Shift4Shop eCommerce Blog | Shipping & Fulfillment (4)

Some eCommerce business owners may resent or balk at the idea of offering free shipping. The sentiment is understandable: it is only free for customers, and the business eats the cost. With that said, savvier minds may see many potential benefits in offering a perk beloved by customers of every demographic. For evidence of its potential effectiveness, look no further than the annual holiday-season event known as Free Shipping Day.

When running an online store, the selection of what shipping methods to offer your customers is going to be one of the most important decisions to make.

The effect of this decision goes beyond the prices you and your customers pay for shipping — it can have an overall effect on the way you run your business.

Customers love free shipping, but it's not always possible for an online store to make it available.

Besides, there are other ways to make shipping relatively painless for your customers,[...]

Everyone wants to make more sales. Conversion strategies for eCommerce are endless, but some of the best are easily overlooked. For instance, did you know the way you handle shipping can affect your conversion rate? In some ways it's obvious — a store with overpriced or slow shipping will most likely make fewer sales, but shipping isn't just a potential source of issues. In fact, shipping policies can boost your conversions as well. But how?

These 3 proven methods will help you automatically [...]

Shopping cart abandonment is one of the biggest challenges for an online retailer to overcome. Almost 70% of all online shopping carts are abandoned — the customer places items in their cart, but never completes the order. There are tons of reasons a customer might abandon their cart, but one particular factor stands out above the others: shipping!

3dcart is currently partnered with over 200 eCommerce companies, and we're constantly on the lookout for outstanding partners that can bring innovative solutions and services to our customers.

Did you know 3dcart merchants can get exclusive discounts on FedEx^® shipping and business services through the FedEx Advantage^® program? With free enrollment, and no minimum shipping requirements, this could be the easiest decision you’ve made all day.

All you have to do is sign up, and you’ll get the speed and reliability of FedEx at discounted prices. It’s as simple as that.

Sometimes it is the silent changes that can have the biggest impact on a business's ability to control cost and optimize spend wherever possible. The rates you pay to ship your goods to customers across the U.S. have shifted, and we’ve discovered that many businesses weren’t ready and aren’t sure how to judge these changes.

A popular question among eCommerce sellers is, “Why should I care about insurance?” Most businesses have encountered some kind of shipping issue and have discussed whether or not they need to insure higher value packages. How you handle damaged, lost or stolen packages can determine how your customer interacts with your brand and whether or not they make repeat purchases. One of the best ways to avoid customer dissatisfaction or monetary loss is by staying proactive with insurance. In this post[...]

You’ve made the hard decision to find a company to ship products for you, but now the time has come to pick who’s shipping them and you can’t decide between two (or more) options. Do you only have to choose one distributor?

One of the many challenges of being an eCommerce store owner is getting more sales. You might already have social media strategies in place or maybe you rely on word of mouth to generate sales but did you know one of the best ways to increase sales is by tweaking your shipping methods? 

According to a study done by north american technographics 44% of shopping cart abandonments are due to shipping and handling costs being too high, and 22% were due to shipping and handling costs being shown too[...]

From a P&L perspective, shipping costs are typically the 3rd largest line item just behind merchandise and labor cost. On average, e-commerce merchants spend 10% of their revenues on shipping costs. The financial investment of shipping product to customers means that auditing shipping spend and invoices is crucial to a business.

FedEx and UPS recently increased their rates. Merchants are now paying more ever! Here are some tips on how to lean out your shipping operation to reduce costs.

For children, countless occasions call for the unwrapping of presents, with the appearance of mystery boxes igniting anticipation and deftly nimble finger movement. The box, the wrapping, the ribbon, the bow – all of these elements, by definition a barrier between a child and their desired product, serve to create a profoundly memorable unboxing experience that’s just as enjoyable as the product itself.

Guest post by Jose LiFounder & CEO of 71lbsWhat is the #1 source of pain felt by most e-commerce merchants? Shipping costs. We all need help reducing them. But how can the average merchant cut costs while FedEx and UPS keep increasing rates and the USPS threatens to close branches and slash personnel? Unless you ship at Amazon-level volumes, it can be difficult to gain leverage and cut a break with your shipping carriers.

By Ben Ocken, Associate Marketing Manager at EndiciaRunning an ecommerce business may seem as simple as producing and selling a fantastic product. But in order to be truly successful, you’ve got to know how to ship.

But shipping can seem intimidating, and it’s often hard to know where to start. That’s why we’ve mapped out five key things you need to consider to get your ecommerce shipping off the ground.

When you're running an online business, it's certainly a MUST that you have an amazing shipping partner you can rely on. For some online stores, it's not only one but several different companies that take care of shipping their products to customers.

What can even be more taxing in the long run is when you've expanded to various sales channels online and you need to log in to different platforms to manage all the orders.

But what if you can actually integrate all these selling venues into just[...]

Do you know that you can actually make money from FedEx and UPS for a change? Most of the time, a lot of online businesses that make use of their shipping services never find out that there may actually be refunds from these companies that they can retrieve.

Yep, you heard it right. You can actually get money from FedEx and UPS through refunds. You'll be surprised how much money you can save over time from even little amounts every month!

International eCommerce has been a steadily growing portion of retail, even throughout the global economic downturn. Economic figures have stated that international eCommerce surpassed $1 trillion in 2012. For this reason, many U.S. Retailers are considering international expansion.

U.S. eCommerce retailers who aren’t currently shipping internationally should consider taking international orders. The growth rate for international e-Commerce exceeds domestic growth figures exponentially. U.S.[...]

Shipping is key to running a successful online store. Customers expect a seamless end-to-end online shopping experience and you need efficient and automated tools to fulfill orders.

There is no greater time then in this year of 2014 to jump on the e-commerce business trail.  eMarketer recently announced that global B2C ecommerce sales will hit $1.5 Trillion this year and ecommerce sales will increase by 20.1%, a 2.1% rise from 2013.

Internet businesses can be faced with many challenges as the e-commerce arena broadens with more players and competition from traditional brick and mortar retailers, such as Kohl’s, enter the cyber market. Kohl’s have put their new store[...]