Seth Godin brings up a couple good points in his blog about shipping and handling and how it’s influencing buyers and their loyalty.
I completely agree with his points and add that retailers like Amazon need to be careful of how they treat the fulfillment of free shipping orders. One of the things that Amazon does with orders with free shipping is that they delay the picking & packing of those items to times that are organizationally beneficial to shipping the product out.
When I order from Amazon and pay for the shipping, I see that my products are shipped out the door with in 24-48 hours. However when I select super saver shipping, it’s delayed up to 5 days before departing. Amazon clearly states this in the details with “Please note that your order will take an additional 3 to 5 business days to ship.” in the details. However, I can’t help to take a few stars off my customer experience when I see that my package actually did ship 5 days later. This subtle and automatic reaction is something that happens even though it’s not logical.
Two other retailers have done interesting things with shipping. Onlineshoes.com pays for the return shipping if you don’t like the shoes or they don’t fit the way you like. Endless.com is currently offering “Negative Shipping” where they deduct $5 off the price if you select overnight. This is interesting to me, because the consumer is encouraged to get overnight shipping which will provide a more instant gratification feeling in the purchase. I would love to see the numbers from this campaign and how it’s translated to more loyal customers and their subsequent purchases over time.
Tags: free, loyalty, shipping