Customers shift focus to shipping costs
In 2013, shoppers in the United States spent approximately $240 billion in online purchases, according to Invesp, a website conversion company. Abroad, shoppers spent closer to $1 trillion. Over at least the next two years, Invesp expects those numbers to continue trending upwards, with 2015's international online shopping purchases estimated at approximately $1.4 trillion.
The popularity of online shopping has been growing exponentially over the last few years. Since 2009, online shopping has increased in the U.S. by more than $100 billion. But that's not entirely surprising. What is, are the number of customers who have become concerned with shipping costs.
According to a recent infographic generated by Pitney Bowes, a marketing solutions firm, nearly three-fourths of Americans made purchases in 2012 that required some form of shipping. Likely a result of the online shopping bump, increases in shipped items have led customers to more closely evaluate shipping costs. For example, Pitney Bowes found the average online customer's shipping price threshold is $20. Anything more and they become far more likely to abandon the purchase. In fact, in 2012, 49 percent of American shoppers gave up an online purchase as a direct result of exorbitant shipping costs.
Customers are influenced by a number of factors, but according to Bigcommerce, a firm specializing in ecommerce, shipping costs are currently the second most important consideration when making a purchase - second only to product quality. There are a number of ways a business can lose money with mismanaged postal operations - packages can be improperly sorted, addresses can be wrong, reports can be filled out incorrectly. With mailing software, companies can effectively streamline postal operations by automating several steps in the sometimes complicated process.