Free shipping continues to be a major factor for online shopping, according to research firm comscore. It devoted a major part of a recent release about Thanksgiving-week shopping to the trend.
In 2017, it had found that most desktop purchases during Thanksgiving week came with free shipping (74% of both transactions and dollars). This year, those numbers rose to 81% of transactions and 90% of desktop dollars.
In comscore’s Q3 State of Retail survey, 58% of consumers said that free shipping was the “most important” factor related to online retail shopping, and only 15% said it was not the #1 or #2 “most important” factor.
The same survey also found that among those who had abandoned an online shopping cart in the past month, 38% did so due to unexpected shipping costs (the most picked reason).
“Especially during peak spending times such as these key holiday days, retailers seemingly have no choice but to offer free shipping options, or risk losing consumers who have come to always expect free shipping as a default,” the research firm concluded.
You can find the full release on the comscore website.
UMMM Don’t believe it. We have never offered free shipping at anytime during the year. We charge up to 3.00 per item. Our sales are fine. Just another organization that takes surveys and doesn’t know what they are looking at. I’m willing to bet there are a lot of people charging for shipping. Besides one would have to be a dumb as a box of rocks to think that shipping is free for anything.
Free shipping is simply not an option for international sellers! Most of my buyers are discriminating collectors of antiques and vintage and do not expect free shipping as a norm. And what about returns? I occasionally offer “shipping included” on more expensive items with the proviso that in the event of a return the purchase price only is refunded. There is no such thing as “free” shipping – it has to be built into the price somewhere.