Gas Prices and Online business

[sewsweet]

Just curious, does anyone else think that the high price of gas may actually drive more people to shop online? I have seen more traffic on my site lately. Maybe it is just the time of year or month but I was just curious what you all thought.

[beengel]

I am not sure it is hurting yet, but of course shipping costs are going up too.

Mothers day, wedding season and father's day sure helps.

My last website blog was about shipping costs, and shipping is a bargain given todays gas prices.

[candypam]

Here’s my wacky take on it all. (Have a seat ha ha)
We all work everyday, sometimes long hours, we pay our house payments, car payments, and other necessary monthly survival bills and now we even have to really budget money to fill something as simple as our gas tanks.
Simple tasks like filling our gas tanks has now turned into a pain in the butt, because
#1, the cost to fill it and #2, finding the time to go get it.

People are just plain tired. They work and work trying to stay ahead… and they want a reward.. That reward starts off by sitting back at their desk or in the luxury of their home and buying something online for themselves or a friend in a few minutes. The little pick me up no hassle, click here for the perk us up rewards and send a friend a easy Thank you or whatever.

Thanks to the gas prices, people are finding it more of a bargain shopping online, even with the shipping costs!
“Do I drive 10 miles to Macy’s after work to look for my new golf shirt, then maybe have to drive 4 more to Dicks to check out more, then maybe another 12 to head to my country club pro shop for new shoes or do I sit back, keep the car parked, turn on the computer and bam.. Buy it right then and there.
Costs the same, sometimes even cheaper! By the time I would have ran to all those stores finding what I wanted, I would have wasted 4 hours of my time, and $ 12 in gas. The time saved alone is worth it these days.

People are really thinking… People are busy working extra just to pay for their gas and everything else.
Their time is limited these days, so if it costs the same, or even just a little more, why not buy it online and save the gas and the TIME!

You free up more time for yourself, it’s delivered right to your door or theirs.
Can’t get any easier than that!
I think where we are “really” going to see this happening is this coming holiday season.
I think we can kiss good bye the under $3 gas prices.
Holiday bills make people even work more and have less time for anything.
Online sales I feel will sky rocket! We all just need to make sure we’re ready!
Hello Solid Cactus???
Ha ha sorry couldn’t resist ;o)
Thanks,
Pam

[killian]

That's an interesting thought. I agree that more people will probably move to shopping online because of not wanting to pay for gas. But, if people go online and find a poor website, it might scare them all the way back to their car.

A good website is critical, but so are shipping rates in helping to convert that customer. It's good for your business too.

When I was working with Neeps, we tried using a flat rate shipping table and lost a lot when we had a over-sized ferret cage that needed to ship.

Because the products at Neeps were so vastly different we ended up using Shipping Manager with our Yahoo! Store's. This allowed us to charge our customers retail UPS rates and specify which products were being shipped from a different zip (drop-shipper), items that qualified for a free shipping promotion and dimensions for those obscure cages. When we made that switch we noticed an immediate improvement that allowed us to have profitable shipping once again.

Some business models might be different from Neeps, but I would imagine that most businesses do not want to lose money on shipping, especially during this economy.

[candypam]

Kurt...
I think anyone who sells many different size products or heavy products online has got to be nuts not to have a shipping manager program. I know my shipping department was cheering (understatement) when I finally got it, and so was our bank account!

We were loosing money on various orders every week, all because of the 150lb limit with UPS, it would give the customer a zero balance because it tapped out, and in many cases we have some items that ship as a whole case, but UPS didn't know that, our store system didn't know that.. Now, I can tell the store system this ships alone. Now all my customers get to see their true shipping. Doesn't matter if they buy 2 items that weighed 10lbs or 10 items that weigh 200lbs. There is always a correct shipping total.
The time this has saved us and the customers it has saved us from loosing is priceless!.

Ok I'm going to rattle on here again... If I had a customer order a box of popcorn balls and then 2 boxes of gummi fish... before shipping manager, this would bill out as one box ship... wrong...!!!!!!!!!
We would have to eat the cost of shipping on the box of popcorn balls that ship alone. We ate it because we tried calling customers before to tell them this and they would flat out say " not my problem" and they would say cancel my order. Talk about loss of trust right off the bat!
So we just ate the other shipping costs. And then I have customers who order 10, 20 things weighing say 160lbs... when they went to check out, shipping field would be blank because of the UPS weight limit, so we would call them and say , sorry, your shipping really isn't free and I'm sorry you missed our alert about this, but it's $30.. and they would say forget it!
Now we have none of those headaches.. it's GREAT!
I wish we could use flat rate, but we would be getting killed right now with it, and I bet some are! I do not make high profit margins on my items to cover myself enough on flat rate. I just flat out tell them the truth. Shipping isn't free anywhere, it's included in the price. That's also why I love Comparision engines. My items are always 1 thru 3 because I don't mislead them and have the shipping built in. I also have a funny little notice about this on my website. People love our honesty about it and it has gained us a ton of trust, giving us many repeat customers.. cha ching $$

[killian]

I hear where you are coming from Pam. As smaller e-commerce businesses (when compared to the Amazon's of the e-comm world) you have to have competitive prices just to stay alive, which means you don't have the luxuries of losing a little on shipping because you have good margins. Most small businesses have very little margin to work with.

Glad to hear Shipping Manager is working out for you, and your staff!