Is there a way to add the shipping estimates button to product pages? If not that is something that really needs to be incorporated it would improve conversion rates tremendously!

I only have some experience (no data per se) with a client, the shipping cost is a deal maker or breaker when it comes to certain parts of the catalog. These being items that require freight, palettes of products, 900 lb. machines, etc.

99% of the time, when an order of this size is placed, it is absolutely the result of a phone call. My client has told me over and over again that they are capable of finding a cheaper way to ship the items during a conversation since they can better determine location, distributing warehouse (if not shipping from theirs). Sometimes it's cheaper for the customer to drive 20 miles to the drop off center rather than shipping to their location because it will knock off the on/off transfer fee from Truck to van. This is all determined during the phone call. Additionally, he mentions that very little of the conversation is even about the cost of the item being purchased.

99.99% of the time, the orders will not come through if the estimate shipping feature is not capable of providing the best (and I mean best) possible shipping rate such as described above. The 0.01% will consist of Purchasing Officers looking to drain their budgets...LOL..

Now for standard retail items, sure, I see it being possible. But I can't even recall the last site I shopped on that allowed me to estimate shipping on the product page. That doesn't mean it doesn't exist. My shopping needs do not match the next person and so on and so forth.

Two thoughts:

1. The majority of shoppers may already be trained to add to cart, check shipping. Why go against the grain?

2. With google including shipping rates and tax totals on their listings, customers may now begin to expect this on our sites products pages. But take into account that that person may be signed into google, google knows their zip code. Google is so smart (and rich) that they can literally determine exactly where I'm sitting in my house as I search on their website. Hey... they just found Atlantis...lol

If a shopper could be on a BV product page and estimate shipping without having to take the step of adding their zip code, you got yourself an add-on customer. I say "without having to add their zip code" because that's an additional step, which is additional thing we need to explain how to use.

That site provides one of the items I mentioned for future consideration. The Restricted Shipping zones concept.


I clicked around a bit though and I'm only seeing the "Estimated Delivery Date" and not necessarily actual shipping rates as it looks like everything gets free shipping. Have you seen any sites that display the shipping rates?

aaahh... I missed it. I entered my zip code and didn't notice the page change as the window wasn't quite sized properly. Not bad.