eCommerce State of Shipping

Free shipping, same-day delivery, weekend deliveries – they’re all the buzz in 2016 ecommerce. While it’s important not to blindly follow Amazon to set your shipping policies, it’s also important to get a good pulse of your customers and their expectations.

What do shoppers really care about? What are other businesses offering? And where should you focus on next year?

To help businesses better understand where to invest their time and efforts, we recently conducted a survey of consumers and ecommerce merchants in the United States to ask those questions.

Here are just some of the key findings from the survey:

• Free Shipping: 34% of consumers responded that they will only purchase online with free shipping. However, 40% of businesses still do not offer free shipping. Learn more about how free shipping strategies you can use to incentivize actions from your customers.
• Returns: Only 14% of merchants offer free return shipping, but 34% of consumers will only purchase if they can return or exchange the item for free.
• Shipping Speed:  Despite the hype of on-demand delivery, only 4% of consumers said they used next day or same day delivery.
• Carrier Selection: 94% of shoppers said that they do not care which carrier is delivering the package. Explore a global network of shipping carriers you can access through Shippo.

There are a lot of opportunities for merchants to narrow the gap between what their buyers want and what they’re offering.  Leveraging these opportunities can not only stop shipping from eating into margins, but use it to drive sales and improve customer experience.

Download the 2016 eCommerce Shipping Survey

Shippo is a multi-carrier API and web app that helps retailers, marketplaces and platforms connect to a global network of carriers. Businesses use Shippo to get real-time rates, print labels, automate international paperwork, track packages and facilitate returns. Shippo provides the tools to help businesses succeed through shipping.