While the majority of customers select more economical, longer-delivery-time ground shipping options*, an even larger majority expect to have the option of expedited delivery when they check out—a critical customer experience insight for eCommerce sellers. To decide how many service levels to offer, you should balance what your specific customers want versus the complexity and cost of offering multiple options. Notice that the decision to offer multiple service levels is separate from how you should structure the associated fees and thresholds; those topics are covered in the next section, “Shipping Pricing Options”.
Delivery service level options typically include:
- Standard/default: the least expensive and slowest option, often defaulting to USPS or the slowest option on a private carrier
- Expedited: typically a trackable 2-3 day service like USPS Priority Mail or UPS Second Day Air, offered at an incremental shipping cost—or free as part of a subscription service (e.g., Amazon Prime) or as a promotional incentive
- Overnight: trackable next-day delivery with the highest incremental shipping charge
Source: UPS Pulse of the Online Shopper
Related Articles & Resources:
- eCommerce Shipping Capabilities
- Multiple Store Shipping
- International Shipping
- Shipping Pricing Options
- Customer Shipping Preferences
- Picking and Packing Orders
- Carrier Selection
- Fulfillment
- Shipping Returns
- Analytics & Reporting
- View USPS Expedited and Priority Mail Rates
- View ShippingEasy features
- View ShippingEasy features in list format
This article is from The Definitive Guide to eCommerce Shipping
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