For Shopify stores, one of the most important topics is shipping. Shipping plays a big role in a customer’s shopping experience. It is also a major part of your operating costs. In this article, we will look at time-limited free shipping offers for Shopify stores.
According to research by the Baymard Institute, 49% of online shoppers leave the shopping page because of extra costs like shipping fees. That’s why free shipping is an important factor you can use to get more sales in your Shopify store. Offering free shipping with a sense of urgency can be a great tactic to boost your store’s conversion rates.
Setting Up Free Shipping Offers in Shopify
You can set up free shipping campaigns very easily on Shopify.
To do this, click on the “Discounts” menu from the left side. Then click the “Add discount” button. You will see four different discount code options. Among these, choose “Free Shipping”. After that, you will go to a detailed page to create your free shipping discount code.
On this page, you can set a minimum purchase amount for the free shipping code, choose which countries you want to ship to, and decide up to what shipping cost you want to offer free shipping.
Automatic vs Manual Free Shipping Discount Codes in Shopify
When creating a free shipping code, you can choose one of two types of discount codes.
With a manual code, your customers need to enter and apply the discount code at checkout to use the offer.
With an automatic discount code, Shopify will add the code automatically when the conditions are met. Your customers do not need to copy and paste a code.
If you plan a campaign that is always on, or if you are preparing for an important campaign period like Black Friday or Christmas, choosing an automatic discount code is important.
Combination Settings with Other Discounts
When you create this discount code, another thing to consider is whether the free shipping discount can be used with other discount codes at the same time.
As mentioned before, if you give your customers order or product discount codes and run campaigns with them, you need to set your free shipping code’s combination settings so that it can be used together with product and order discounts.
This way, your visitors can use both the free shipping code and the product or order discount codes you prepared.
Crafting the Time-Sensitive Campaign
Time-limited campaigns are one of the most important tools to encourage customers to take action. In research we did with 500 different US online shoppers at Growth Suite, we found that if a campaign does not have an end date, customers do not see it as a real campaign.
So, if you want to position your free shipping plan as a campaign, you must make it time-limited.
But how can you create time-limited free shipping campaigns? How will you decide on the time frame?
Defining the Time Frame
Within your general campaign calendar, you can set aside specific special days each month for free shipping codes.
1. 24-Hour Special Deals: If you are planning to get a lot of traffic, like during a special influencer campaign, you can prepare a 24-hour free shipping offer.
2. Weekend Promos: When you analyze your sales, weekends might show lower sales. For these days, you can offer a special weekend free shipping deal.
3. Flash Sales: For purposes like launching a new product or clearing out stock, you may want to run a flash sale. In that case, you can use a free shipping offer too.
Setting Eligibility Criteria
One important thing when preparing a free shipping campaign is deciding when the campaign will be active.
If you do not design your campaign carefully, it can hurt your profit margins and cause significant losses.
So, decide up to what amount of shipping cost the free shipping code will apply. For example, you might offer free shipping only on costs up to $20.
Another point is the minimum order amount. Consider the average cart value and clearly set when the free shipping code will be active.
Communicating Urgency & Scarcity
At this stage, you have decided when your campaign will start and end, up to what shipping cost it applies, and the minimum order amount for activation.
Next, you need to communicate your campaign clearly and effectively on your store. From the moment the campaign starts, prepare a popup that shows the campaign details in simple language, which is easy to read on mobile devices.
For users who close the popup immediately, add a countdown timer on your homepage, collection pages, etc., to show how much time is left in the campaign. Also, on product pages, include a box that shows when the campaign ends and the campaign details.
As always, use email and SMS marketing to remind customers, especially 24 hours and 4 hours before the campaign ends. Send a reminder about the campaign’s end to everyone on your email and SMS lists.
Marketing & Promotion Tactics
Like every campaign in your store, after designing and preparing a free shipping campaign, it is very important to communicate it. Now, let’s discuss how to do marketing and promotion tactics for your free shipping campaign.
Targeting Different Segments with Personalized Messages
First, divide your customer base into segments and personalize your messages.
Group customers who have never shopped, those who made their first purchase in the last 3 months, or those who have shopped more than 3 times. Customize and market your campaign for each group.
Especially in email campaigns, it is important to communicate before the campaign, during it, and near its end. For example, send an email one week and three days before the campaign starts, one when it begins, and if the campaign lasts several days, send another email 24 hours before it ends to maximize your success.
Social Media & Influencers
You can split your social media communication about the campaign into two main groups. First, content and posts from your store’s own account.
With posts from your store, you can reach your followers organically. If you don’t want to appear too focused on campaigns, sharing a post right when the campaign starts might be enough.
But if you position yourself as a brand that runs regular campaigns, then share content before the campaign starts, when it starts, and before it ends, according to your email strategy.
Even with a small budget, promote these posts on social media so that users visiting your store see them.
Also, if you have the budget and plan to work with influencers, try to schedule influencer posts to match the dates of your campaign. When influencers introduce your brand and products, and also mention that there is a time-limited campaign in your store, you can get the maximum return from these campaigns.
On-Site Messaging & Conversion Optimization
So far, we have talked about email & SMS marketing and social media work for the campaign. These channels are great for reaching your audience, but it is also important that users visiting your store know about the campaign.
For this, show a popup to visitors that explains the campaign details and when it will end, using very simple language. Make sure that the popup only appears once so that a user who has seen it does not get another popup.
In addition, show the time remaining until the campaign ends and the campaign details in a clear and simple way on both the store pages and product pages.
Measuring Success & Key Metrics
Campaign periods are very important for Shopify stores. If you prepare detailed reports for each campaign and track how it went, this will become an important resource to guide your marketing efforts.
To do this, here are some metrics you should pay attention to and report on after your free shipping campaigns:
• Purchase Conversion Rate: What was your purchase conversion rate during the campaign? Did it increase or decrease compared to before? By how much?
• Average Order Value: What was the average cart value of orders placed during the campaign? How did that change from before the campaign?
• Funnel Conversion Changes: How did the conversion from visiting a product page to adding to cart, from adding to cart to starting checkout, and from starting checkout to completing the purchase change?
By analyzing and tracking these metrics, you can see what the campaign brought to your store, where you need to make improvements, and what you should change in your next campaign.
Common Pitfalls & How to Avoid Them
Just like other types of campaigns, free shipping campaigns come with potential issues you need to avoid for your store and brand. In this section, I will discuss these points and how to protect yourself from them.
Brand Perception and Too Many Frequent Campaigns
When creating your campaign calendar, be careful not to run campaigns back-to-back too often. Having a campaign on all the time and constantly communicating about it through email and social media can lead visitors to think, “There’s always a discount here, so why should I shop now?”
With campaigns, our goal is to give a limited-time offer and encourage visitors to act quickly. If you use this all the time, the power of urgency in campaigns can be lost.
Underestimating Shipping Cost
Shipping cost is one of the most important expenses for Shopify stores. If you do not calculate carefully when designing free shipping campaigns, it can turn into a big loss and put your company in a difficult situation after the campaign.
To avoid this, analyze past transactions in detail and consider your average shipping costs, profit margins, and average cart values to decide which orders the campaign should apply to.
Also, to avoid unexpected surprises, always set a maximum shipping cost limit. This way, you cap your costs during the campaign period.
Unclear Offer Details
When designing your campaign, clearly specify on which products and collections the offer applies and to which countries shipping will be free. Clearly state these conditions in your store and in your communications.
If you operate in multiple countries, this point can greatly affect your store’s performance in the future. It may leave you facing too many customer questions and requests.
Conclusion
In this article, we talked about one of the most important tactics for Shopify stores: free shipping campaigns. Shipping cost is an issue that can even stop many customers from making a purchase. Therefore, if you are not offering free shipping in your store, you can create free shipping campaigns on certain days according to your marketing calendar.
Creating free shipping campaigns on Shopify is very simple and practical. The key is to decide the details of the campaign with data analysis so that you do not put your store in a difficult position after the campaign.
It is important to decide on which orders you will provide free shipping, up to what maximum shipping cost the campaign will apply, and when the campaign will start and end.
Use email & SMS marketing, social media, and influencer marketing to announce your campaign. During the campaign, make sure the campaign is clearly communicated on your website. Using a popup that does not annoy visitors and showing a countdown timer for the time remaining are good examples of best practices.
If you want to design and manage all these without writing a single line of code and easily through an interface, be sure to check out the Growth Suite app on the Shopify App Store. Growth Suite allows you to run free shipping, order, and product campaigns on your store, and create personalized discount campaigns that increase your conversion rates.
It does not require any code or theme changes. You just need to install the app and set it up. You can use artificial intelligence to help your store perform at its best.
Also, don’t forget to read the posts below for more effective campaigns on your Shopify store.
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