How to Offer Product-Based Free Shipping in PrestaShop

A lot of potential buyers seek out places to shop with free delivery. Also, high and unexpected shipping costs are a leading cause for abandoning carts. Moreover, storewide free shipping is not always lucrative, specifically for retailers of low-margin items, or physical products that are bulky to ship, or sellers with international customers.

The product-based free shipping is the ideal solution for that. Instead of offering free shipping fees on every purchase, they can provide free delivery for selected products. This allows merchants to have complete control over margins while getting the psychological impact of free shipping. 

Speaking of which, this interesting blog post looks into free shipping in depth and how it can transform your overall sales strategy. So without further ado, let’s get started. 

What Is Product-Based Free Shipping in PrestaShop?

Here, merchants prefer to offer PrestaShop free shipping for certain products, but not all of them. The same shall be calculated as follows: If a qualifying product is added to a shopping cart, shipping costs are automatically deducted/ reduced depending upon the criteria defined.

This is quite different from cart-based free shipping or global free shipping. Product-Based Free Shipping psychology (cluster 4) looks at individual items and lets you tie delivery incentives to particular commercial targets.

Popular use cases for this include offering free delivery on high-margin goods, launching time-limited promotions, clearing inventory stocks or even supporting seasonal campaigns. For instance, a shop could give free delivery on accessories but will apply regular shipping rates to heavier items.

Advantages of Providing Free Delivery on Certain Items

Among the first benefits is enhanced product visibility. When consumers see “Free Shipping” attached to a product, it automatically captures their attention and boosts click-through rates on category and search results pages.

Product-Unique Shipping

It offers increase conversions as well. In the absence of shipping costs, shoppers are far more likely to convert, particularly when you factor in impulse buys and less expensive products. This is a great way to sell parts, accessories and promotional items.

Strategic Marketing

It is another major factor that works positive. Free shipping can move slow-selling goods, bring back new product launches and bolster seasonal campaigns as it helps merchants. 

AOV Enhancements

With upsells and cross-sells, product-based free shipping can help increase AOV (Average Order Value). Free Shipping Target Heartbeat Customers who add a free-shipping product to their cart tend to buy other things alongside, leading to better average order value.

Improved Customer Experience

Precise, product-level delivery provides less confusion at checkout and more trust. The shoppers know exactly which items fall under this category and why, resulting in fewer abandoned carts and support requests.

How to Set Up Product Free Shipping in PrestaShop

Here’s how you can integrate free shipping in your PrestaShop store:

1. With Default PrestaShop Cart Rules

Merchants can create basic product-based free shipping promotions without having to use additional modules. First, go to Marketing → Cart Rules from your PrestaShop back office, and click Add New Cart Rule.

Begin by naming your PrestaShop cart rule for free shipping and specifying the activation date. In the Conditions tab, choose which items should be added to the cart for the rule to work. You can alternatively limit the rule by customer group, country or min quantity if you wish.

Then, move the the Actions tab, and select Free Shipping. After saving, PrestaShop will take care of itself to remove shipping taxes from the total when a product is being added to the cart, and the criteria are met.

Although solid for simple mechanisms, merchant cart rules are inflexible/not scalable; most businesses run multiple campaigns and focus on different product segments.

2. By Using The  Free Shipping & Delivery Manager Module

FME's Free Shipping & Delivery Manager Module is the best solution for anyone looking to make the cart rules look like they're native to PrestaShop!

Post-installation, sellers can set up rules to enable free shipping on certain products, categories or brands, from a central dashboard. No need to manually edit carriers (or cart rules) either, since the PrestaShop module for free delivery will automatically override price and force free shipping according to the rules you have.

Other features are setting a start and end date for the campaign, free shipping limitations on country or zone and targeting specific customer groups. This makes it perfect for seasonal offers, limited-time sales and loyalty programs.

The company also has the advantage of including messaging. Custom messages like “Free Shipping available on this Product” are visible to your customers either on the product, cart or checkout page. These messages add transparency and result in conversions.

Rules are fast and intuitive to manage for merchants, meaning fewer set-up errors and less time spent. It seamlessly slots into existing carriers and doesn’t require heavyweight PrestaShop delivery configuration logic.

How to Get the Most Out of Product-Based Free Shipping Campaigns

To get the most ROI, product-based free shipping should be used alongside other promotional activities. One successful approach is using free shipping to sweeten the deal of a discount or bundle offer. For instance, providing free shipping on a new product, alongside related products as bundles, helps to increase cart values.

Visibility Is Crucial

Advertise your free shipping offers with engaging banners, product badges or text to get customers clicking! Shoppers should immediately know which products are eligible. This enhances engagement and decreases ambivalence in choice-making.

Testing Is Another Key Practice

Play around with different products, categories, and intervals to see which pieces react better to zero-delivery times. Once you have results, you can optimize your Prestashop delivery configuration.

Never hide delivery costs at checkout. Surprise shipping cost can nullify the offer of your campaign. Clear communication increases trust and minimizes abandonment.

By turning to a PrestaShop module for free shipping, optimization becomes easy enough, thanks to fast editing options, adjustable campaign timing and performance evaluations that don't interfere with live processes.

Pitfalls And How To Avoid Them

A common mistake is not providing an end date for shipments that are free. The result of that will be unplanned increases in long-term costs. Always set start and end dates for promotions.

There are also problems with choosing the wrong zone or carrier. Customers can still see a shipping charge if Prestashop’s free shipping rules are unable to be applied based on delivery zones. Always check PrestaShop shipping rules regularly to prevent any conflict.

Merchants also fail to pilot rules on the front foot. Always test orders with different products, locations and customer accounts.

Last but not least, conflicting rules can occur due to overlapping conditions. Streamline PrestaShop conditional free shipping and do not combine a number of rules with similar conditions.

Monitoring The Free Shipping Strategies

Measureable value, Product-based free shipping, and Tracking let you know how well your product-based free shipping is working. Store merchants also have to take care of the KPIs, such as conversion rate, average cart value, and bounce rate.

PrestaShop's own stats are marginal, and you get richer behavior analytics via Google Analytics. Monitor how frequently free shipping items are added to the cart, and their effect on checkout.

Also, A/B testing is highly recommended. See how well products do with or without free shipping to determine their actual impact.

Conclusion

Product-based free shipping is great, and it helps to ensure control over shipping prices from your end. Merchants can use product targeting to align delivery incentives with their profitability and marketing objectives.

PrestaShop’s in-built features do offer basic configurations, but more complex promotions can be much easier to handle using the Free Shipping & Delivery Manager Module. From automated to tailor-made messaging, it makes everything easy.

If you need more advanced strategies, like country-based, cart-based or even seasonal free shipping, go back to the Complete Guide To PrestaShop Free Shipping & Delivery Module guide to create a delivery strategy focused exclusively on what makes your business grow.