Marketing tactics are a dime a dozen, some are effective and some do more damage than good. When you are in the start-up or redesign phase, working with a website design company, it’s a great time to review your policies regarding shipping to see if you can transform those policies into sound marketing devices. A professional website design firm should be able to help you to develop sound policies regarding shipping and to ensure that your website development makes the best use of whichever tactic you choose to exploit.

Consumer psychology is a huge factor that should be considered in your policy and website development. Even with the most professional website design on earth, if your pricing or shipping policies aren’t inline with what consumers expect your conversion rates severely suffer. Many folks may even leave your site in the middle of placing an order when they see what your shipping rates are.

There are three basic tactics relating to pricing/shipping and consumer psychology. First, a company may choose to use low prices and high shipping charges. This will attract customers who are searching for the lowest price, but if they are on their toes, the high shipping charges will send them packing. It is a strategy that often works, especially with first time customers, but sometimes it hampers the company’s possibility to get repeat customers and really, repeat business is a lot easier to get than new customers.

On the other hand, some folks just go in search of free shipping and are a little less concerned about the base price of the product, figuring that it all comes out in the wash so to speak. You’ve got to understand though, that customers evaluate your offering first on price, and then they check out the shipping. Their perceived value is what is important. If you offer free shipping and your prices are somewhat comparable to your competitors, you can come out ahead using this tactic. You can also offer a “rush order” upgrade, not meaning that the shipping method will be faster, but that the package will receive priority handling, getting it processes and in the mail quicker than usually. Same-day order processing is a concept that many customers value.

Because consumers just naturally love “free” stuff. Free shipping can be used as an incentive to increase the amount of a purchase. This is one tactic that can really boost your revenues and give you a marketing advantage. Rather than offering free shipping on everything, for instance, you would offer free shipping only on orders that exceed a certain dollar amount. If a customer is making an $80 purchase and they saw something on your website that they really wanted, but didn’t want to spend the additional $20 for it at the moment, they are likely to go ahead and purchase the second item as well if you offer free shipping on purchases over $100. The way they see it, if they would be paying a $10 shipping fee, they are really getting the second item for half-price.

Whichever tactic you choose in regard to your shipping policies, make sure that your website design company understands it when they are developing your website and that their services aren’t limited in regard to their ability to set thresholds and implement the strategy you choose. Sometimes this requires a little programming expertise that not all website development companies have.