10 Ecommerce Shipping Best Practices

With the holidays just around the corner it helps to know at least some of what customers search for in the way of promotions online. You should already know what your customer base likes as far as promos go, but there hasn’t been a better time to take a good look at your shipping policy and process.

By now you should know that free shipping is a sales driver—it always has been and likely always will be. But for some, a good refresher helps. A quick view of Google Trends shows you the weight that free shipping plays especially during the holidays.

Here’s some more proof that free shipping is high on customer want lists. And here’s a post that shows the sales results generated from testing various types of shipping promotions (although there were tested during none holiday seasons.)

Shipping Best Practices

1. Don’t Make Customers Login to Get Shipping Rates: How would you feel if you went shopping on the internet and found that you had to login just to view shipping rates? Lousy huh? It’s not right, and your customers won’t go for it. The questions of “how much does shipping cost” and “how fast can I get it” are top of the customers mind and to make them login in order to get it will cost you precious sales. Customers should be able to see the cost for shipping on the shopping cart page and it should be an option on the product pages as well. If you base your prices on the location where the order will be shipped, give people the ability to enter their zip code for a quote.

2. Include Shipping Info on all Product Pages: The product info page is one of those pages where shipping questions often arise. Customers want to know if “I add this item to my cart, how much is it going to cost to ship it.” As a result, giving the customers the ability to see shipping times and costs from or on the product pages should be an option. Offering a link to the shipping rates and policies is a good idea but an even better one is using something like AJAX or a tabbed view to enable the customer to get their shipping rates without the need to leave the page they are on.

3. Link to Shipping Page from Shopping Cart: In the shopping cart where customers select the shipping method, be sure to provide more information regarding each what they can expect with each option.

4. Don’t Try to Make a lot of Money off Shipping: Customers are shoppers and can find shipping rates for similar items (on competitor sites) very easily. They are often sensitive to high shipping prices. Don’t attempt to make “more money” (profit from) raising shipping and handling rates. It will backfire on you.

5. Consider Offering Free Shipping at Level Above your Average Order Value: If your average order value is $45, consider offering free shipping at $55 in to increase that average value. Here are 4 more tips for increasing for increasing your average order value.

6. Show Delivery Estimates by Region: On your shipping page, show a map of UPS or Fedex estimated delivery times based on region. These graphics are often provided by your shipping carriers and can easily be downloaded and placed on your site.

7. Ship Next Business Day as a Norm. Ship Express Orders Same Day: Customers want things fast. Even if they purchased 3-5 day shipping, you need to make sure you get all orders out the door the next day (that being at least the day after the order arrived.) In general, make it a point to process orders within 1 business day. There is no reason to sit on orders and doing so increases your chances of the order not arriving on time—and that leads to unhappy customers.

For those that choose “1 Day Express”, “2 Day Express” etc… shipping methods (if you offer them), consider shipping these orders the same day you get the order in (up to a certain cut-off time.) Express means that and you should treat the shipment that way. An example of terminology for this type of method might be “All orders received before 1:00 PM EST are shipped the same day”.

8. Provide Tracking Numbers: You should be doing already this but it needs to be mentioned. A critical time to start building customer relationships is directly after an order. Customers want to know that the order they placed has in fact been received, and want to be able to track that package’s progress to their doorstep.

As soon as you receive the tracking numbers and shipping information you should promptly email your customers promptly and relay that tracking info to them. If your system enables it make the tracking number a link directly to the carrier’s website (or your own) which pulls up the delivery schedule for them. It provides an extra layer of usability and that small gesture will be appreciated by your customer in the long run.

9. Don’t Ignore or Point Fingers on Lost Shipments: If you ship any level of items over the Internet it is bound to happen at some time. A shipment will get lost in the shuffle. Although it may not be your fault, you need to work with the customer to correct the situation. Don’t point fingers. Instead help solve the problem. If that means re-shipping the order then do it.

10. Under Promise, Over-deliver: Don’t try promise something you can’t back up. Give yourself a shipping cushion. To avoid unrealistic delivery times, you may want to add 1 or 2 (or even 3) days padding on to your delivery times estimates (except for overnight, 1 and 2 day options of course.) Companies like Dell and Amazon.com tend to do this pretty well (for the most part). They say “3-5 day shipping” (for example) and you get the package in 2 days.

I like to provide the cushion so that if it gets to the customer in 5 days they are still happy. If it gets there early they are excited. But if you offered 2 day shipping and they got it in 3 they would be mad. Get the idea? Give a window and deliver asap. You’re customers will thank you for it.

Last Day to Get a Free Website Video Review

Just a reminder here to everyone that today is the last day to take advantage of the Free Website Video Review I am performing for anyone who joins my online coaching program Ecommerce Amplifier.

The reviews have been more than beneficial to those who have already received them and in many cases have helped increase their website conversion in as little as one week.

If you want to take advantage of this offer you need to do it today. My coaching program comes with a 30 Day Money Back Guarantee so you have nothing to lose.

I’ll be moving through the reviews as fast as possible and will complete them so you can implement the suggested alterations in time to gain additional holiday sales.

In addition to the limited time video reviews members can also download a ton of bonuses including source templates, cart add-ons, graphic files and more from my Vault as well as get access to the members only forums.

More information on this can be found in my original post on the launch of Ecommerce Amplifier here.

Complete Ecommerce Holiday Checklist

The holidays are quickly approaching and you should already be pushing promos geared toward that (and have others planned). However, this timely post provides you with a checklist of things to consider while moving toward the holidays.

1. Ensure your checkout process is stable and the shopping cart is streamlined.
You should be aware of this part of your site all the time, but take one good look at it and make sure it is working (and across multiple browsers) before the holiday shopping season hits big. It does you no good to get an customer who is interested in your product(s) put items into their cart and then abandon due to circumstances that could have been avoided.

2. If it’s not broke, don’t fix it.
If your website is working and is smooth, now is not the time to try new programming alterations etc… You might risk introducing a bug or problem into the current process and if it can wait, you should put all your major changes off and sit tight until the holiday season passes. Instead, focus on sales efforts. Sales are more important than new innovations during the 4th quarter.

3. Ensure your search marketing and ads reflect the holiday things people are looking for.
Free shipping, big discounts, buy one get one free, etc… are all big items people consider during the holidays especially. Also consider running ads during the holiday season only that reflect products people are looking for (that you offer).

With the major engines you can easily schedule your ads to run during a given period (I recommend creating a new campaign(s) and calling it “holiday” or something like that.) You can break this new campaign into various ad groups that all target different holiday products.

Schedule it to run during the holiday season only and end it when the holidays are over. This is something that can really help boost sales.

I recently worked with a retailer that had some holiday products (limited time) which just arrived. A quick search of Google Trends told me the exact points in time each of these products was in it heaviest demand on the internet and thus we setup a number of ads targeting those keywords and products. The results were immediate with new sales coming in within a few hours.

4. Utilize your Social Media channels to ensure you spread the word about your offers.
Viral marketing during this time of the year is something you simply can’t overlook. Good news (and offers) spread fast!

5. Tweak navigational elements to cater to the holiday shopper.
Consider adding the following temporary categories to your navigation during the holidays.

Gifts by Price: Organize and suggest gifts by price range. For example, highlight gifts under $10, 25, 50, 100 or whatever price points are appropriate for your business. Maybe try a “Gifts Under $10″ category or something.

Gifts by Person: Organize gifts intended for different people groups such as kids, teens, parents, and grandparents. Consider a “Gifts for Him” or “Gifts for Her” category as well as “Gifts for Boys” and or “Gifts for Girls.”

6. Showcase stocking stuffers.
Be sure to highlight low cost products that would make good stocking stuffers. You may even want to utilize these types of items for “cross promotional selling” as a way to increase your average order value.

7. Make sure your shipping and return info is clearly marked on your product pages.
Again, this is something that I say should be there all the time anyhow, but during the holidays you better have it. Shipping and return issues will be top of mind for your customers at this time and one of the first places the begin to seek answers to these questions is on the product page. Be sure you display or link to your shipping and returns pages from your product pages.

A favorite way I like of doing this is to provide a “tabbed” experience as is the case with many big online retailers and providing tabs for the product description, shipping info, returns info etc… This is a super way to keep the user on the product page and still provide them with the information they seek.

8. Consider offering gift wrapping.
If your business can do it, consider offer gift wrapping services to your customers. You can add this as an “upsell” on the product page (and remember to cross sell it on the shopping cart page in case they missed it) but be sure to add enough additional charge to cover any labor and materials associated with this.

9. Create product bundles.
Product bundles are a great way of increasing average order value and sales across the board. Consider taking several related products and grouping them into a “gift package” at a discounted rate than if the items were purchased separately (this too will encourage sales.) Gift selection is much easier when related items are grouped together in some sort of gift basket or bundle.

10. Consider gift messages.
If you r cart enables you to do so let your customers add a personal message to their gift. For simplicity, you can have the message appear on the packing list which will already be included in the box. If your cart doesn’t enable that, consider using the “Additional Comments” box (which many carts have by default) as an opportunity for them to add their gift message. Just ensure this message appears on the packing slip as well.

11. Determine shipping cut-off dates.
This is probably one of the most important pieces of information to communicate to customers during the holidays. Check with your shipping carriers to determine what the cutoff days are for the various methods of shipping. Ensure you add a “guaranteed arrivel in time for (name your holiday here) if ordered before (name your date here.)”

12. Prominently display your return policy.
As mentioned above, your return policy should be easy to find. Consider re-wording it as a “no hassle” policy in order to calm the fears of first time buyers (if you are not already doing so).

If your current policy is stiff, consider loosening it up during the holiday season. While a 30 day return policy is commonplace for the rest of the year, it may scare off early shoppers during the holidays. Make it clear to your visitors that you will accept returns and exchanges on all Christmas (or name your own holiday) gift purchases. This ensures them that they can expect total satisfaction.

QVC always does a super job of wording their return policy during the holidays—Why? because it works.

13. Show holiday spirit in your graphics.
Go ahead, decorate for the holidays! Consider redesigning some of the artwork on your site with a holiday theme. If you do any shopping (or searching) on the internet you’ll see all the big players do this. Even Google decorates for the holidays by reworking their logo to get you in the buying mood.

14. Ensure your server can handle any increased capacity.
If you don’t host in-house, talk with your web host about how you can increase your server performance during the holiday rush. The quickest way to lose sales is to have a website that is not online or is very slow. This will not only cost you holiday sales, but will likely cost you many future customers as well so the effect can be long term.

If you are on a shared hosting platform and looking for hosting, I recommend Media Temple as an option.

If you are looking for a dedicated hosting solution, no one beats Rackspace in my opinion. (I would not recommend moving your site to a new hosting platform if you are in the midst of the holiday shopping season though!) If you weren’t prepared for the rush then you’re just going to have to wait till next year to make the move. Lesson learned.

15. Enable customers to ship to alternate locations than the one they are buying from.
If a customer is buying a gift for someone that does not live near them they may want to have it simply shipped to to the recipient’s address as a holiday gift surprise.

16. Communicate with fulfillment & customer service.
Make everyone involved in the order process aware of any promotions etc… you plan on running. Don’t surprise your customer service and fulfillment staff with an unplanned 24 hour blowout sale.

Taking 10,000 orders in a day is great, but if your warehouse can only ship 5,000, you’re in for trouble.

17. Ensure your email campaigns promote the holiday offers and your website backs those up.
If you are running any email campaigns you need to ensure that offers presented in the emails are easily found and similarly presented on your website. Consider using similar graphics and pushing the traffic to specific landing pages on your website that are setup to convert that traffic.

It’s all about relevancy here. The more relevant the site is in comparison to the email offer, the more success you’ll have generating sales.

18. Consider offering gift certificates.
Even if you do not offer gift certificates any other time of the year, consider offering them during the holiday season. These often provide an added option for shoppers who may not have a “wish list” but know someone they are buying for likes to shop at your store.

These might also be a way to get “last minute” shoppers to buy—that is, providing your cart offers the ability to generate “digital gift certificates” that are sent and redeemed online (rather than printed or sent in a traditional “gift card”.

Top 10 Days for Sending Holiday Emails

Just read a great white paper from iContact that listed out the top 10 days to send holiday emails (dates based on 2009 calendar so note that some days may actually change from year to year but the principle is the same.) Nice timing and I thought I’d pass them along to you:

Monday after Halloween
Nov 2nd

Day before Thanksgiving
Nov 25th

Black Friday
Nov 27th

Cyber Monday
Nov 30th

First Friday in December
Dec 4th

Second Friday in December
Dec 11th

Friday before Christmas
Dec 18th

Monday before Christmas
Dec 21st

Day after Christmas
Dec 26th

Monday after Christmas
Dec 28th

Don’t wait to get started. Plan your emails now to ensure you are ready to take advantage of each.

Best Times to Send Emails

In continuing with my series on sprucing up your email campaigns, I thought a post on the best time to send emails would be appropriate.

To date I’ve discussed reasons you should consider a third party email service, 4 components present in all emails, and even promoting social media elements in your emails.

What we haven’t touched upon is the timing of the emails. The questions we are looking to answer are:

1) What are the best day(s) to send emails.

2) What is the best time of day to send emails.

Does a “best” day and time really exist?

The answer to this question is it depends and isn’t going to be the same for everyone—what works for one person might not work for another. It depends at the very least on your market, your customers, whether you sell B2C (Business to Consumer) or B2B (Business to Business), and even the time of year (which I won’t get into in this article.)

It goes without saying that if you are targeting B2B type readers you want to hit them during the work week (rather than on the weekend). With B2C you might get away with a weekend send depending on your offer, your target, and your objective. I personally find weekends to be slow no matter the market and try to stay away from them for sending marketing emails.

I am not going to leave you with just that as an answer though.

There have been many studies conducted and data collected on the best times to send emails. We can use these results as a general starting point for our own campaigns. In reality though, the real answer will be found in your own tracking of your sends (you are tracking your emails with some type of analytics right?)

You’ll find any number of answers on the internet to what is the best day / time, but I have complied my research into what seems to be a consistent “baseline” reported from not only third party email services like Aweber, Constant Contact, and iContact, but also based on market research studies conducted by non-email service providers.

Keep in mind while reading this that it is tough to truly nail down a best day and time because each is ever changing.

However, after rooting through all this data I found the following as a reasonable conclusion to start with (I based this on the frequency of mention for various days and times.) After conducting my research, I was somewhat surprised to discover that my personal experience fell within the ranges I found to be the most effective times and days. Again, this may not be the case with everyone, but it did prove to me that the baselines I settled on (and that I mention below in this article) were at the very least a good starting point for most.

The Survey Says…

According to combined surveys it looks like the best days/times on average to send emails are:

Best Days on Average
Tuesday and Weds continually stick out as better days during the week.

Best Times on Average
The results on this seem to be all over depending on who you talk to. In general though the consistent times mentioned were:

• Morning between 8 AM and 9 AM
• Mid morning between 10AM and 10:30AM
• Early Afternoon between 1PM and 1:30PM

My personal experience has found that currently, sending at 8:15 AM on Weds. provides the best overall results across the board for both opens, clicks, and actions taken. I want to hit readers first thing in the morning when they are checking email before they start their day and before their email box gets filled (pushing my email to the back of the pack.)

Having said that, an article I reviewed on email marketing reports had some very interesting images of data tables based on metrics reported. It might be worth reading as well.

Pros and Cons of Each Day Outlined

Jenn Abecassis wrote an nice article that appeared in 60-Second Marketer which listed the positive and negative aspects of sending email on each day of the week. I reiterated her points below and will let you determine which if any sound reasonable for your needs. I personally have not tested her theory but really think she makes some great arguments for each day with looking into.

Monday -
Pros: Office work has not filled inboxes yet.
Cons: People are in “work mode” and won’t be focused on non-work tasks.
Best Practice: Send emails late Monday morning, after people have cleaned the weekend spam from their inboxes.

Tuesday -
Pros: People have organized their week, and can find personal time for emails.
Cons: Emails poised for a weekend response may be too early.
Best Practice: Use Tuesday for emails that request action during the workweek.

Wednesday/Thursday -
Pros: People are planning their weekends and gearing up for personal time.
Cons: Time during the workweek is running short, and requested action may be pushed back to the following week, or even forgotten about.
Best Practice: Focus leisure and weekend notifications during these key weekend planning days.

Friday -
Pros: Studies indicate fewer total emails sent compared to the rest of the week, increasing visibility among the myriad of other messages.
Cons: People hurry to leave the office early, and may not take time to view non-work related emails.
Best Practice: Send emails early in the day to give consumers more time to take action. An unopened email from Friday will sort to the bottom of an inbox on Monday, and is often discarded.

Weekends -
Pros: People check emails on weekends, too, so weekends may have untapped potential.
Cons: A weekend email may seem overly-intrusive to some people.
Best Practice: If possible, try to avoid Sundays and focus on Saturdays, which may have a better response rate. (SK: Actually, if you are B2C, I would test Sundays myself — we used to get great response on Sunday).

Conclusion

What works for one person may not work for another. Email marketing should be tested and tracked as much as any other portion of your business.

Keep these points in mind when determining the best time and day for your own email marketing.

The answer isn’t the same for everyone.

• The best day for you and your business might not be the best day for the next person.
• The best day might change from month to month (based on time of year) and from send to send.
• The best time could be different for subscribers located in different parts of the world.
• Not all messages necessarily “work” on the same day or at the same time. Understanding your objective and your subscribers will help you focus your efforts and find what works for you.

The BEST way to move forward:

1. Use the guidelines above in making an initial educated guess
2. Test to see whether your guess was right or not
3. Once you’ve got the best day nailed down, try experimenting with what time of day works best
4. Make sure you maintain accurate reports so you can benchmark your results moving forward.

Remember, it ultimately will come down to testing, testing, and more testing. Don’t neglect the fact that you won’t know for sure until you thoroughly test and measure your own individual results.

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