How We Decide When To Give Free Shipping

Do you ever wonder how companies decide how much you need to spend to get free shipping?

Well, I can’t speak for all businesses, but I can tell you how I do it!

First thing to know is that shipping is never really free - it just means the business is paying for it, so the first thing I look at is what it costs me to ship an average size order. And in my case, it’s about $9 to send an order from where we are in Canada to a customer in the US.

Then I have to figure out how much a customer has to spend for it to make financial sense for me to absorb $9 in shipping costs. I also have to factor in that they might not be buying at full price either - they could be using a coupon code or buy during a sale, so the number I come up with needs to work in those scenarios too. Otherwise, the cost can balloon out of control really quickly. Haha - ask me how I know that one! 

So at the moment, I’ve settled on $50 for free shipping. At the end of the day though, I can do my best, but the customer gets to decide if that’s worth it for them. I just have to make sure I don’t stretch further than I realistically can.