How to avoid the free shipping pitfall? Changing consumer attitudes from the perspective of information interaction

Abstract

Abstract Free shipping is a popular method to attract consumers. As the e-commerce market grows, however, it erodes the profits of online providers and consequently causes unsatisfactory logistics service quality. To tackle the free shipping pitfall, separating the shipping fee from product price is worth noticing, which is especially encouraged by the world’s largest e-commerce market – China’s government. Since online consumers have been used to free shipping, the shipping fee could cause cart abandonment. To encourage a positive response, we propose a united persuasion model to analyze consumer attitudes toward a separate shipping fee. Several signals and personal factors are assumed to determine consumer attitude change through the perceived monetary value of logistics service. Result reveals that pursuit of high quality negatively affects perceived monetary value. Also, differences exist between consumers who consider the cost for products and that for logistics service fungible and those who do not, suggesting boundaries among budgets for logistics service can be leveraged. Our study conduces to the improvement of e-commerce logistics service and provides direction for information interaction-related studies.