Free shipping is a potent strategy to meet buyer expectations and boost sales. As an Etsy seller, you can leverage several flexible options to offer free shipping to buyers in your locality and globally. We’ll explore these options, including free shipping guarantees, smart pricing tools, and shipping profiles. Our comprehensive guide on crafting free shipping strategies in our Seller Handbook provides further insights.
%20(Backup)%20(37)%20(1).png)
Crafting Your Free Shipping Strategy
The most straightforward method of offering free shipping involves incorporating your shipping costs into your item list price. You have the freedom to offer this no-cost shipping exclusively to domestic buyers or extend it globally based on what best suits your shop’s needs.
- If you often cater to US customers and want them to automatically benefit from free shipping, consider embedding the delivery fee in your item’s price.
- If you prefer more control over deciding your shipping charges independently, setting up shipping profiles would provide you with that flexibility.
Impact of Offering Free Shipping on Sellers
Even though buyers enjoy no-cost delivery when you offer free shipping, as a seller, you still need to cover carrier charges for delivering your orders. By rolling in these expenses into your product prices upfront, customers know exactly how much they will pay for their orders, preserving your shipping costs.
Domestic Orders:
Consider selling an item for $35 and charge a flat $5 shipping fee. If you adjust the item price to $40, you recover your delivery cost without imposing a separate shipping charge.
International Orders:
You can modify your international shipping fees to reflect any delivery charges included in your product prices. By reducing your charges for international delivery, global customers will not pay more than they did before any adjustment in the pricing meant to recoup shipping fees.
For instance, if you sell an item priced at $35 with domestic and international flat-rate shipping fees of $5 and $10 respectively. You can tweak the item’s price to $40 to recuperate the delivery costs, thereby eliminating domestic shipping fees and reducing the international rate to just $5.
To revise your international delivery rates:
- Navigate to Settings under Shop Manager.
- Opt for Shipping settings.
- Click on Edit adjacent to a Shipping Profile.
- Note down what you’re charging for domestic deliveries.
- Deduct this from your current international delivery fee.
- Settle on a new price and select Save profile.
Sellers situated outside of the US and India have the option to set different listing prices for local orders versus those placed internationally. This allows sellers more flexibility in pricing their items taking into account varying shipment costs across regions.
%20(Backup)%20(7)%20(1).png)
Establishing a Free Shipping Guarantee
A free shipping guarantee automatically affords US buyers free shipping when they purchase from your shop:
- Single items are priced at $35 USD or over.
- Orders whose total value is $35 USD or more.
Once activated, this guarantee also applies to any new listings you create with a price tag exceeding $35 USD, irrespective of your shop’s currency. Your established shipping prices for non-US buyers in your shipping profiles will remain unaffected. Both domestic and international sellers can benefit from the free shipping guarantee when they ship orders to US customers.
Keep in mind that if a buyer opts for upgraded shipping, they will bear these additional costs even if their order qualifies for free delivery.
To activate the Free Shipping Guarantee in your store:
- Visit Etsy.com and click on the Shop Manager icon.
- Select Settings.
- Choose Shipping settings.
- Click on Get Started under the Free Shipping Guarantee tab.
- Click Next.
- Finally, select Set free shipping.
You can deactivate the Free Shipping Guarantee anytime using the same tab. Once you’ve enabled a free shipping guarantee, you can utilize Etsy’s Smart Pricing Tool to adjust listing prices en masse for products valued at $35+. Do note that turning off your Free Shipping Guarantee won’t reverse any changes made via this tool.
Shipping profiles are another effective way to recoup your shipping costs and incorporate the shipping fee for non-US customers or if you wish to offer no-cost shipping for all orders from your shop.
%20(Backup)%20(1).png)
Utilizing the Smart Pricing Tool alongside a Free Shipping Guarantee
Etsy’s smart pricing tool is a handy feature that allows you to modify item prices in bulk to recover the cost of offering free shipping.
You can leverage this tool if:
- Your shop operates from within the US.
- You do not already provide free shipping on your items priced $35 or over.
- You have activated a free shipping guarantee for your shop.
How to Adjust Item Prices Using the Smart Pricing Tool
- Activate a free shipping guarantee for your shop.
- Click Edit item prices.
- Decide if you want to revise your item prices (valued at $35 and above) to recoup delivery costs. The options shown will be dependent on whether you offer fixed shipping rates or use calculated shipping.
- Select Next.
- Choose if you want to modify your item prices (for items under $35) to recover delivery costs on orders. You can select the amount calculated by Etsy’s data analysts for long-term recovery of shipping expenses, decide on another amount, or maintain current pricing.
- Click on Review & edit.
- Under each item image, you can see the new listing price you have chosen. You can also view the previous listing price and shipping rate.
- If you want to modify individual item prices, click on the price under that item and enter your desired new price.
- To adjust multiple item prices at once, select Edit item prices to revise your items’ new listing prices.
- Select the items you wish to modify.
- Choose any of these options:
- Decrease the amount by: Lower the new list price for selected items by this figure.
- Increase the amount by: Raise the new list price for selected items by this figure.
- Set amount: Determine a fixed new list price for selected items.
12. Input the figure in the text box and select Apply.
13. Once satisfied with your revised pricing, click on Publish followed by another click on Publish after a short while (allow some time for your updated pricing to reflect in your shop).
The updated pricing will apply only to those shop items that you’ve reviewed and approved individually, and all products priced $35 USD or more will feature a visible “FREE shipping” badge for US buyers. These revised rates will be uniform for all Etsy shoppers, including those outside of the US.
%20(Backup)%20(3)%20(1).png)
For sellers who use fixed shipping rates
You can either:
- Opt to “Build in shipping prices to recover delivery costs,” increasing product pricing to incorporate each listing’s specified delivery fee—assisting you in recuperating shipment costs related to free delivery offers,
- Or choose “Keep your current prices” maintaining existing product rates.
Then select “Review & edit” allowing you an opportunity to review and alter how much adjustment is applied to item pricing aimed at recouping shipment expenses.
For US and Canadian sellers using calculated shipping
Sellers utilizing calculated shipment charges can choose from the below options to recover delivery expenses:
- Closest buyer: Increase product pricing by the amount it costs to deliver to buyers within your postal code.
- Average buyer distance: Raise product rates by the amount it costs to ship an average distance based on your US orders in the last year. If you lack enough orders for this calculation, Etsy uses a median distance for similar items.
- Farthest buyer: Heighten item prices by what it costs to send parcels to the farthest customers.
- Keep your current prices: Retain existing product prices.
Then click “Review & edit” providing you another chance to revise your item pricing as needed.
Understanding Built-in Shipping Price Calculation
The calculation for the built-in shipping price adjustment increases your item’s cost by the average amount US buyers would pay at checkout on Etsy. This includes any handling fees you charge, which are rounded up to the nearest dollar. Remember, you’ll still need to cover the cost of shipping orders.
How Does This Tool Modify My Shipping Profiles?
Your shipping profiles’ prices will be updated to reflect any price adjustments made to your items. As a result, most buyers will pay approximately the same total price they did before these changes.
Adjustments in Shipping Prices
US Shipping Prices:
Standard US shipping prices will be reduced to $0.00 for any profile with items whose prices have been adjusted.
Shipping Prices Outside the US:
If you opt to incorporate shipping costs into your items using fixed-price shipping, your delivery charges for other countries will decrease by an identical amount as your standard US delivery fee.
Profiles with Items Over and Under $35 USD: If you had a shipping profile that included both items priced above and below $35 USD, all items valued at $35 USD and over are moved into a new shipping profile named after the original profile but suffixed with (Reduced shipping).
Shipping Profiles with Variations: The pricing of your variations alters in line with changes applied to your base listing price. For instance: If you increase a silver ring’s price by $5 and have a gold variation of that ring, then that gold variant’s cost also goes up by $5.
Leveraging Shipping Profiles to Offer Free Shipping
Upon setting up a free shipping guarantee for your shop, all orders of $35 or more being shipped to the US will offer free delivery to the buyer. If you wish to extend free shipping offers to buyers outside of the US, or if you intend to provide free shipping for every order from your shop, you can utilize free shipping profiles. Learn more about how shipping profiles work.
Creating or Editing a Free Shipping Profile
- Navigate to Shop Manager, followed by Settings.
- Proceed with Shipping settings.
- Select Edit next to a shipping profile that you wish to convert into a free-shipping one, or choose Add profile. If adding a new profile, fill in the required information.
- To add free delivery for specific regions, ensure that you select “ I’ll enter fixed prices manually under Shipping prices and use the Add location dropdown under Fixed shipping prices.
- From the dropdown list of What you’ll charge, select Free shipping.
- Finally, click on Save profile.
Updating Shipping Profiles on Your Listings
- Visit the Shop Manager, then proceed with Listings.
- If you want to alter all your listings, select the checkbox at the top left. For modifying specific listings, choose checkboxes under those respective listings.
- Click on Editing options.
- Opt for Change shipping profile.
- Choose your free shipping profile.
- Lastly, click on Apply.
Conclusion:
In conclusion, offering free shipping on Etsy can be a strategic move to attract more customers and boost sales. By understanding and effectively using various features such as Free Shipping Guarantees, Smart Pricing Tools, and Shipping Profiles, sellers can seamlessly incorporate delivery costs into their pricing strategy without hurting their profit margins. With careful planning and implementation, free shipping can indeed become a powerful tool for success in your Etsy store.