You bet! In terms of the threshold to qualify for free shipping, given the product prices, I’d probably go lower than $50, especially given the cost to ship, which is fairly low.

For instance, let’s say your free shipping offer is $40 and the flat rate shipping offer is $5. Let’s also say the average product price the customer pays is $10 and your average product margin is $3. And, lastly, as you mentioned, let’s say it costs you $3.75 to ship one item and $5.75 to ship four or five items.

Under this scenario, if a customer bought one item you’d make $3 in product margin and $1.25 in ship margin, for a total margin of $4.25. If they purchased four items, you’d make $12 in product margin and, since you’re paying for the shipping (which would be $5.75), your total margin would be $6.25…$2 more than someone purchasing one item.

This is a basic example but one that’s meant to simply show how the seller’s margin can be higher, even when they give away free shipping. The trick is simply to set it at a threshold that’s high enough to make the numbers work but also low enough that it’s effective, meaning it will cause a buyer to add one or two more items to their basket. We have another blog post that provides another example of this, including how it can be beneficial to bundle products, which especially applies to lower-priced goods…

https://www.efulfillmentservice.com/2019/06/why-should-amazon-sellers-bundle-products/

Thanks!

Hi Daylon –

Thanks for your inquiry. You’re definitely thinking the right way in terms of how much to charge for shipping for your products.

Based on the shipping prices you’ve provided here, I’d recommend you start a bit lower with your flat rate shipping, maybe $4.99. The reason for this is that many online shoppers have come to expect free shipping and, when it’s not free, they want it to be fairly cheap. In today’s competitive ecommerce landscape, it’s difficult to get away with making any profit on shipping (and, even when you can, I generally don’t recommend doing so), and since most ecommerce sellers average between 1.5 to 3 units per sale, if you charged $9.99 for shipping, you’d be making a margin in most cases.

The other thing to consider is your free shipping offer of $50, which I think is a good idea. I don’t know how much you’re selling your products for, but let’s assume that most buyers will qualify for free shipping if they add two or more items to their basket. In this case, the flat rate shipping becomes irrelevant, which means that the flat rate shipping price would only come into play when your buyers are purchasing one item (for the most part). If that’s the case, that’s more of a reason to lower your flat rate shipping price, as you don’t want it to be such a large percentage of the total sale price, which it would likely be for consumers purchasing one item.

A lot of this comes down to trial and error, so you can always adjust your shipping fees as you go.

Hope this helps!

Steve Bulger

Hello there, thank you for the inquiry, and congrats on launching your body butter business!

In terms of how much to charge customers for shipping and also how to obtain a quote to determine your costs for shipping, you can go to the carrier websites. For instance, at the weights you outlined of 4 and 8 ounces, First Class Package Service would likely be the best choice, as it’s a cost-effective shipping method that will generally arrive in 2-4 days anywhere in the country and includes full tracking.

You can calculate USPS rates here…

https://postcalc.usps.com/

Here at lite prepcenter, we provide warehousing and order fulfillment services for online sellers like yourself, and we offer discounts off of retail First Class Package rates.

Regarding keeping the packages cool, you can use cold shipping packaging from carriers or other sources. Unfortunately, we do not have temperature-controlled warehousing at our company, but if you’re looking to outsource your order fulfillment and shipping, you will find fulfillment companies that do offer that.

Hope this helps!

Steve Bulger

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Hi Robin –

Thank you for reaching out here. You have a lot of amazing pictures on your website!

Regarding your inquiry on flat rate shipping, particularly for your framed prints and the example you provided to ship four of them, I would need to know a few more details, including the size and weight of each framed print. The reason I ask is that the $200 shipping charge you referenced seems quite high, so a bit more information would help me to validate shipping costs and provide more guidance in terms of how you could go about charging for shipping.

Thanks!