As an online shopper, you know the story. You make a purchase, it arrives and just isn’t what you thought it would be. You wonder if you should return it and get so confused by who pays what, that half the time you end up keeping it to save yourself the trouble. If you even make the purchase in the first place. Shipping and return policies have been known to be eCommerce deal-breakers, after all.
According to a recent study, high return shipping costs are discouraging more than half of online shoppers globally from making repeat purchases.Then there’s the other side of the coin, you as an eCommerce retailer. You’ve done all that you can to offer the best shipping options to your customers, but what about returns? Who pays? You don’t want to have to place all the burden upon your customer, but maybe you also can’t afford to cover the cost of returns, especially during the busiest time of the year, the holidays.
Well, everyone gets a little help with return shipping this season thanks to PayPal.
Starting October 12, 2015 and running until January 31, 2016, PayPal Return Shipping on Us is available to customers in the United States. With this program, they will be covering the cost on return of eligible purchases (up to four) when customers have used PayPal as their payment method. (Terms and conditions apply.)
This is great news to shoppers, but also to retailers as it is such a value-added service. It can encourage more buyers who may otherwise be wary of making a purchase due to possibly having to return an item.
“Return Shipping on Us can save consumers money, and give them more confidence when they shop knowing they will not incur return shipping costs if their purchase was not quite right,” said Jo Lambert, VP of consumer product & engineering, at PayPal. “Options like refunds on return shipping costs, formerly considered a perk or promotional tool offered by retailers, are now integral to getting a consumer to click that buy button online.”
“By providing this option, we are also supporting our merchants who are not already providing this type of service a potential lucrative revenue driver that can help grow their customer base to shoppers that may not have purchased from them previously, out of concern over shipping costs,” Lambert continued.
To sign up as a retailer, you don’t have to do a thing except encourage your customers to sign up. Send them an email, create a pop-up on your homepage, put a note in the shopping cart and definitely make use of PayPal’s buttons and badges to let everybody know. All your customers have to do is activate the Return Shipping on Us service at www.paypal.com/returns in their PayPal account.
You’ve done everything by the book. Your Kickstarter campaign is almost ready to launch.
You made a great product. Built an audience. Set up a campaign page.
But how do you ship it?
We put this checklist together to help you get started. It's free.
