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Customer awareness of shipping weight bands
We occasionally receive orders where the shipping rate is pushed into the next band just by a few grams, or even fractions of a gram. For Canada Post and international orders, that typically means shipping is twice as expensive as the previous band. Of course, we do partial refunds when possible, but sometimes there's really an excess of 2-3 grams!
I realize this is typical of customers filling up a cart without even looking at the shipping rate. So, when checking out, perhaps customers should somehow be made aware of shipping bands when their cart weight is... very suboptimal?
I'm not sure how that information could be communicated. It could be a little note: "You could add up to 447.6 grams to your cart for the same shipping rate. Alternatively, you could remove 2.4 grams to reduce the shipping rate from $30.78 to $15.93."
Or it could be some graphics that shows the various shipping bands and where the customer's current cart ends up. That sounds nice, it's more work though.
I realize this is also complicated by possible volume restrictions and so on.
Thoughts and/or ideas?
I realize this is typical of customers filling up a cart without even looking at the shipping rate. So, when checking out, perhaps customers should somehow be made aware of shipping bands when their cart weight is... very suboptimal?
I'm not sure how that information could be communicated. It could be a little note: "You could add up to 447.6 grams to your cart for the same shipping rate. Alternatively, you could remove 2.4 grams to reduce the shipping rate from $30.78 to $15.93."
Or it could be some graphics that shows the various shipping bands and where the customer's current cart ends up. That sounds nice, it's more work though.
I realize this is also complicated by possible volume restrictions and so on.
Thoughts and/or ideas?
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maybe it is an idea to display the total weight of your order under the item totals. see figure
- John
What if said note is only shown during checkout when all these conditions are met?
- The shipping method has weight bands
- The shipping method has plenty of volume to spare (determined by percentage, or weight/volume extrapolation, etc.)
- The current cart's weight lands near the beginning of a weight band (like in the first half of the band?)
- The previous band's shipping rate is much lower than the current band's shipping rate
I think that would avoid the potential issues.
I would like this feature greatly. A store could sell more with this feature. Customer would think "Oh, why not get more bang for my buck." type of thinking.
One thing that also does not affect us because we don't use it is minimum per lot restrictions.
If a customer fills up the graph it may put them below the per lot minimum dollar amount. This would be frustrating on a customers side to get an error after trying to get more for their money. Maybe add another restriction if a seller uses minimum $$ per lot required it won't show. Or make it optional in the settings just like the minimum per lot requirement?
Either way I am 100% for it and would use it in a heart beat.
Thank you,
Chris
For the situation where volume is an issue I would just put some type of warning that would pop up right after adding the one part that causes the shipping method to change.
I like the original proposed suggestion of the information message telling me how I can optimize on shipping it would really be useful as a buyer, however I recognize the difficulty to implement this from a coding perspective. If it were possible to add, a suggested location for it could be either: 1st choice the Estimate Shipping and Tax section of the cart right below the cart weight message (really like this feature!) as just a simple worded message or 2nd choice on the checkout page in the Shipping Info section again as just a simple worded message.
As an alternative could I suggest at least adding an “Item Weight” column to the shopping cart screen? - The same column that can be found on the “Orders Placed details” screen. This would help buyers (me at least) adjust the shopping cart items when the shipping rate jumps up to the next shipping band after I’ve added the single 1x2 plate.
Richard.
I understand your reasoning for not displaying sellers settings or an estimation on what a buyer could add in cart, as dimensions might indeed have a huge affect on a cart.
How about a small info page for each shipping method that could contain some basic info and which would display if a buyer 'hovers' over the shipping method (a new, seperated textpage)
Example:
I have a shipping method called 'Bpost Thickrate (27mm) Europe - No tracking', I have several weightbands attached to it, so the displayed cost will be according to the weight a buyer has in cart.
For that shipping method I would state: Limited to an item thickness of 27mm (1 inch) Cartweight up to 70 grams=4.19, cartweight up to 270grams=7.22. Obviously the cartweight would need to be displayed as Richard mentions, but by doing so, buyers would have a clue on what to add, or to remove a bit to 'tune' their cart.
When I look at my statistics and compare shippingcosts between 2 websites, it is clear I spend a lot more on shipping (which actually means buyers spend it) compared to 'ordervalues' on Brickowl.
My 2015 sales data tells me I had a near 50/50 split between 2 websites, but when I compare it to my spended shipping costs, near 65% was spend on Brickowl Orders, 35% on orders from the other site, that's a huge difference, and it is clearly related to buyers not filling their cart to the max (for the calculated band), simply because they have no clue 'how much' they can add. And as stragus said, in some cases buyers end up with the next band just with a few extra grams... If a small infopage allows them to see they are in higher band because of a couple of grams, they might consider to remove a bit and have a lower band, or in best case, they are going to add 'plenty' to fill the band that is currently displayed.
So pervious requests and this new thread are usufull for all parties, buyers can save on shipping, sellers pay less fees on Paypal (yes there is also on affect on that, as when buyers have a unbalanced cartweight, sellers still pay the fees on the full shippingband) and if buyers 'tune' their cart, the chances are high they will spend more, so good for the site as well, as it will generate more fees sellers need to pay. Basicly we could all benefit from it, so crucial to create 'awareness' one way or another.
Cheers, Eric
How to implement it , is a good question. Maybe a band indicator is a good one with a bar which says hoe much volume / grams you have left ?
I think most people here seem to agree that BrickOwl would benefit from presenting that information to the user (buyers and sellers), when the circumstances are appropriate, which can be decided from examining the shipping methods and volume limits.
Please consider finding a way to make this work!
Just an suggestion which maybe can help you. there are weight and volume bands. lets say from 0 to 50 grams is a band. You can estimate fairly precise between 0 and 40 grams and the 40 to 50 range you don't know for sure wether it will be this band or a band higher.
So maybe you can display to a customer ---> enough room to spare (till 40 grams). After this you say something like ---> you are still in band 0-50 gram but it might be in a band higher. (some kind of danger zone haha). So the customer can get closer to the band limit and customer is notified on forehand about the possible danger of higher shipping cost.
Not to be an pain in the *ss, just out of mutal interest, what is the problem with the volume bands ?
in word of stragus : Please consider finding a way to make this work!
peter
Richard.
Then we have volume considerations to add to this also. More volume will also lead to packaging being heavier.
I think the current system is about as good as it can be since each order will have unknown variables to some degree. The best we can do is to estimate the weight bands taking packaging weight into consideration.
If a buyer wants to maximise the order for a given weight band I think the only way is to communicate with the seller and the seller can pack it all and see what the final weight is and if there's room for a few grams more. Hoping the scale at the post office will show the exact same weight...