Choosing what shipping rates to offer your customers is an important part of setting up your business. Before you take your first order, you need to decide what shipping strategy you want to use, and then set up how your customers can choose a shipping method.
Your shipping strategy will probably change over time as your store grows. One of the first decisions you will need to make is deciding how much to charge for shipping. Consider the following strategies:
- Free shipping
- Charge exact shipping costs
- Flat rate shipping
- Charge marked up shipping costs
Free shipping
Offering free shipping usually has a positive impact on your customer to purchase conversions. There are a few ways to offer free shipping.
- One way is to include the shipping fee in your product prices. Find out what the average cost to ship your product is, then add the buffer into your prices.
- Another way is to offer free shipping on all orders over a certain dollar amount. For more information, refer to Manage Shipping Rates.
Charge exact shipping costs
If you configure a shipping provider that offers real-time shipping rate calculation, then you can use Omnibasis to display calculated shipping rates to your customers at checkout.
Flat rate shipping
Another way to charge for shipping is to offer a flat rate for every package, or flat rates for weight ranges, destinations, or cart totals. When deciding on a flat rate, you will need to consider your average shipping cost to send a package so you don’t over or under charge. An example of a flat rate is to charge $4.99 for all domestic shipments.
Calculate shipping rates
Omnibasis offers shipping rates that are calculated directly by various shipping providers. If you add calculated rates to your checkout, then you should make sure the rates that the shipping provides back to you store are accurate. There are a few different things that you can do to make sure that you're getting the most accurate rates at checkout:
- Add product weights
- Choose default packaging
Setup an account with one of the shipping providers supported by Omnibasis. At the checkout Omnibasis can calculate shipping rates for you based on the cart weight, box size, and shipping services you choose to offer.
Make sure that you have added weights to each of your products and have measured the size of the box you will be shipping. If you use the same box size each time, then add it as the default package for accurate rate calculations.