have a relatively decent website, about 10 to 15% of turnover at the moment and im wondering if i offered free carriage on everything in the uk would it make a massive difference in sales?

you lot order online alot,whatcha think? does it make a difference?

chris

I’d click from Google on to a site that was selling something a £ cheaper. Go through with the sale for honest P&P, but carry on searching if it was inflated.

i charge £3.95 for everything except heavy stuff(trainers/thule/trailers) and a tenner for a bike anywhere in the uk

With most bike sites providing free delivery, it would be hard to get business like that in my opinion.

If you do free delivery across the board you will get folk ordering a gel with free delivery, You’d probably be best to say free delivery over £20 £30 which isnt loads and would encourage people to put together a reasonable order without having to spend silly amounts of money to cover the delivery costs.

Speed of delivery and carrier is also important to me.
Reasons I use CRC a lot is that you pretty much get things the next day (if order before 3 pm I think) AND they use Royal Mail which means if I’m not in it gets taken to local post office for easy pick up. I tend not to use sellers using city link etc as if your not in (which mostpeople aren’t during the day) then it’s taken back to their regional offices which are usually miles away.

It wouldn’t be something I’d necessarily go to a site for specifically. I’d want to trust the site first, then a decent price, and TBH not feeling like I’ve been ripped off for postage would be OK as far as I’m concerned.

I prefer free delivery. Makes it much more likely that I’ll buy smaller items. It’s a pain buying small items and then paying the same again for pandp.

Seems much more upfront and honest when your browsing, you know exactly wht it’ll cost you. HAte websites that don’t tell you the cost until the last checkout screen.

I’m much more attracted to sites with free delivery.

Often I’ll do a quick look around for who has the item cheapest amongst just those who do free delivery as I don’t have to spend extra time looking for and totaling delivery costs.

Much prefer Royal Mail also.

thanks to all of you,i kinda thought what was said,i’ll trial free delivery and see if it boosts figures…

i use couriers for bikes and heavy things only,everything else goes with royal mail first class.

yep agreed go with free delivery. its not so much the money it’s the feeling that i’m being ripped off when P+P gets added at the end. think how much we all hate booking flights with easyjet or ryanair, whole experience makes my blood boil. for bike stuff I go back over and again to CRC and Merlin, dont usually check anywhere else, what you see is what you pay.

Most important thing is having the stock!

if i can be brutally honest, i don’t think worrying about postage is your key issue… its giving your site greater visibility.

i buy everything on-line, and will spend quite a while looking for the best deal. i can’t ever recall coming across your site.

good plug though with this thread!!

as with the guys above i go on total price, so if with post its still cheaper i will buy.

my process for pricing is:

1. google shopping
2. ebay
3. google

also the annual/regular 15/20% sales that some places do ‘persuade’ me to buy things i maybe would not have done or buy stuff sooner than i would.

£3.95 is excessive. You need to scale it. Postage cost does nothing for your business, only upset customers, and ensure thay come only to you when they can’t get stuff elsewhere. Most people wouldn’t object to paying the real cost of the deal, but £3.95 isn’t what it costs you for many items on the royal mail, and the rest is seen by your customers (if you get many that way) as unscrupulous profiteering.

Mrs Mc does a lot of ebay business, and unlike many Ebayers, charges only what it actually costs her in stamps with royal mail. This gives a lot of good kudos and nice feedback.

People don’t mind stuff wrapped in a bin bag with some parcel tape. Costs almost nothing, happy customers.

i know it is expensive but you have one of those generic web template stores – get a proper one.

yep your rite,the only problem is that visibility costs, well with google it does! and you can do it on the cheap but you need loads of time to spend on optimisation….

we come up the rankings really high on certain products with google (my biggest selling item is a parent handle for 20 quid,top ranking on google!) and we get about 500 to 600 people a day looking at the site which from a standing start 18 months ago im pretty happy with.we’re growing organically!

the generic template is great value and it seems to work pretty well! im getting a new front next year.the webdesigner is very helpful and always good for advice so im staying…also i cna buy bike databases off him every year which saves about a weeks work(when the bikes change every year!)