Are you running a business that sells goods and shipped to customer’s place after purchase? Are you aware of shipping policy? In recent years, the e-commerce industry is become a highly competitive field. People generally choose not to become the repeat customer if they face poor experience with the company. The main reason for poor experience of the customer is inconsistent shipping of purchased goods or products. Having a consistent shipping policy according to the company rules and providing good shipping services help you to maintain a good relationship with the customers. Maintaining good relationships with the customers take your business to next level.
I can understand sometimes, you may not like to include shipping policy in your business for many reasons. But you need to optimize your shipping policy in order to serve the needs of your target demographic. Otherwise, your business traffic will slowly fall and migrate to your competitor’s websites.
Fortunately, we offer different kinds of layouts and templates for shipping policies. Relying on our pre-made shipping policy templates, you can save yourself from headache of creating professional shipping policies and especially while drafting a competitive shipping policy that’ll help you stay afloat in today’s market conditions.
Our shipping policy templates will get you started with a professional shipping policy document. Our templates are free to download and print. You are just a mouse click away to save our professional looking shipping policy templates to your desktop.
It is a good idea to look at the details to know everything about shipping policy before you land in a final strategy to set up your business. Here we go!
Contents
What is a Shipping Policy?
A shipping policy is a document which lets your customers know every important detail about how you ship your products (if your business sells goods and ship to the customers). The document provides all the vital and good-to-know information including shipping costs, shipping options, shipping restrictions, methods available for shipping, how long shipping will take etc.
A shipping policy is not a ‘Return or Refund Policy’ but it tells the information about refund and return of goods format. Customers expect a clear and concise shipping policies (from a company) providing all the required information about their purchased goods.
Essential Parts of a good Shipping Policy
Keep a note that your shipping policy is a great way to make your business shine and to make the magic works you need to make your shipping policy crystal clear. Consider the below mentioned important parts of a good shipping policy.
Shipping Methods
Shipping Timeline
Shipping Prices
Expected Timeframes
Shipping Restrictions
Contact Details for Missing or Lost Packages
Customs and Duties
Payment Methods
International Shipping, Customs and Duties
Locations Your Company Ships To
Restricted Item Clauses
Cancelling an Order Format
Benefits for Rewards or Loyalty Program Members
Where to display your Shipping Policy?
Display your shipping policy easily accessible to everyone to encourage transparency. You can include the shipping policy links directly to the pages of Privacy Policy, Refund Policy, Terms and Conditions. Also, you can include to your website footer, on your shopping cart or checkout page, in shipping confirmation Emails, and in any shipping offer banners or pop ups.
Why do you need a Shipping Policy?
You may not need a shipping policy legally but shipping policies are incredibly helpful for both to your business and customers. Here is what a shipping policy can do to your business.
A Shipping Policy Offers Transparency
A clear and concise shipping policy offers transparency to the customers because it encourages consistency information from your side.
Shipping Policies Mean Fewer Customer Service Issues
When customers have clear cut shipping information on their purchased goods, you will get fewer complaints and cut down customer service inquiries or refund requests. Also, receives less emails related to shipping questions, even if you get some you can direct them directly to your shipping policy.
Shipping Policies Encourage More Purchases and Loyal Customers
Shipping policies always encourage the customers to hit your stores repeatedly. Shipping policy has a great impact on customer loyalty. According to the research, 87% of customers build trust based on packaging and delivery time.
The three value drivers for getting your Shipping Policy strategy right:
- A great way to upsell in-store
- A great shortcut to creating trust and loyalty
- A real driver for return customers
Types of Shipping Methods
There are common three types of shipping methods you can offer. These are the different shipping service levels that one can use to fulfil the purchased orders shipping.
Free Shipping
Free Shipping is the king of all other shipping options. But the thing is free shipping is absolutely free for your customers not for you. So, while offering free shipping you need to make sure you doesn’t end up as crazy expensive shipping. Establish a baseline, set restrictions, create thresholds, and enact price increases are few tips to create a good shipping pricing strategy.
Choosing a Courier
Courier is a third-party in your business but using a third-party to handle your shipping in order to optimize your productivity and sales. Whatever the courier service you choose, make sure to have a solid SLA that makes it clear to standardize your processes.
Drop Shipping
The basic essence of drop shipping is: a store doesn’t keep its selling products in stock, instead the store purchase the product from third party and has it delivered directly to the customer. In this whole process, the merchant never sees or handles the selling products. The main disadvantage is if the merchant doesn’t find a right third-party or supplier, there is a huge impact on the business. Our suggestion is that do your own homework before you opt for drop shipping service. Do research and plan precisely.
Tips to structure an effective Shipping Policy
Sometimes, it just doesn’t make any financial sense. So here are six effective and useful tips to structure your shipping policy page for maximum conversions.
- Be clear about returns and refunds
- Be specific about shipment tracking
- Monitor your fleet for accurate delivery estimates
- Offer optional package insurance
- Provide standard and expedited shipping
- Pay close attention to your tone of voice
Your shipping policy has the potential to convince a customer to buy a product or goods of your company. In simple words, it gains customer with loyalty. So make sure to structure a shipping policy that can maximize the conversions and keeps buyers hit your stores again and again.
Final Words
Having an effective shipping policy is essential for any company selling goods. A clear and precise shipping policy linked to the multiple main pages of your company’s website helps your customers take confirmed decisions on buying products or goods of your company. If they get satisfy with your shipping services, they may visit your stores again and again. So, a good shipping policy gains happy customers.
