The cost of shipping and fulfilling orders will have a big impact on the margin you are going to make on your product.
Typcially items under 1kg are alot cheaper to fulfill than items over 1kg.
Items over 1kg may need to be stored nearer to the target customer so as to keep costs lower.
You can opt to
- handle all the packaging and shipping yourself. Typically a MVP startup would do this. Not to be recommended for large volumes.
- outsource the shipping and fulfilment to a third party shipping specialist. There are many of these companies available. They will ware house the product and drop ship to your customer using your labelling and packaging. Some may also handle returns from customers. This is ideal for large volume shippers where the logistics the company has made a decision not to do logistics from the start. Most logistics companies will store for free but will charge per stock movement and then also charge for freight.
Shipping rates vary all the time, so set yourself a task to review your shipping rates every 3 months.
On your checkout you can offer express or standard shipping to customers. This means that late shoppers can pay extra to get the express shipment.
Offering free shipping should be also considered as it is recognised as one of the single most effective ways of bringing the sale over the line.
An option is to offer free shipping for baskets over a certain amount. If the customers basket is not up to the threshold for free shipping you can offer them extra small products and extras that will bring the basket to the free shipping total. It is a win for you and the customer.
When it comes to shipping a good rule of thumb is to under promise and over deliver. This way the customer gets a pleasant surprise when their parcel arrives early.