Are Your Postage Charges Putting Off Customers?

Nov 21
07:23

2008

Alex Cleanthous

Alex Cleanthous

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How many times have you visited a website, seen something that you liked for a few dollars, popped it into your basket… and then discovered that the postage charge effectively doubles the price of the item you want? This isn’t uncommon online and while postage charges often benefit those who are ordering multiple items from the same website they do tend to sting people who are only looking to buy one thing. That’s why it pays to keep an eye on what you are charging your own customers to buy items from you, because if you get the balance wrong you could end up sending people elsewhere to buy what they want.

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How many times have you visited a website,Are Your Postage Charges Putting Off Customers? Articles seen something that you liked for a few dollars, popped it into your basket… and then discovered that the postage charge effectively doubles the price of the item you want?This isn’t uncommon online and while postage charges often benefit those who are ordering multiple items from the same website they do tend to sting people who are only looking to buy one thing. That’s why it pays to keep an eye on what you are charging your own customers to buy items from you, because if you get the balance wrong you could end up sending people elsewhere to buy what they want.Of course it isn’t always as simple as that. While your website marketing may benefit from promoting low postage costs you need to ensure that you won’t lose money by offering rock bottom postage prices. Some companies offer free carriage on everything you buy, but they are few and far between and they tend to be huge in nature – not a small business that is selling perhaps fifty or sixty items a week or less.The idea of course is that by offering low or free postage you will attract more people to buy from you, but if you aren’t getting the footfall to your website in the first place it could effectively wipe out all your profits in one fell swoop. Think about the type of goods you sell as well; if you are selling temporary tattoos then your postage costs will always be very low, since they will all go in standard envelopes or small postal bags that don’t cost much to mail out. And bigger orders will bring in more profit to cover the slightly higher mailing costs.If you are selling heavy items however, or anything bulky that cannot go through the normal mailing system, you would almost certainly lose a lot of cash through giving everyone free postage. You need to work out a good balance between having a business that is attractive to your customers and a business that is bringing in a healthy profit for you. If you can achieve both then you are well on the way to a successful business.Some businesses opt for a flat rate on their postage, which does at least make it easy for your customers to see what they have to pay. And it does work well at encouraging them to order more as they don’t need to pay extra for it. Other people opt for the tiered postage rates which work on weight more often than not.In the end it may be a case of trial and error to see what works best for you in your e-commerce endeavours, because no two businesses will be exactly the same. And so long as your customers are happy with the service you are giving them, there shouldn’t be too much of a problem, no matter what your postage charges are pegged at.