Outpost.com, the online retailer of electronics, today implemented a ground rate for shipping that starts at $3.20, Daryl Peck, president and CEO, tells Internet Retailer. The new rate comes a day after the retailer reduced next-day rates from $12.95 to a base of $5.95 and second-day from $8.95 to a base of $3.95. The new rates are based on the weight of the product. The previous rates were flat rates. “The problem with the old rates was that they were a very high entry level price for shipping and we were still losing money on shipping,” Peck says. “Now customers get a deal on shipping and we’re no longer losing money.”
Outpost had offered free shipping until Feb. 1 when it required a $100 order for free shipping. At the end of March, it instituted free shipping over $500 and the $12.95 and $8.95 rates. At that time, the average ticket went up. “But it went up too high,” Peck says. “People who would have bought smaller items from us like software went somewhere else because the shipping cost was too high.”
Peck says the new rates are now simply pass-throughs to the customer. “We are not out to make a killing on shipping,” he says.
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