It's simple: no one wants to spend much time browsing products and then understand that delivery is too expensive or slow only at the last step. And because of this, many of them can abandon the purchase.
That is why it is essential to show delivery information (especially if you have it free and relatively fast) as early as possible. Clarity is crucial!
Guidelines for displaying shipping information:
- Add geo-targeting notification (and mention a country/city of a shopper) that will show that you are delivering to the shopper's location based on his IP (i.e. "Free Shipping within 2 days to Miami" or "Free Shipping to the USA within 5 days")
- Add shipping costs (if you have paid shipping, show the cheapest option). That recommendation is great for stores with free shipping. But if you have very expensive shipping, that can have a more negative impact at this funnel stage. So be careful with it;
- Add delivery time (show that information if you have fast shipping. If deliver time takes more than 2-3 weeks, then it's better to show that information only on the shipping method step)
- Don't add shipping information only in the header because most users will miss it (unless it's sticky to the header and always visible). Place an additional section about delivery somewhere near the CTA button (above or below it).
Now let's look at some bad and good examples.
A bad example from Ellejamilla:
They don't have any prominent sections with delivery information. No messages at the top of the page, no dedicated sections near the ATC button. The only info about delivery is placed in the collapsed tab below the ATC section, but most users will never click there.
A not very good implementation from Aloyoga:
They have a free shipping section right below the button, but it's not clear whether they deliver to my country and how fast it is. That is, the user has questions and every question that he can't find an answer to is a potential reason to leave your site. Moreover, if you click on "Read more" text, it will send you to another page in the same tab, which is a very poor user experience, because users will need to go back and forth between pages.
A good example from Amazon:
Amazon shows 2 notifications about delivery to New York (below the search bar and the ATC button), also it shows that if I order within 6 hours, it will be delivered to me today. Playing with urgency elements.
A good example from Gymshark
They have a dedicated section about shipping with information about standard and express delivery and also additional info about the time of delivery in the collapsed tab "Delivery & Returns".
A good example from Fashionnova:
They have 2 sections about delivery: static message below the header about free shipping on orders over $75 for US and Canada Shoppers and additional info about estimated time of delivery and "ships within hours" text right below the ATC button
A good example from a Shopify store:
There are 2 geo-targeted notifications: the sticky bar at the top and the shipping section below the Paypal button. As a result, it's absolutely clear for potential customers from the UK that they get free shipping on orders over $50.
If you are still unsure about this guideline, you can check Baymard's article, where they go deep about it. And here's another good read where they explain why placing just a free shipping banner in the header is not very effective.
Variation 1 (it's the testing variation) contains the shipping section below the ATC button, while Variation 2 (it's the control version) doesn't have it.
We conducted this A/B test because the most frequently asked question from our users was about delivery (we figured it out via user feedback tools like Hotjar polls and surveys).
Results:
- Ecommerce Conversion Rate by Users increased by 27.72% from 2.39% to 3.05% with 99% statistical significance.
- Revenue per User increased by 27.5%
- Average Order Value increased by 2.02% from $37.52 to $38.28
*Ecommerce Conversion Rate by Users and Revenue per User were calculated based on Custom reports in Google Analytics, so the numbers from the screenshot are not the most accurate. The screenshot is shown so you can see the graphs.
