Dropshipping is a great way to generate leads and revenue. This method is not new in dropshipping and has been used by many. However, it can still bring you results if done correctly.
This article will explain what Free Plus Shipping is and how it works.
What is Free Shipping Plus?
Free Plus Shipping (FPS), is basically a type product offer. The name of the offer is free plus shipping. FPS products are products that you offer free of charge and then charge shipping fees (Free and Ship, Only Pay for Shipping).
Is it a way of giving away the product? No. Free shipping is not a way for businesses to survive. Free Shipping Plus makes your offer more appealing to customers. Let me explain.
Let’s say you find an Airpods Case for $1.5 on Aliexpress and you want to make it $7. Instead of setting the retail price to $7, you decide to make it free with a $7 shipping charge.
When determining the shipping cost, it is important to consider all costs. If you charge $1 for a conversion to the airpods case and $2 for shipping from China, your profit can be $2.5. If you are expecting to make $2.5 per sale, then a conversion that costs $3 might be worth $9.
Free Plus Shipping is a great deal because who doesn’t love free products? Many people will pay shipping costs to receive such a deal. It’s important to note that shipping costs shouldn’t be too high. Otherwise, your customers will know that your shipping cost includes the product’s price. Shipping costs vary from one region to the next. You should therefore set your shipping cost according to your target market.
What’s the point of free shipping plus?
Dropshipping stores can benefit from free shipping plus. Setting up free shipping offers is easy. But, it’s not hard to wonder why. ).
Free shipping plus free delivery is a way to include the word “free” in your marketing messages. People love free stuff and will go to great lengths to check it out. You will get more attention and people will be more familiar with your business if you use the word “Free” as a headline in your ads.
However, this does not mean that the word “free” will result in more conversions. Some people will pay $9 for shipping to receive a free product. Others won’t. Traffic to your website is what you will get. This is especially true when it comes eCommerce. You can then retarget the visitors to your website with other products. This is how you make money.
How do I use free shipping plus?
Two ways to get free shipping for your dropshipping company:
- It can be used as a business model
- It can be used to drive traffic to your site and to upsell.
The first option, which uses free shipping as a model, would require your product to be in high demand and on-trend. This business model is not sustainable long-term. Trendy products change quickly and are very popular. If you don’t plan to commit to any product and are willing to take the ride of the fads you could make a lot of money with free shipping.
This second option is much more popular. The second option is more popular. Those who use free shipping to drive traffic aren’t looking to make money from their first sales, but they want to increase their traffic. They can cross-sell other products with this traffic. This approach does not allow for free shipping. You should aim to break-even when using this method. You should set the price at which you can attract traffic at zero cost.
Which price ranges are best for shipping to work and free of charge?
Let’s face it, you can’t apply for free shipping and all other perks to $100 products. You will get suspicion from your customers if you do this. You can also use free shipping if you select low-cost products but your profit margins will be lower. What is the best price range?
I recommend that you choose products that are less than $10 each to reach your customers (marketing, shipping and all costs included). Here’s a rule of thumb:
The shipping cost of your customers should be less than the retail price. If a Tshirt retails at $20 and shipping it to your customer is $2, but you customers aren’t willing to pay $22 for shipping, the T-shirt will not be viable for free shipping plus tax.
Here are some tips for shipping free and fast
There are two options to incorporate free shipping and shipping into your business strategy. However, it is not practical to use free shipping as your entire business model. Customers will become skeptical if they see too many products in a store. This technique, which is explained in Section 4, will also limit the range of products you can sell at your store.
To maximize its potential, people use Free Plus Shipping to market their brand and bring customers to their online shops. This strategy is creating an funnel to cross-sell and upsell other products.
A customer who has purchased once from you will feel more confident buying again. This is assuming you provide high-quality products, and good customer service. Customers will be drawn to your funnel by the free shipping. The goal is to increase traffic, not make money. It’s fine to lose money or break even for this free shipping sale. However, you can still make a profit from the traffic that you’ve acquired by upselling and cross-selling.
You have two options to sell to customers: free shipping and plus shipping. After they buy from you, they will receive their emails. You can use these emails for nurturing customers and selling more products. You can also retarget website visitors with other products using Google display ads, Google Ads, and Youtube ads.
This is how you can make long-term money with free shipping and you should apply this strategy to your eCommerce business.
How to set Shopify up for free and shipping
You have two options to setup Shopify free shipping and free setup. The first is easier but more complicated. The second is cheaper but much simpler. Let’s take a look at each one.
Get free shipping and setup
You will need to enable the weight-based shipping option in your Shopify dashboard to get free shipping plus free shipping Here’s how.
Step 1: Navigate to your Shopify admin > Setting > Shipping.
Step 2: To set up shipping costs, go to Create a new profile
Step 3: Give your shipping profile a name.
Step 4: Create your shipping zone.
This is where you can apply for free plus shipping. In this case, I will choose the US.
Step 5: Add rates
Click Add rate Add conditions
Select the Based On Item Weight option.
You can now create rates based upon the weight of your products. You can enter a name in the Rate Name field.
Let’s say that your product weighs 1kg and you wish to charge $5 plus shipping for each item. If your customer purchases more than one item, you will need to provide multiple options.
Make sure to save
Your customers will now need to pay $5-$20 depending on the number of items they wish to buy. This free shipping price does not include your shipping costs, but also your retail price.
Step 6: Adjust the Sample box weight for 0 kg.
Edit the Shipping section of your settings to change the weight of the sample box to 0 kilograms in the Packaging section.
Step 7: Adjust the weight of any items that are not free or include shipping to 0 kg and those with free shipping to 1 km.
This is important because shipping costs for free and plus shipping products will apply to all products in the store.
Navigate to the page you wish to edit and then to the Shipping section.
If you do not want your product to ship free, please set the weight at 0 kg and the retail price at your cost.
If you want products that come with free shipping plus, please set the price at $0 and the weight at 1 kg.
Step 8: Place a few orders to verify that your setup is working properly.
This is it! You have now successfully created the free plus shipping option to your products. This manual method has one drawback: you must create all weight options and the maximum number of products your customers can buy (mentioned at Step 5).
You can set a maximum shipping cost of 4 products. If your customer orders 10 items, then the price will be the same as 4 items.
A drawback to this arrangement is the fact that you cannot have the same shipping rate for all your free-plus shipping products. This is because it is a weight-based shipping system, meaning that every product that is the same weight will be charged the same shipping cost.
Get free shipping and setup at no additional cost
Shopify offers several apps that will allow you to customize your shipping rates. However, they are more expensive.
Better Shipping is one of the best tools for this.
You can set up shipping costs for each product using this app. This app allows you to create many different setups.
You can even have your no-free-plus-shipping products on free shipping while still having the free plus shipping option for other products at the same time.
Pre-determined criteria can be used to reduce shipping costs. If your customer purchases more than one sample product, you could offer 10% off shipping costs.
This app is superior to manual settings in all aspects, but it does cost money. Better Shipping also requires carrier-calculated shipping.
Notice: Carrier-calculated shipping, also known as “real time rates”, is shipping rates that are automatically calculated using FedEx, UPS and USPS rates. This function uses the package weight, dimensions and addresses to calculate accurate shipping prices in real time.
Shopify’s $29 plan does not include this feature. It is only available to those who have higher plans. This feature is available to all Shopify plans, regardless of whether you choose the $70 plan. Contact Shopify Support to request this feature to be added to your existing plan. If you pay monthly, an additional $20 will be required to purchase your $29 plan. If you pay on an annual basis, it will be free. You can choose how much you pay but it is still cheaper than the $79 plan if you don’t use it.
You can choose to pay $20 more to unlock the feature. This will make your Shopify plan $49 per month. The Better Shipping app will cost $14.99 per month. That will bring the total to $64 per month. Your budget should be considered when making a decision.
Last words
This article should have given you an understanding of the dropshipping free plus shipping method and how to use it. Please leave a comment below if you have any questions about this technique. 🙂
