Fast 'N Free Shipping With eBay
eBay held a Webinar a while back on their Fast 'N Free program. In case you didn't get to 'attend', I thought I would highlight what I learned for you. 1. Customers want their items FAST. Long delivery times make a customer back out of purchasing. 3 - 4 days is the ideal time for delivery. 2. If you have chosen one day delivery and offer free shipping, you already qualify! There is nothing to sign up for, the badge is already on those qualifying items. Let me tell you a little about how the program works. eBay sees the customer's zip code and how long an item will take to get from your zip code to them. If you have one day handling time and it can get to the customer in 3 days (which equals 4 days total), the badge shows up so the customer knows they will get it Fast N' Free providing you are offering free shipping. If it can't get there in the total of 4 days, the buyer will not see the badge on your listing. 3. For best results, specify which carrier you are using and which shipping service you are using. There is a generic category, but this program works better if you show that you are using USPS Priority Mail or UPS Ground. This allows the system to get a better idea of exactly how long it should take. 4. It's not an all or nothing program. You do not have to offer Fast 'N Free on all of your listings. You can offer it on one listing, 10 listings, 87 listings, or all. It is your choice. However, as the point was made in the meeting, if a buyer sees an item offered for $10 + $2 shipped and the same item offered for $12 with no shipping, most buyers will buy the item with no shipping. 5. Can you use First Class with this program you ask? Yep! I was so relieved to hear that answer. Many of my items are under 16 oz. (or 1 pound for you math geniuses) and I ship them First Class. Many items that ship First Class get to their destination in the 4 day (1 day of this is your handling time) time period. If and item can't get to the destination in 4 days, the buyer does not see the Fast 'N Free badge. Simple as that! If you want to play around with this, just go to the shipping and payments page and change your zip code to something across the country from you. Then go to your listings and see what your buyer in that zip code sees. Just don't forget to change it back when you get through experimenting. 6. Did you know you can choose same day shipping? I always use the one day shipping but I plan on implementing the same day option for items that I have plenty of stock on. Make sure your cut-off time is correct. If you go to the post office or your carrier picks up a certain time each day, an hour before that time would be your cut-off time for same day shipping. What your buyer sees is, if you order within the next hour, this item ships today! I'm pretty sure this option will boost some sales! 6a. eBay times are set in PST so since I live in Georgia, I am 3 hours ahead of the folks at eBay. My cut off time is 12 PM EST so to make this work for me, I have to choose 9 AM as my cut off time on eBay. This concerned me a bit until I thought it through. My original thoughts were, who on earth will be rushing to buy something at 9 AM in the morning? Then I decided I might not get more buyers from California after I start using same day shipping, but what about a buyer in New York? They might be looking at my items and realize it will ship that same day and hit that buy button. It's worth a shot. For more info, visit eBay Fast 'N Free.
