[PODCAST] Shipping and the Customer Experience

 

Audio file 

episode 15 shipping.mp3 

 

Transcript 

00:00:01 Daria Rose 

Hello and welcome to E com stand up with Dorian Bell. 

00:00:04 Daria Rose 

Good morning, Belinda. 

00:00:05 Daria Rose 

I guess it's not morning for you. 

00:00:06 Daria Rose 

It is deep afternoon right? 

00:00:09 Belinda Anderton 

It is it's three o'clock here. 

00:00:12 Belinda Anderton 

I I have moved, I am now podcasting to you all from South Africa. 

00:00:20 Daria Rose 

Which is yeah. 

00:00:21 Daria Rose 

I mean, just in order. 

00:00:22 Daria Rose 

To kind of keep a timestamp on this. 

00:00:25 

It's a little. 

00:00:25 Daria Rose 

Scary in South Africa right now? 

00:00:27 Daria Rose 

How are you feeling? 

00:00:28 Belinda Anderton 

It's tense on. 

00:00:29 Belinda Anderton 

The ground but South Africans are have amazing spirit. 

00:00:33 Belinda Anderton 

And justice communities have been turning out in full to help warehouse owners. 

00:00:38 Belinda Anderton 

You know, a lot of distribution centers. 

00:00:40 Belinda Anderton 

Were were looted. 

00:00:42 Belinda Anderton 

The supply chain has been severely affected, but from other states or provinces as we call them here, they're sending convoys of food to the hardest hit. 

00:00:52 Belinda Anderton 

Uhm, yeah. 

00:00:53 Belinda Anderton 

Just like people off the street are helping clean up helping pick up litter. 

00:00:58 Belinda Anderton 

Just walking into like warehouses and saying we're here to help. 

00:01:03 Belinda Anderton 

Will set you up so amazing and. 

00:01:05 Daria Rose 

That's amazing. That's great good. 

00:01:05 Belinda Anderton 

Worth it? 

00:01:07 Belinda Anderton 

Well certainly help me. 

00:01:07 Daria Rose 

Good positive spin on things. 

00:01:09 Belinda Anderton 

Yep, the Delta variant here, so we're in lockdown again. 

00:01:11 Belinda Anderton 

But look at, that's a global that's global and and yeah, so onward and upward. 

00:01:12 Daria Rose 

About this 

00:01:20 Belinda Anderton 

With with everything. 

00:01:20 Daria Rose 

Onward and upward for sure. 

00:01:22 Daria Rose 

Alright well, I'm glad I'm glad you're feeling OK. 

00:01:25 Daria Rose 

I was definitely worried for a few days there. 

00:01:27 Daria Rose 

Uhm, after seeing some of the things in. 

00:01:30 Daria Rose 

The news, but. 

00:01:31 Daria Rose 

It sounds like it sounds like you're OK. 

00:01:33 Daria Rose 

It sounds like your family is OK and you finally got bread, which I was really, really concerned about about you and your lack of. 

00:01:38 

He got Brad. 

00:01:40 Daria Rose 

Lack of bread for a little while. 

00:01:43 Daria Rose 

Anyway, so today we have a really, really, really hot topic that there isn't really any sort of single answer to, and it it 100% depends on your business and your customers and your marketing strategy. But we are going to be talking about shipping strategy and how you know what your options are. 

00:02:04 Daria Rose 

What works for some businesses may not. 

00:02:05 Daria Rose 

Work for others. 

00:02:06 Daria Rose 

And at least what we've seen in terms of in terms of best practices. 

00:02:10 Daria Rose 

So shipping rates, like I said, are are a very hot topic, and I don't recall exactly when. 

00:02:21 Daria Rose 

This came into play, but in my memory it has to do with Amazon as I feel like almost everything in E commerce has to do with Amazon, where you know Amazon came out with prime and it was free shipping always. 

00:02:35 Daria Rose 

If you had this prime membership, so then all of a sudden direct to consumer brands had to compete with this open. 

00:02:41 Daria Rose 

They'll get free shipping if they go to Amazon, so all of a sudden all brands started offering free shipping and you saw. 

00:02:47 Daria Rose 

This this huge up. 

00:02:52 Daria Rose 

Excavation is not the framework. 

00:02:53 Daria Rose 

What am I thinking this huge like shift? 

00:02:56 Belinda Anderton 

Excellent, excellent. 

00:03:00 Daria Rose 

We're excavation exodus into into free shipping everywhere and I think very interestingly. 

00:03:04 Belinda Anderton 

Yeah, right? 

00:03:07 Daria Rose 

In the last year or so you've actually seen a move back into either flat rate shipping or free shipping, but only over a certain value, so you'll get free shipping, but you have to spend. 

00:03:19 Daria Rose 

$100 with us. 

00:03:21 Daria Rose 

And of course, you still have your brands that are offering free shipping, but the. 

00:03:25 Daria Rose 

Benefit of flat rate shipping. 

00:03:27 Daria Rose 

Thing is that it offers some amount of transparency because with free shipping. 

00:03:35 Daria Rose 

Most people I would assume, know that they're not actually shipping it for free. 

00:03:39 Daria Rose 

They are paying the shipping carrier or something. 

00:03:40 Belinda Anderton 

No pain checking. 

00:03:43 Daria Rose 

So if you are thinking about product economics. 

00:03:48 Daria Rose 

That price is probably in the product price, so maybe if you're buying a $20 item they're actually charging 25 for it, but then giving you free shipping so you're still. 

00:03:55 Daria Rose 

Paying the shipping and without flat. 

00:03:57 Daria Rose 

Rate you know you don't know where you're paying. 

00:03:59 Daria Rose 

Yeah, yeah. 

00:04:01 Daria Rose 

What are your kind of general thoughts on that? 

00:04:03 

I would stop. 

00:04:03 Daria Rose 

And also international thoughts because I don't know if this free shipping is AUS. 

00:04:08 Daria Rose 

Phenomenon, or Eric it's common elsewhere as well. 

00:04:11 Belinda Anderton 

Yeah, I think it may be big. 

00:04:14 Belinda Anderton 

Uh, I've got to say in Brazil starting to come do a lot of free shipping. 

00:04:19 Belinda Anderton 

Actually they do something different. 

00:04:20 Belinda Anderton 

There you get a. 

00:04:20 Belinda Anderton 

Coupon for free shipping and you can actually collect the coupons and you know apply them to to future orders. 

00:04:25 

00:04:28 Belinda Anderton 

So that's one. 

00:04:29 Belinda Anderton 

Uhm, South Africa. 

00:04:32 Belinda Anderton 

Completely different. 

00:04:33 Belinda Anderton 

Kettle of fish and I do want to do an episode on that because there are massive logistical. 

00:04:39 Belinda Anderton 

Uhm, issues here that there is. 

00:04:42 Belinda Anderton 

A kind of a kind of an. 

00:04:43 Belinda Anderton 

Amazon here it's called take a lot. 

00:04:46 Daria Rose 

Uhm, table. 

00:04:47 Belinda Anderton 

I take a lot. 

00:04:48 Belinda Anderton 

Take a lot. 

00:04:50 Belinda Anderton 

Kind of an aggregating by. 

00:04:52 Belinda Anderton 

You know it's like it's like. 

00:04:54 Belinda Anderton 

The Amazon jungle, right? 

00:04:56 Belinda Anderton 

But they actually have because. 

00:05:00 Belinda Anderton 

Just because of security, so you you can't rely on the postal services so. 

00:05:03 Belinda Anderton 

Everything is Courier. 

00:05:05 Belinda Anderton 

Uhm, but there are takealot. 

00:05:07 Belinda Anderton 

Mini distribution centers. 

00:05:09 Belinda Anderton 

Where you can actually pick up your order. 

00:05:11 Daria Rose 

OK, and that is actually something we're seeing a lot with within the US with shipping carriers, they're they're trying to consolidate their costs by using, well, Amazon lockers. 

00:05:24 Daria Rose 

I think we're one of the first, but UPS and FedEx lockers have been pretty common, so it's like instead. 

00:05:30 Daria Rose 

Basically, they're trying to optimize. 

00:05:32 Daria Rose 

Routes instead of having to send drivers to thousands of homes per day. 

00:05:34 Belinda Anderton 

Oh yeah. 

00:05:37 Daria Rose 

It's like OK, hey, just drop all your stuff. 

00:05:39 Daria Rose 

Off at this one block. 

00:05:39 Belinda Anderton 

Yeah, so makes sense. 

00:05:41 Belinda Anderton 

It's just an interesting but completely off topic. 

00:05:44 Belinda Anderton 

What I was going to say was. 

00:05:46 Belinda Anderton 

Shipping isn't interesting because a lot of brands will put a lot of money into it. 

00:05:50 Belinda Anderton 

Opting they'll put a lot of money into packaging. 

00:05:53 Belinda Anderton 

They'll put a lot of money into the unboxing, experience everything to do with the customer experience, and the brand has control over that. 

00:06:00 Belinda Anderton 

But when it comes to shipping, it's like either an add on and we see this a lot with with kind of start UPS on on Shopify. 

00:06:08 Belinda Anderton 

Starting up the E commerce or they do. 

00:06:10 Belinda Anderton 

Everything perfectly spend hours getting with Facebook set up and it looks beautiful. 

00:06:17 Belinda Anderton 

And then they're like OK then shipping. 

00:06:20 Daria Rose 

Yeah, I mean that's a very good point and I think one place where the customer journey suffered a little bit in in the free shipping time was shipping times and I think something I noticed with. 

00:06:34 Daria Rose 

A couple of 

00:06:35 Daria Rose 

Of brands that I purchased from over the years is great. 

00:06:37 Daria Rose 

I get free shipping but then I don't get my item for. 

00:06:40 Daria Rose 

7 to 9 days. 

00:06:41 Daria Rose 

And it's like I'd. 

00:06:42 Daria Rose 

Rather, pay $5 for shipping and get it. You know I don't need it tomorrow, or even in two days. 

00:06:48 Daria Rose 

But I think 4 days. 

00:06:49 Daria Rose 

Is is more than enough time to figure out how to get things to to your customers, so I. 

00:06:55 Daria Rose 

So many people were offering free shipping. 

00:06:57 Daria Rose 

They you know needed to figure out their costs. 

00:07:00 Daria Rose 

They couldn't just lose money, hand over, fist by by shipping everything for free. 

00:07:04 Daria Rose 

So they were, you know, using services like mail innovations and smart posts and all of these last mile options which if. 

00:07:15 Daria Rose 

If you don't know the last mile option is basically a collaboration between the. 

00:07:21 Daria Rose 

The the private shipping companies and USPS where the private shipping company will take it to a hub and then USPS will take it the last mile. 

00:07:30 Daria Rose 

It's called, so they'll take it from the. 

00:07:31 Daria Rose 

Hub to. 

00:07:31 Daria Rose 

The customers and as you can imagine, when you're when you're dealing with you know hundreds of 1,000,000 or millions of packages a day. 

00:07:40 Daria Rose 

When you have to change. 

00:07:41 Daria Rose 

Hands like that you can imagine how that adds more time. 

00:07:43 Daria Rose 

You have to go to multiple sorting facilities. 

00:07:45 Daria Rose 

Other people have to pick it up. 

00:07:47 Daria Rose 

They have to scan. 

00:07:47 Daria Rose 

From one system to another, so it just added a lot. 

00:07:50 Daria Rose 

Time so I. 

00:07:51 Daria Rose 

Think with that. 

00:07:52 Daria Rose 

Let's move on 'cause some people may not even know. 

00:07:55 Daria Rose 

What are your? 

00:07:55 Daria Rose 

Options in shipping and specifically with shipping in Shopify? 

00:07:58 Belinda Anderton 

Let's talk. 

00:07:58 Daria Rose 

Like what can. 

00:07:59 Daria Rose 

You even do in hand and how? 

00:08:00 Daria Rose 

Can you set that? 

00:08:01 Daria Rose 

Up so Shopify has. 

00:08:05 Daria Rose 

3 ish ways you can set up your shipping. 

00:08:09 Daria Rose 

One is price. 

00:08:11 Daria Rose 

Based so you can set. 

00:08:13 Daria Rose 

I'm going to call. 

00:08:14 Daria Rose 

Them flat rates or tiers for a specific order total. So you can say if your order is 0 to $50 you pay. 

00:08:22 Daria Rose 

$5 in shipping. 

00:08:23 Daria Rose 

If your order is 50 to $100, you pay $2.00 in shipping. If your order is 100 plus, you pay zero. That is a tiered shipping model based on. 

00:08:31 Daria Rose 

Order price yeah. 

00:08:32 Daria Rose 

The other option is order weight, so order weight if you think about it is the most. 

00:08:38 Daria Rose 

Intuitive I would say for a customer because shipping is shipping is is measured out based on weight. 

00:08:46 Daria Rose 

UPS charges you more depending on how heavy. 

00:08:49 Daria Rose 

Your package is. 

00:08:50 Daria Rose 

So when you do things based on the weight, it's you know zero to 5 pounds costs X5 to 10 pounds costs Y, and I think I misspoke. I said that was intuitive. 

00:08:59 Daria Rose 

For the customer, I meant that was intuitive for the merchant because the merchant it lines up with what the merchant is spending on shipping, but it's not intuitive for the customer because they don't know or care how heavy something is. 

00:09:01 Belinda Anderton 

It is. 

00:09:11 Belinda Anderton 

They don't, and here's another thing, and I'm just going to put this in there, but this would have to be whole. 

00:09:16 Belinda Anderton 

Uhm, other episode and I want to get our special OPS manager in on this dimensional. 

00:09:23 Belinda Anderton 

Wait, we're going to be talking a lot about that. 

00:09:28 Belinda Anderton 

Sometimes the product and we're dealing with this with the client at the moment they are shipping flowers, and we'd I'd like to get them on a on an episode as well. 

00:09:37 Belinda Anderton 

So the flowers. 

00:09:38 Belinda Anderton 

Themselves weigh £3.00 the bars. The base ways I think about half a pound right? So the total package with? 

00:09:48 Belinda Anderton 

You know the flower food is about four pounds. 

00:09:53 Belinda Anderton 

Can we name can we name Shane Shipping carriers? 

00:09:57 Belinda Anderton 

I don't know Warren very well known shipping carrier because of the size of the box dimensional volume. 

00:10:05 Daria Rose 

Dimensional weight is a big big hot topic. 

00:10:07 Belinda Anderton 

They want to charge £14.00 so the dimensional weight is £14.00, but the actual weight is only four. So we were looking at shipping costs. The bunch of flowers cost 69 and the shipping cost a. 

00:10:20 Belinda Anderton 

128 

00:10:23 Belinda Anderton 

So we wow, we have had to do a. 

00:10:26 Belinda Anderton 

Huge amount of work to kind of iron that out. 

00:10:29 Belinda Anderton 

So it's important. 

00:10:30 Belinda Anderton 

When you're thinking about your amazing unboxing experience and your packaging. 

00:10:36 Belinda Anderton 

Be aware that all. 

00:10:37 Belinda Anderton 

Of that will affect your shipping rate. 

00:10:39 Belinda Anderton 

And This is why sometimes it is better to start. 

00:10:42 Belinda Anderton 

With exactly what you're saying, with a flat rate. 

00:10:45 Daria Rose 

And one thing just just for our listeners, if you're unfamiliar with dimensional weight and why that's an issue. 

00:10:51 Daria Rose 

Dimensional weight basically comes into play when you're shipping something large, even if it's light. 

00:10:59 Daria Rose 

So like Blender just said the box because it's flowers and has a face, it's it's quite a quite a large long box. 

00:11:05 Daria Rose 

I think it's. 

00:11:05 Daria Rose 

At least 16 inches. 

00:11:07 Daria Rose 

And the shipping carriers want to protect themselves against people shipping large light things. 

00:11:15 Daria Rose 

Pillows are probably another example of something that's like large, but it's not quite heavy, and the reason for. 

00:11:21 Daria Rose 

That is space. 

00:11:22 Daria Rose 

Yep, they only have so much space per truck so. 

00:11:25 Daria Rose 

They want to make sure that they're getting their money. 

00:11:28 Daria Rose 

Worth for not just and if you think about rent at a warehouse, which again maybe you don't know you're charged based on volume in a in a in a warehouse, how many bins, or how much volume you take up so it makes sense from the shipping carrier side, but it's always something that comes as a bit of a shock. 

00:11:44 Daria Rose 

Alright, so we are talking about price based and weight based rates in Shopify, those. 

00:11:49 Daria Rose 

Are basically your. 

00:11:50 Daria Rose 

Flat rate options and how you can set those. 

00:11:52 Daria Rose 

You can of course just set 1 flat rate for everything up until a certain price. 

00:11:57 Daria Rose 

I think that's probably the most common thing we're seeing now. 

00:12:01 Daria Rose 

The other thing we're seeing is. 

00:12:04 Daria Rose 

You can set that rate as like standard shipping. You can always give people the option to pay more for an expedited service which we're seeing a lot, so you'll charge either you know something very reasonable, two 99399 for standard shipping, just to recoup some of your costs, and then if somebody wants to get it faster you charge either live rates. 

00:12:24 Daria Rose 

Or you know 1090. 

00:12:25 Daria Rose 

9 something. 

00:12:26 Daria Rose 

Like yeah yeah, the third option is I just alluded. 

00:12:30 Daria Rose 

To it live? 

00:12:31 Daria Rose 

Rates so live rates is when Shopify has the weight of your product and this is an issue because Shopify currently does not store the dimensions of your product. 

00:12:41 Daria Rose 

So as we just spoke about dimensional weight, that's a problem, but. 

00:12:45 Daria Rose 

It sends the physical. 

00:12:46 Daria Rose 

Weight of the item to the shipping carrier of your choice. 

00:12:49 Daria Rose 

The shipping carrier sends back a rate and. 

00:12:52 Daria Rose 

That exact rate. 

00:12:53 Daria Rose 

Is displayed to your customer, you're able to add on a flat rate on top of that, or some sort of percentage if you want to discount it. 

00:12:59 Daria Rose 

A lot of the time we'll see. 

00:13:01 Daria Rose 

The actual UPS rate discounted by 50%, something like that, and you know this is. 

00:13:09 Daria Rose 

There are positive pros and cons to this. 

00:13:11 Daria Rose 

The proto live rate and we. 

00:13:12 Daria Rose 

Do see it a lot is that it it? 

00:13:15 Daria Rose 

The customer knows that it's the library because it usually has some sort of weird. 

00:13:19 Daria Rose 

Scent added on. 

00:13:21 Daria Rose 

It's like one 34529. When people see a rate like that, they're like oh OK, like this is. 

00:13:28 Daria Rose 

The actual rate. 

00:13:29 Daria Rose 

And a lot of the time they like that because they know that it's the actual shipping price. 

00:13:33 Daria Rose 

A lot of the time they don't because they don't want to pay that much for shipping. 

00:13:38 Daria Rose 

So I think it's all about trying to find a middle ground with your customer and also what's our favorite word. 

00:13:44 Daria Rose 

Belinda test. 

00:13:46 Daria Rose 

Yeah, it's always important to test. 

00:13:49 Daria Rose 

So one thing that we see a lot of people do is you know cycle through a couple weeks of trying a flat rate, trying a live rate trying free shipping. 

00:13:58 Daria Rose 

See how it affects. 

00:14:00 Daria Rose 

Your conversion funnel, which we'll talk about. 

00:14:02 Daria Rose 

In a second. 

00:14:03 Daria Rose 

And again, ultimately, there's no one size fits all. 

00:14:07 Daria Rose 

For every single brand. 

00:14:09 Daria Rose 

Uhm, I think. 

00:14:12 Daria Rose 

Probably my favorite as a consumer is a flat rate up until a certain price and then free shipping because I want to be rewarded for being a good customer and not to mention I almost always fall for that. If it's $5 shipping up until $100 and then. 

00:14:32 Daria Rose 

Free shipping 9 times out of 10 I'm spending 100. 

00:14:35 Daria Rose 

Dollars to get through shipping, yeah. 

00:14:38 Daria Rose 

What are your opinions on? 

00:14:40 Daria Rose 

Like what is that your favorite as well or do you? 

00:14:42 Daria Rose 

Do you prefer a live rate or do you prefer just always free shipping? 

00:14:46 Belinda Anderton 

I I, I'm like you. 

00:14:47 Belinda Anderton 

I like the flat rate. 

00:14:49 Belinda Anderton 

I don't mind paying for shipping again. 

00:14:52 Belinda Anderton 

It is this transparency. 

00:14:54 Belinda Anderton 

I like librates because then you know, well you hope that the the the motion is being completely honest and they're not. 

00:15:02 Belinda Anderton 

Uhm, they're not absorbing the cost of shipping into the product price, so I know I'm getting rock bottom. But I also like I like to say it is $5 and then if I spend a little bit more I'll get free. 

00:15:19 Belinda Anderton 

Yeah, how does time? 

00:15:22 Belinda Anderton 

Influence, will you pay more for shipping? 

00:15:25 Belinda Anderton 

If you can get it faster? 

00:15:27 Belinda Anderton 

I know you will it. 

00:15:28 Daria Rose 

It totally depends on the circumstance. 

00:15:33 Daria Rose 

I if, for example, and I actually did this and it still didn't work, I was in Hawaii last week and I was panic buying bathing suits a few days before. 

00:15:41 Daria Rose 

And I paid 899 for expedited shipping and it was like just on the cusp of of if it would come before I would I would leave and it ended up not arriving, which was a bit of a bummer. I I ended up then again panic buying a single bathing suit from Amazon. 

00:15:54 

Oh no. 

00:16:02 Daria Rose 

That was guaranteed next day delivery. 

00:16:04 Daria Rose 

So that was like perfect perfect Daria story. 

00:16:08 Daria Rose 

I ordered like 6 bathing suits. 

00:16:09 Daria Rose 

None of them came day before. 

00:16:10 Daria Rose 

I gotta get. 

00:16:11 Daria Rose 

This Amazon bathing suit I need a new bathing suit. 

00:16:13 Daria Rose 

For my trip so. 

00:16:15 Belinda Anderton 

And this is where Amazon steps. 

00:16:15 

So I think it depends. 

00:16:16 Daria Rose 

On this yeah. 

00:16:17 Belinda Anderton 

Steps into the market so well, isn't it? 

00:16:20 Daria Rose 

Yeah it does and I I hate to say it because I've been researching bathing suits for months. 

00:16:27 Daria Rose 

Probably looking up to this trip and I made a lot of thoughts about who should I. 

00:16:31 Daria Rose 

Should I spend a lot on the high quality like women founded bathing suit brand? 

00:16:40 Daria Rose 

Or do I go to one of these fast fashion? 

00:16:44 Daria Rose 

China brands and spend $16.00 on 7 bathing suits and ultimately I excited with the latter because my bathing suit fashion changes quite often. 

00:16:55 Belinda Anderton 

Yeah, absolutely. 

00:16:55 Daria Rose 

That was an interesting psychological situation, and unfortunately I mean, unfortunately or fortunately. 

00:17:03 Daria Rose 

I weirdly love the bathing suit. 

00:17:04 Daria Rose 

I got from Amazon. It was $21. 

00:17:07 Daria Rose 

And it's this little. 

00:17:08 Daria Rose 

Brazilian bikini and I felt very powerful in it. 

00:17:11 Belinda Anderton 

It's amazing. 

00:17:12 Belinda Anderton 

Well there you go. 

00:17:14 Belinda Anderton 

But you you? 

00:17:14 

Yeah, you're right. 

00:17:15 Belinda Anderton 

Definitely have felt that you had to order your. 

00:17:18 Belinda Anderton 

Bikinis before you. 

00:17:19 Belinda Anderton 

Left there was no way you got to buy one in Hawaii. 

00:17:22 Daria Rose 

I thought about that the. 

00:17:23 Daria Rose 

Reason I I didn't if it was, if I was just going with my husband I certainly would have bought something. 

00:17:28 Daria Rose 

In Hawaii, 'cause? 

00:17:29 Daria Rose 

I've done that a lot. 

00:17:29 

But we. 

00:17:30 Daria Rose 

Were my a nine person group and the idea of trying to organize. 

00:17:31 Belinda Anderton 

Ah, gotcha. 

00:17:34 Daria Rose 

Going shopping with that was was. 

00:17:36 Daria Rose 

A bit overwhelming, but anyway. 

00:17:39 Daria Rose 

Back to back to shipping. 

00:17:40 Daria Rose 

So I touched. 

00:17:41 Daria Rose 

On the conversion. 

00:17:42 Daria Rose 

Funnel a little bit. 

00:17:44 Daria Rose 

Uhm, in in what I was talking about recently. 

00:17:47 Daria Rose 

So I think we've mentioned this before, but the conversion funnel. 

00:17:50 Daria Rose 

Is basically when you look. 

00:17:51 Daria Rose 

At the steps of your conversion, so add to cart it's step one. 

00:17:57 Daria Rose 

Reach Checkout, it's Step 2 and then checked out or converted as step three so often what you. 

00:18:04 Daria Rose 

Like to see. 

00:18:05 Daria Rose 

Is the largest number of people allowed to cart? 

00:18:08 Daria Rose 

Only some of those people, at least 50% usually will reach checkout and then about 50% of those people will actually check out and. 

00:18:17 Daria Rose 

A lot of the. 

00:18:18 Daria Rose 

Work we do is in trying to optimize that. 

00:18:20 Daria Rose 

Funnel, so how can we? 

00:18:22 Daria Rose 

Get more people like getting people to add. 

00:18:25 Daria Rose 

To CART is a whole different science. 

00:18:27 Daria Rose 

Get them to do that. 

00:18:28 Daria Rose 

Once they do that, how do you ensure that they reach checkout and then from there? 

00:18:32 Daria Rose 

How do you ensure that they actually? 

00:18:33 Daria Rose 

Check out if you. 

00:18:35 Daria Rose 

Have a massive drop off. 

00:18:37 Daria Rose 

Between people reaching checkout and people actually checking out. 

00:18:41 Daria Rose 

You need to take. 

00:18:41 Daria Rose 

A look at either your shipping model or something else. 

00:18:46 Daria Rose 

In your conversion funnel, something there is is confusing. 

00:18:50 Daria Rose 

To people or. 

00:18:51 Daria Rose 

Is turning them off. 

00:18:52 Daria Rose 

Either it's the amount of time shipping it's some sort of messaging you have something not clear or it's. 

00:18:59 Belinda Anderton 

Your shipping rate. 

00:19:00 Belinda Anderton 

So let me throw a couple of questions at you. 

00:19:03 Belinda Anderton 

Check why do you think I I get quite irritated on Shopify when it's always shipping will be calculated once I get to the last page. 

00:19:10 Belinda Anderton 

Age sure, so that can be a friction point and that can be where people drop off. 

00:19:17 Belinda Anderton 

Uhm, not having access necessarily to CART analytics, you're going to have to. 

00:19:23 Belinda Anderton 

What do we say? 

00:19:24 Belinda Anderton 

Test, test, test, but sometimes you know it's it's, it's not. 

00:19:28 Belinda Anderton 

On the product page, how much are we paying? 

00:19:30 Belinda Anderton 

How much are we paying? 

00:19:31 Belinda Anderton 

So my question is what do you think about sites that then perhaps even do international shipping? 

00:19:37 Belinda Anderton 

And you're kind of shipping. 

00:19:38 Belinda Anderton 

You know what? 

00:19:39 Belinda Anderton 

It's going to be up front. 

00:19:40 Belinda Anderton 

That's the beauty of free ship. 

00:19:42 Daria Rose 

Well, that's why flat. 

00:19:44 Daria Rose 

Rate shipping is great as well because with flat rate shipping you can code that value into the cart. 

00:19:50 Belinda Anderton 

Even if you. 

00:19:50 Daria Rose 

The only times. 

00:19:51 Belinda Anderton 

Are not on flash. 

00:19:52 Daria Rose 

Even because the CART page you have access to, so you can write some conditionals where if cart total is 100, you can write. 

00:20:00 Daria Rose 

$5 and. 

00:20:01 Belinda Anderton 

Perfect. 

00:20:01 Daria Rose 

You can, you can make that work, but that does not work with with. 

00:20:07 Daria Rose 

Library there are also a couple of apps and a couple of themes actually have this built in where they will have a shipping calculator. 

00:20:08 Belinda Anderton 

Thank you. 

00:20:15 Daria Rose 

On the CART page. 

00:20:16 Belinda Anderton 

I like them. 

00:20:17 Daria Rose 

I personally you like that I personally. 

00:20:18 

I do like that. 

00:20:20 

Right? 

00:20:20 Daria Rose 

I don't like that because one it's it's. 

00:20:26 Daria Rose 

It's taking me out of the shopping flow a little bit. 

00:20:28 Daria Rose 

It's like I've added to cart right? 

00:20:30 Daria Rose 

The there should be in my opinion, that one CTA to get people into the checkout. 

00:20:35 Daria Rose 

Once you have that TTI plus you have the shipping calculation, it's like well now you're throwing a wrench into it, where what if that? 

00:20:43 Daria Rose 

Throws them off. 

00:20:44 Daria Rose 

Or what if they have a DD like? 

00:20:45 Daria Rose 

Me and they do that and then they get a slack message. 

00:20:48 Daria Rose 

And then they forget to check out. 

00:20:50 Belinda Anderton 

That's true, maybe I'm just. 

00:20:50 Daria Rose 

Yeah, I think you're. 

00:20:52 Belinda Anderton 

Influenced because I'm always shipping like from the US to. 

00:20:56 Belinda Anderton 

Wherever I am. 

00:20:56 Belinda Anderton 

Well, so I I need to know 'cause there's customs. 

00:21:00 Belinda Anderton 

And and all of. 

00:21:01 Daria Rose 

That well, now you bring. 

00:21:03 Daria Rose 

Up this is we could do a whole episode right on to talk about customer given duty. 

00:21:05 Belinda Anderton 

Well, we're gonna have. 

00:21:05 Belinda Anderton 

I didn't want to get up. 

00:21:08 Daria Rose 

But a small a small. 

00:21:11 Daria Rose 

Kind of tidbit is that rate, so if you are, if you have a large international base. 

00:21:20 Daria Rose 

It's very difficult for the customer to know exactly what they're going to be paying, even with shop it with every platform I've seen, yeah, and Belinda. 

00:21:30 Daria Rose 

You can speak a little bit more to this, 'cause I obviously don't ship internationally very much, and if I were to buy something from another country, I don't think I've. 

00:21:39 Daria Rose 

Ever had to pay? 

00:21:40 Daria Rose 

Duties in the US which is interesting. I feel like there's no import. 

00:21:43 Daria Rose 

Tax for us that could be. 

00:21:45 Daria Rose 

Wrong, but uhm. 

00:21:47 Daria Rose 

Yeah, basically you're so so just to. 

00:21:50 Daria Rose 

Add on a. 

00:21:51 Daria Rose 

Quick layer here if you are shipping internationally, you can charge a shipping rate to get from the US to Brazil for example, but then. 

00:22:02 Daria Rose 

There is a sometimes unknown customs and duties fee to get it over the Brazil border that the end customer usually has to pay. 

00:22:13 Belinda Anderton 

Well, I mean with Canada. 

00:22:14 Daria Rose 

There are. 

00:22:16 Daria Rose 

Even with Canada, actually, yes, even. 

00:22:18 Belinda Anderton 

Countless stories of people saying, well, I only paid $5 for my T shirt and I had to pay 10 in. 

00:22:18 Daria Rose 

Recommended I use it. 

00:22:26 Belinda Anderton 

And the problem with it is it seems to be like luck of the draw. 

00:22:29 Belinda Anderton 

One day your my T shirt will come from States and it'll be beautiful. 

00:22:33 Belinda Anderton 

And I won't pay anything. 

00:22:35 Belinda Anderton 

And the next day they'll be like you need to submit this, you need to submit. 

00:22:39 Belinda Anderton 

I've had times when I've had. 

00:22:40 Belinda Anderton 

To find the value of the gift with $1.00, it was bamboo placemats from Thailand. 

00:22:49 Daria Rose 

OK, that was shipped. 

00:22:50 Belinda Anderton 

From the states it was a gift, but because it was a gift and it had value. 

00:22:54 Belinda Anderton 

I had to go online and find something that looked the same and show Customs and Excise wherever you are. 

00:23:01 Belinda Anderton 

Whenever it's called that it was only a dollar. 

00:23:04 Belinda Anderton 

And I and and I had to take a screenshot of the photo of the product to to show them that so it can be amazing. 

00:23:12 Belinda Anderton 

It can also be. 

00:23:13 Belinda Anderton 

A nightmare for the consumer. 

00:23:16 Belinda Anderton 

Answer The merchant and for the merchant. 

00:23:16 Daria Rose 

I mean we recently we. 

00:23:19 Daria Rose 

We have a team member in Argentina and we've been trying to get her company swag for a while and honestly we just wanted to see what what it would take. 

00:23:29 Daria Rose 

Belinda, you still need to get some of your companies back. 

00:23:31 Daria Rose 

Maybe not right now, but we need to get that to you. 

00:23:34 Daria Rose 

Uhm, it took, I think about six weeks to get there and then it had to sit in customs for two weeks. 

00:23:40 Daria Rose 

You have to pay 20 U.S. dollars to. 

00:23:42 Daria Rose 

Get it out of. 

00:23:43 Daria Rose 

Customs, and then she finally got her. 

00:23:46 Daria Rose 

Merchandise which was. 

00:23:47 Daria Rose 

Just you know, a lot of fun. 

00:23:48 Daria Rose 

Yeah, but I think you know internationally needs to be a consideration, what your international plan is. 

00:23:54 Daria Rose 

Uhm, and you know as many times as people may order internationally, they still for some reason never expect customs, or they somehow expect the merchant to pay for it. 

00:24:06 Daria Rose 

But there isn't honestly. 

00:24:07 Daria Rose 

A good way with. 

00:24:10 Daria Rose 

Mass shipping to have the the. 

00:24:15 Daria Rose 

Seller actually pay for. 

00:24:16 Belinda Anderton 

The the duties taxes, it's it. 

00:24:19 Daria Rose 

We've tried and it's there's really no automated way for. 

00:24:21 Daria Rose 

That to happen. 

00:24:21 Belinda Anderton 

Yeah, there really really isn't. 

00:24:26 Daria Rose 

So I think. 

00:24:27 Daria Rose 

You know just to kind of summarize, 'cause we've. 

00:24:29 Daria Rose 

We've had a couple of tangents here, but to summarize, you do have options when it comes to your shipping rates. 

00:24:35 Daria Rose 

You should test because there is no one size fits all option that works the best. 

00:24:40 Daria Rose 

What we're seeing as a trend right now is some sort of flat rate plus free shipping model or flat rate with a free shipping discount that people will run over a couple of weeks. 

00:24:46 Belinda Anderton 

Yep, Yep. 

00:24:53 Daria Rose 

But you always have the option to do libraries. 

00:24:55 Daria Rose 

A lot of companies are doing that a lot. 

00:24:57 Daria Rose 

Of customers like it, and really what? 

00:24:59 Daria Rose 

You need to. 

00:24:59 Daria Rose 

Be looking out for is your conversion funnel. 

00:25:02 Daria Rose 

And if during one of your tests you notice a massive drop off from step two to three from Reach checkout checkout, you know that potentially there is an issue with your shipping. 

00:25:13 Daria Rose 

Rates and then I think the other way that's interested in testing we have. 

00:25:17 Daria Rose 

We have one client that has always offered free shipping because that's the status quo in their industry and it seems to work well for them. 

00:25:25 Daria Rose 

But one way they've tried to recoup some of their shipping costs is by offering a shipping rate that's called guaranteed next day. 

00:25:33 Daria Rose 

And this shipping rate is they're within one. 

00:25:37 Daria Rose 

Day of a. 

00:25:37 Daria Rose 

Lot of their customers anyway, so it doesn't actually change the shipping the way that they're shipping. 

00:25:43 Daria Rose 

But one thing they've tried to test is offering the shipping service. 

00:25:47 Daria Rose 

Seeing if people will pay for it and then playing with the rate that they're charging. 

00:25:51 Daria Rose 

So they kind of every week or two will change that rate a little bit and see how what percentage of people are selecting it and how that affects their bottom line. 

00:26:00 Daria Rose 

So that's the. 

00:26:00 Daria Rose 

Other option where you can offer a rate. 

00:26:03 Daria Rose 

And that's also. 

00:26:04 Daria Rose 

A way to. 

00:26:04 Daria Rose 

Test your rates. 

00:26:05 Daria Rose 

In general, offer free shipping or offer a low flat rate and offer a slightly higher flat rate for a seemingly faster option and see. 

00:26:16 Daria Rose 

You know what people select? 

00:26:18 Daria Rose 

Uhm, but I think personally I think one of the worst things you can do is free shipping with a long shipping time, because to me that. 

00:26:29 Daria Rose 

Just creates a negative customer experience and it makes it less likely. 

00:26:33 Daria Rose 

I think. 

00:26:33 Daria Rose 

Actually blend I told I I maybe have told this story before where I ordered a. 

00:26:40 Daria Rose 

It was like a dry shampoo product from a from a company and. 

00:26:45 Daria Rose 

Didn't really get any shipping communication, it was free shipping. 

00:26:49 Daria Rose 

I think it took. 

00:26:51 Daria Rose 

They had some stock issues, but it took. 

00:26:54 Daria Rose 

Three to four weeks to arrive. 

00:26:55 Belinda Anderton 

To say. 

00:26:55 Daria Rose 

And in that time I had forgotten that. 

00:26:58 Daria Rose 

I had ordered. 

00:26:58 Daria Rose 

It and I had then ordered something else from another company 'cause I was like, hey, I still need dry shampoo. 

00:27:03 Daria Rose 

OK, let me I literally forgot that I ordered this one. 

00:27:06 Daria Rose 

This one product and by the time it arrived. 

00:27:11 Daria Rose 

I was obviously ****** because I had already. 

00:27:13 Daria Rose 

Ordered another one. 

00:27:16 Daria Rose 

Not updated at all that it would. 

00:27:18 Daria Rose 

Take this long and I'm no longer going to be a customer of theirs, and I'm not going to recommend them to other people. 

00:27:24 Daria Rose 

'cause I had about experience and we've talked about how important the customer experience is in creating repeat customers and creating more organic customers through word of mouth. 

00:27:33 Daria Rose 

So I think you you know blender you spoke. 

00:27:36 Daria Rose 

About this in the beginning the. 

00:27:39 Daria Rose 

The process does not end when the customer checks out, though there is a whole bunch of merging strategy after that's almost where it starts. 

00:27:44 Belinda Anderton 

Yeah, in fact. 

00:27:46 Belinda Anderton 

Almost where it starts. 

00:27:49 Daria Rose 

Yeah, absolutely. 

00:27:52 Daria Rose 

Any final tips for our listeners? 

00:28:00 Belinda Anderton 

Just make sure that shipping is thought about upfront as part of your entire strategy. 

00:28:05 Belinda Anderton 

It's for startups. 

00:28:06 Daria Rose 

Absolutely, yes, it should definitely be thought about as part of your strategy and not as an afterthought. 100. 

00:28:11 Belinda Anderton 

As much as you say no, we need to get Facebook set up and we need to get Instagram ads going and everything like that. 

00:28:16 Belinda Anderton 

You need to figure out your shipping. 

00:28:19 Daria Rose 

Yeah, and actually. 

00:28:20 Belinda Anderton 

A calculator head. 

00:28:22 Daria Rose 

I guess one thing really quickly I just I just found this really. 

00:28:25 Daria Rose 

Fun chart that. 

00:28:27 Daria Rose 

I don't know if we can put it in the episode notes or not. 

00:28:29 Daria Rose 

But during a study of 4500 responses for reasons they abandoned during checkout, so they were already in state they. 

00:28:39 Daria Rose 

Were already. 

00:28:40 Daria Rose 

They already reached checkout so 49. 

00:28:43 Daria Rose 

Percent was because the extra costs were too high. 

00:28:47 Daria Rose 

So shipping taxes and fees were too high, but I think that's important that it. 

00:28:52 Daria Rose 

Was you know it? 

00:28:53 Daria Rose 

Wasn't free versus 5. 

00:28:55 Daria Rose 

Dollars, I think, is rarely going to be too high. 

00:28:57 Daria Rose 

That's probably live. 

00:28:59 Daria Rose 

Rates similar to the flower story we were talking about where it was. 

00:29:02 Daria Rose 

Just like I'm not going to pay this much for shipping. 

00:29:05 Daria Rose 

24% was because the site wanted them to create an account, so this is one of. 

00:29:10 Daria Rose 

The things I love about Shopify. 

00:29:12 Daria Rose 

You can create an account, but it is not tide to the checkout process. 

00:29:17 Daria Rose 

There is no check out as guest. 

00:29:19 Daria Rose 

I hate when the option is create account or checkout as guest. 

00:29:23 Daria Rose 

I honestly when those are the two options I usually abandoned because I. 

00:29:27 Daria Rose 

Just don't want to. 

00:29:28 

Do that. 

00:29:29 Daria Rose 

And then 19%. 

00:29:32 Daria Rose 

Was that delivery was too slow. 

00:29:34 Daria Rose 

So in this case this kind of ties into what we just talked about, but often in the checkout you'll actually see the approximate time to get your product, so some people have a list you know 7 to 9 days people are not going to wait that long and. 

00:29:47 Daria Rose 

They're not going to checkout. 

00:29:49 Daria Rose 

And then 18% was a long or complicated checkout process, so you generally don't have to worry about with Shopify. 

00:29:57 Daria Rose 

It's a pretty proven and tested three step process, so that's not as much of an issue. 

00:30:02 Daria Rose 

17 percent is I didn't trust the site with my credit card information. 

00:30:06 Daria Rose 

Again, another thing you probably don't have to worry about as much with Shopify. 

00:30:10 Daria Rose 

Because a lot of people recognize the checkout and know that that they're using that and then. 

00:30:17 Daria Rose 

Belinda, this speaks to what you were saying. 17% said I couldn't see or calculate total order cost upfront. 

00:30:24 Daria Rose 

Uhm, so that's that's an important one. 

00:30:26 

Sometimes I know how. 

00:30:27 Belinda Anderton 

Much I have to. 

00:30:28 Belinda Anderton 

Spend, especially if it's a little if it's just a little. 

00:30:32 Belinda Anderton 

I don't know, I think. Wow, I've got $100 but and that has to be total. If you're working on a budget, you need to know. 

00:30:38 Belinda Anderton 

And it wants all included. 

00:30:40 Belinda Anderton 

I like it. 

00:30:42 Daria Rose 

And here and then, interestingly, 11% was at the returns policy. I feel like we're at over. 

00:30:47 Daria Rose 

100%. 

00:30:48 

So how? 

00:30:48 Belinda Anderton 

About these percentages. 

00:30:50 Daria Rose 

49 + 24 + 19. Oh, you could probably select more than one, yeah? 

00:30:56 Daria Rose 

That's an interesting way to do percentages then. OK, well, 11% is that the return policy wasn't satisfactory, and I think a lot of people assume that returns are going. 

00:31:06 Daria Rose 

To be free. 

00:31:08 Daria Rose 

But you definitely have to look at a return policy with anything that you're not sure you're going to want to order, because a lot of companies now. 

00:31:15 Daria Rose 

Because the cost is too high are offering returns, but the customer has to pay for the return, so that's something that's very important to think about it. 

00:31:20 Belinda Anderton 

Well, I I think. 

00:31:23 Belinda Anderton 

It's another topic as well. 

00:31:25 Belinda Anderton 

Getting into returns and into insurance. 

00:31:28 Daria Rose 

Yes, yes, which we can we can? 

00:31:29 Belinda Anderton 

Yeah, yeah. 

00:31:30 Daria Rose 

Do another episode. 

00:31:30 Daria Rose 

About that 

00:31:32 Daria Rose 

Alright, so I think. 

00:31:33 Daria Rose 

That's a good place to leave you all. 

00:31:34 Daria Rose 

So as usual. 

00:31:36 Daria Rose 

We're going to tell you to test, test, test, test what works. 

00:31:38 Daria Rose 

With your customers, there is no one. 

00:31:40 Daria Rose 

Size fits all. 

00:31:41 Daria Rose 

And once you find something that works, you can always experiment and test some more, just like offering expedited shipping. 

00:31:48 Daria Rose 

For a higher rate, playing around with your free shipping threshold sync, you can get average order value without compromising your checkout rate. 

00:31:57 Daria Rose 

So there's really a lot that can be done here, and as as always, you can email us at ecom. 

00:32:03 Daria Rose 

Stand up at Dot NYC with any other questions. 

00:32:08 Daria Rose 

Chat soon everybody.