Getting Started with Trinity · Chapter 5 of 15
Shipping fees that do not kill the sale
Shipping is the second price on every order, and shoppers see it at the end, when they are deciding. Cart research has put unexpected shipping and fees at the top of the reasons people abandon a cart for years. Our own numbers agree.
What stores on Trinity charge
| Store | Mode | Firearm | Accessory | Ammunition | Result |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Our own store | Live carrier rates with floors | $18 long gun, $14.50 handgun | $9.85 | $14 plus $0.25 a box | 996 web orders in 90 days |
| Firearms only drop shipper | One flat rate per gun, stated in the gun.deals feed | $23.95 | none sold | none sold | 57 orders a day |
| Most dealers | Price based | $18 | $9.85 to $10 | $14 plus $0.25 a box | working |
| The new store, for a few days in its second week | $23.95 flat per item, any item | $23.95 | $23.95 | $23.95 | a $140 four item cart was quoted $95.80 shipping and abandoned; it now runs live carrier rates with a $23.95 firearm floor and $9.85 for accessories |
| Highest in the fleet | Live rates with high floors | about $30 | about $20 | about $21 plus $6 a box | 3 web orders in 90 days |
On the new store, $23.95 was a small share of a gun's price but 46 percent of the median accessory and 63 percent of the median box of ammunition. Guns survived it. Accessories and ammo did not.
What works
- A rate per kind of item. Trinity's price based mode charges one rate for a firearm, one for everything else, and an ammunition rate that grows per box, so the shopper pays for what actually ships.
- Powder and primers are hazmat ($38 flat) and stay off your store unless you switch HazMat Products on in Settings. Ammunition is not hazmat and should not be priced like it.
- Say it up front. The gun.deals feed carries your shipping cost, so the shopper sees the delivered price before the click. A surprise at checkout is a lost sale.
- Free shipping thresholds are optional. Our own store runs none. If you offer one, fold the cost into the price, not into a loss.
- Handguns ship cheaper than long guns. A separate handgun rate ($14.50 on our store) wins orders on the most shopped category.
- Pickup. If you have a shop, turn on pickup and say so on the product page. On one store, pickup was the best converting path and the product page never mentioned it.
The card fee
Trinity can add a 3 percent fee on credit cards (never debit, never on the tax). Our own store charges it. Two of our busiest dealers do not charge it, and one advertises "no card or add on fees" on every product page. Either way works; a fee that appears only at the last step does not. If you charge it, the product page and the cart show it before the card is entered.
- 1Rate mode: price based, flat per item, flat per class, or live carrier rates with floors
- 2Pickup in store, with or without a fee
- 3Price based: one firearm rate, one accessory rate, ammunition per box
- 4Extra charge when one order ships from more than one distributor