The phrase "free shipping" is like a siren song to many who shop on the Internet.
For whatever reason, a free shipping offer that saves a customer $6.99 is more appealing to many than a discount that cuts the purchase price by $10, says Wharton marketing professor David Bell. Bell noticed this phenomenon a few years ago while doing research for an online grocery store, and the observation prompted him to look more closely at the ways Internet retailers use shipping charges -- or the lack thereof -- as a promotional tool.
The result is a model that can help managers set shipping fees in ways that both appeal to customers and drive them to buy in quantities that can be efficiently processed. "There is no direct analog to this in the traditional retail world," Bell says. "It seemed to us that firms had not figured out the 'right' shipping policy, so there's a lot of experimentation going on without clear guidelines."
Internet-based shopping is the fastest growing sector of retailing in the U.S., Bell says, with sales exceeding $110 billion during 2004. Approximately 60% of online retailers cite "free shipping with conditions" as their most successful marketing tool.
Consumers like free shipping offers, perhaps because it makes the online retail transaction more comparable with that at the neighborhood store. Whatever the reason, it's clear that consumer behavior changes when shipping fees are imposed. With fees, shoppers will make fewer shopping trips and purchase more goods at a time -- not unlike shoppers who drive great distances to a particular store, Bell says, and decide they had better stock up while they're there. Alternately, fees can prompt consumers to simply walk away. A survey from 2004 found that shipping and handling costs triggered 52% of the abandonment of online shopping carts, Bell says.
While some might argue that shipping fees are merely a substitute for the time and travel costs involved with visiting a bricks-and-mortar retailer, consumers may not buy that argument, Bell notes, adding that the link might not be so clear in the minds of many because travel costs are not collected at the traditional retailer's point of sale.
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