Hello We're soon going to be embarking on a fairly major site overhaul and while this isn't a particularly SEO related question, I’m keen to integrate user feedback quite heavily in this process and would appreciate your opinion as how best to collect this feedback. These are the kind of questions that I would like to pose: Is it clear when you visit the site, what it is that they do? What is your first thought about the site when you visit it? On the homepage, where is your eye drawn to immediately? When wishing to purchase a product, would this product page draw you into the sale? Do you get a general feeling of trustworthiness on the site? Using the series of drop downs on the homepage, please choose any product and follow the process through to the checkout. Did you feel that this was engaging throughout? Rather than yes/no answers I’d like the user to spend a good 5-10 minutes giving their detailed opinions so that we can gain some genuine inspiration on how best to improve the site. What would be the best method of collecting this data? I was thinking perhaps Amazon Mechanical Turk but the thrust of the work offered there seems to be so diverse that I’m not sure we’d get people in tune with offering the kind of detailed answers that I’d be hoping for. Thanks for your help.
Conversion Rate Optimization | | ChrisHolgate0 -
First click free
Hi guys, We are investigating the First Click Free implementation and we're not sure if a certain scenario follows Google's guidelines or not (aka can it be considered cloaking?!). Now the question is, should we allow this user to see 1 page after every Google search or it should it be 1 page / session. We have these steps: 1. Let's suppose that we have John searching for an address he clicks on our link and lands on the page. From now on if he goes further he will be asked to register. 2. He closes the site but the session is still active. He searches for another address and clicks on our link and again he lands on our website. At this point should he be able to see the page or we can prompt him with the registration request? Thoughts? Thanks
Conversion Rate Optimization | | propertyshark0 -
Google Adwords Offered to Redesign My Website & A/B Test... Thoughts?
I received a call from the Google Adwords team today offering to redesign major pages of my website & A/B test their design against mine. The rep said that this is not a standard service they offer and that we had been "selected". Despite it's overt marketing overtones, I would hate to pass by the opportunity to apply Google's conversion insight to my site. Has anyone experienced this before? Good experience? Bad experience?
Conversion Rate Optimization | | Glathrop1 -
Pricing - Include Shipping and Handling?
A few questions: From a conversion standpoint, is it better to include S&H costs into the listed price or not? Example: I have a product with an MSRP of $9.99, but we sell directly from our site at "$11.99 with free shipping". Would it be better to list it at "$9.99 + $2.00 S&H"? Or maybe not even include the S&H cost? Any insight is much appreciated. Should price be directly on the homepage? A user must go to our products page to find the price, but I'm thinking maybe it's best to be explicit on the homepage. However, as I am not well versed in all facets of CRO, I'm open to suggestions. Thanks in advance for any help.
Conversion Rate Optimization | | b40040400 -
How Do I Create a Google Analytics Dashboard for My Designer To Monitor Landing Page A/B Testing
Hello All, We recently started doing some "AdWords Experiments" using A/B testing of our search landing pages. My web design team does not have access to our AdWords account, but they do have "user" access to our Google Analytics account. What I need to figure out how to do is setup an easy dashboard (or custom report) that will show them at a quick glance how the two versions of their page are performing in terms of: Goal Completions (Conversions) where the specific page is the entrance/landing page. Bounce Rate Time spent on site where the specific page is the entrance/landing page. Pages viewed where the specific page is the entrance/landing page. Possibly a way to see the most popular page visited 'next' after starting on the specific entrance/landing page Anything else that might be useful The two URLs would be like: http://www.domain.com/search/testa/
Conversion Rate Optimization | | Robert-B
http://www.domain.com/search/testb/ Any insight about the best way to do this is greatly appreciated! Cheers!0 -
Paywall usage question on First Click Free
We have some list pages on our site that we would like to use a paywall for to get users to do a free registration. The first 2 times they view a "list" page (from anywhere) they see the content fine. If the user registers or logs in they can see all content. My question is if a user hits our site and they look at 2 list pages. They leave the site and then via a google search result they find another one of our list pages. When they click on that they get to our site but the paywall pops up. Is this a problem? First Click Free documentation says that they must be able to get there on the first try. Since we let people look at 2 lists free are we ok? Does googlebot have an issue crawling our site if we do that? Without the paywall our conversion rate was about 1-2%. Thanks
Conversion Rate Optimization | | GeorgeLaRochelle0 -
Which A/B test software do you prefer? Howcome?
I am about to start some research on software for experimental design on websites. So I'd really like to know which A/B test software do you prefer? Howcome?
Conversion Rate Optimization | | ThomasHgenhaven1