Top Shipping Options for Your E-commerce Company on Magento and WooCommerce

You can have outstanding products at the best prices, but it's your shipping that eventually enables your customers to try what you offer.
Shipping directly influences sales on your site. Unsatisfactory delivery options are one of the top reasons why prospects do not proceed to checkout.

This implies that your customers pay only for your product, while you cover all delivery costs. Getting something with no additional fee definitely meets shoppers' expectations and, as a consequence, significantly boosts sales. However, more orders don't necessarily mean also more profit: you need to make sure they impact positively on your bottom line. There are many ways to make money by offering free shipping.

The second method is to offer flat rates for all products regardless of weight and dimensions. In this case, you define the shipping fee, which allows you to ship products with no risk of losing money. Flat rates have some perks: one can see the final shipping cost right away and save money when buying larger items.

Alternatively, offer discounts depending on the order value. Charge $5 to deliver the first item and $2.50 for every additional one. You can put all of them in the same package, which barely impacts your shipping expenses but motivates customers to increase their order value.

With Table Rates, your shipping fee is variable and determined by several factors, such as subtotal value, the number of items and their dimensions, and destination details: country, region, and postal code.
A common practice here is to reduce the rates as the order value increases with the goal of earning free shipping above a certain threshold.

Have a look at how to benefit from table rate shipping.

Live rates, also known as real-time rates, prevent you from overcharging some customers or losing money on others. Your customers see the rates pulled directly from the third-partу carriers, based on location and delivery preferences.

Often, people are not ready to pay extra or wait for the delivery and prefer to pick their order up themselves. Avoiding delivery fees were mentioned by 40% and 33% of shoppers, respectively, as reasons for using an in-store pickup option. Moreover, 75% of shoppers who have used in-store pickup say they're likely to make an extra purchase.

The smartest shipping strategy might be to combine more shipping options in Magento 2, Shopify or WooCommerce together. For example, offer free local shipping within 10 business days along with a flat rate for overnight delivery and real-time rates for international shipments.

1. Connect carriers you ship with to your Calcurates account
2. Create shipping options to display carrier services, real-time rates, and estimated delivery dates at the checkout.
3. Fine-tune conditions for your Free Shipping
4. Configure and apply your own algorithms for shipping rate calculations using Table Rates or Flat Rate in combination with Shipping Rules
5. Configure pickup points and set up your In-Store Pickup method (applicable only for Magento 2 e-commerce)
6. Target and restrict all your shipping methods and rates to specific Shipping Zones or customer groups
7. Configure estimated delivery dates for each of your shipping methods
8. Use Smart Packaging or Dimensional Shipping to get more accurate shipping rates from carriers and decrease your shipping costs.

For more detailed information follow our shipping options user guide.