What is a free shipping threshold?

How the threshold works

Customers below the threshold pay the delivery charge; customers above it pay nothing extra. The shop absorbs the cost of shipping on larger orders, which it can afford because those orders carry more margin. The threshold works best when the customer can see how close they are, such as a cart line saying spend $13 more for free delivery, and when there are sensible small items to add, such as a lip balm or a travel size.

How to set it

Start from your average order value and your real cost to ship and pack an order. A common approach is to set the threshold somewhat above the current average, so a meaningful share of customers can reach it with one more item. Then check the margin on an order at the threshold still covers shipping, as the last row of the table does. Re-check after a few months: if almost every order now lands just over the line, the threshold is doing its job.

Why shoppers care so much

Baymard Institute's checkout research, drawn from surveys of online shoppers, lists extra costs such as shipping, tax and fees as the most common reason people abandon a purchase they were ready to make, ahead of slow delivery and having to create an account. A charge that appears only at the last step feels like a surprise. Showing the delivery rule early, on product pages and in the cart, reduces that shock even for customers below the threshold.

Common mistakes

Setting the threshold far above typical orders, so almost nobody reaches it. Setting it below the average order, which gives away shipping on orders that would have happened anyway. Forgetting regional delivery costs, so free shipping to remote areas loses money. Hiding the threshold until checkout. And not saying clearly whether it is measured before or after discount codes, which causes disputes when a code drops an order below the line.

Where it shows up in the product

OneCraft has no shipping settings screen; when a site needs delivery, the agent builds it from the delivery guide into the site's own database. Delivery zones hold postcodes, a fee, a minimum order and a free over amount, the order function applies the zone's fee or zero above the free over amount, and the checkout can preview the delivery fee for a postcode before payment. Payments run through Stripe Checkout as a direct charge on the owner's connected Stripe account, with prices read from the site's database rather than the browser, on paid plans only; the platform fee is 2 percent on Starter, 1 percent on Pro and 0.5 percent on Pro+, with Stripe's own fees on top.

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