Like my grandmother used to say “It does not matter how much you make, it is how much you keep that is important”. This is true for any company. So you have an eCommerce website on which you sell products which are shipped directly to your customers’ home or business. You have added Free Shipping recently because you heard it was the fastest growing trend aka “what people want and expect online”. In order to afford this free shipping, you made it so that it is good for purchases over a certain dollar amount. That’s all great and worked well but now you hear about Amazon’s 1-hour shipping from the time of ordering. What should you as a smaller retailer do to compete online?

First and foremost you heard correctly; Amazon is now offering not just overnight shipping but same day shipping to certain locations. Our office is located in the San Francisco Bay Area and yes, if we wanted, we could order coffee for the office and have it deliver to us today. This is called Prime Now. For the 1 hour-delivery shipping option, it costs less than $8 and available if you order between 8AM and Midnight. If you select 2-hour, guess what? It is free. Incredible does not quite start to describe it.

Again this is only available in certain areas in California through six strategically-located Prime Now locations to enable this  fast delivery.

What should you do?

1. Breath. You do not have to beat Amazon to remain competitive online and be profitable. Some buyers still prefer buying from websites of local stores instead of megabucks companies. This being said make sure you bring some local charm and “approachability” to your website. Do not make your site look like any other sites out there.
2. Make sure that you are able to offer overnight delivery of course charging accordingly the buyer.
3. If you can, reconsider doing Free Shipping for standard shipping on everything you sell regardless of the $ amount at the time of checkout. Work the numbers, see at what price point and what quantity sold, you can make a profit. Then see if Free Shipping all the time is a viable option for your online store.
4. Perhaps consider a membership based program for which people sign up (perhaps for a fee) in order to get free shipping. This buys their loyalty as the consumers will be more likely to return to your site to make their membership work for them as a return on investment.
5. Same day delivery would require a defined area within your store location or warehouse. If you have a driver available, then yes you may offer that service at a fee. This works well for office suppliers who have drivers making delivery every day in their area.
6. Wait and see. Nobody is certain if Prime Now is a viable business option and only time will tell if Amazon will keep growing this part of their business and abandon it altogether.

So again “breath”, relax, focus on what your business can do while remaining profitable. Do seriously consider free shipping as it has become a huge online marketing tool. If you want to better assess your unique situation call our office at (707) 794-9999 PST. We can help.