Would a minimum spend put you off?

[funkydorydawn]

I'm playing with the delivery charges for the next year.

At the moment I offer £2.50 for 2nd class and £3.50 for 1st class. This works quite well, but on large orders I lose a lot of money (sometimes postage is about £8) and on smaller orders I feel a bit mean charging more for something that costs about £1.00 to send.

SO, I thought of including delivery on all orders (I've incorporated the delivery price into the filled bags already). The only thing I need to consider is - if I put a minimum order amount of £5.00, would this put people off?

The other solution would be free delivery over £5.00 and £1.95 delivery for orders less than £5.00.

Admittedly, I very rarely get orders less than this amount, but as you know, we don't want to deter anyone :cheesy:

dawn
xx

[Purplecat]

I wouldn't be put off, if your ordering from a website, you usually spend more than £5.

[funkyfish]

why don't you charge by weight?

You could have a maxiumum charge of £4.95 for HUGE orders (unless you cannot afford to treat customers to free shipping) and charge a £1.00 for small purchases.

This way you can keep costs right down for your customers.

[Miranda]

What is your average order value and how many people spend less than £5 and how many spend between £5 and £10? Maybe look at getting the £5-10 people to spend £10, by putting in a delivery charge for under £10 and free over.

We recently put our free delivery over £50 up to over £60 (had been £50 since we started) to take into account the fact that post has gone up considerably (over 20%) due to the weight bands being over a bigger range for thesame cost, meaning we were not gettting as much discount on PPI as we used to before PIP. This has increased our average order value by a couple of £, which is good.

[funkydorydawn]

why don't you charge by weight?

You could have a maxiumum charge of £4.95 for HUGE orders (unless you cannot afford to treat customers to free shipping) and charge a £1.00 for small purchases.

This way you can keep costs right down for your customers.

Thanks - I could charge by weight, but as I sell so many different types of product, it's a real pain to administer - so I decided against this ages ago.

[funkydorydawn]

What is your average order value and how many people spend less than £5 and how many spend between £5 and £10? Maybe look at getting the £5-10 people to spend £10, by putting in a delivery charge for under £10 and free over.

We recently put our free delivery over £50 up to over £60 (had been £50 since we started) to take into account the fact that post has gone up considerably (over 20%) due to the weight bands being over a bigger range for thesame cost, meaning we were not gettting as much discount on PPI as we used to before PIP. This has increased our average order value by a couple of £, which is good.

Hmmmmmm tbh hardly anybody spends less than £5 - when you consider they are buying enough items for a party. My average order value is between £30 and £40.

Until now I offered free delivery on orders over £75.00.

I've been considering including postage in the price because it will help the customer work out their costs - eg, if they have a budget of £30 for 20 kids, then they can see they can order 20 filled bags @ £1.50 or under, with no extra costs at checkout.

It makes it a lot simpler for them and for me, I suppose.

I've implemented the changes - will have to suck it and see for the next few months :happy72:.

dawn
xx

[Miranda]

Well frankly I would say free over £10 or £15 not just 5 and if under than £2.95 P&P That way at least you'll cover costs (bag, postage, card fees) on smaller orders, which pr0-rata will be a bigger % of the cost of the smaller order.

[lajlaj]

I agree with Miranda (for a change).

[Miranda]

Do we normally have differing view points then Nadine?

[lajlaj]

Do you know I don't think we do - or not often, you are just far more elequant than me at putting it over, especially when I'm drowning in orders, have a major meeting tomorrow and am out tonight at a brownie "do" just to complicate matters!

[stour]

I get the odd incredibly small order. sometimes as low as £1. so i have a £1.40 charge which is calculated to cover cost of taking the money, the post, the form etc. there's nothing factored in there for time mind. we sell to wholesale so our margins are better than those that resell our products. As such, we are able to accommodate postage on orders over £5. maybe we should put that up next year, i don't know.

[funkydorydawn]

OK, had a quick look at my figures, and compared the postage charges of my competitors....it's staggering the delivery rates some of them charge!!

I've gone for free delivery over £20.00 and £2.95 for smaller orders.

This way - the customer gets a better deal, it's easier for them to work out their total spend, and I cover all my costs on both large and small orders :happy72:

Thanks for your input.

dawn
xx

[Miranda]

That sounds really good Dawn, lets face it when you do a party you always have to have at least 6 kids, and one could quite easily spend £3-4 a head by the time you've added all the bits and bobs so we'd always be upping it to £20 to get the free postage.