If you think free shipping is just a marketing fad that doesn’t really drive sales, think again.
Research shows that for nine out of 10 shoppers, free shipping is the top incentive for them to shop online. Promising zero shipping costs is also known to drive average order values (AOV) up by as much as 30% 😯
With those results up for grabs, you might be wondering how you can best promote your free shipping offer to people visiting your ecommerce website.
The perfect candidate? A free shipping sticky bar.
So, let’s take a look at six creative free shipping bar examples to help get the word out about your offer—and increase your store's conversion rate and AOV. Plus, we've got plenty of customizable templates you can use to build your own today.
What is a free shipping bar?
A free shipping bar is a sticky bar that promotes your free delivery offers. It can be at the top or bottom of the screen, but the idea is that the bar “sticks” to the page as a visitor scrolls through your website.
There are a variety of options to choose from when creating your own free shipping bar.
For example, you could promote:
- A discount code to get shipping for free
- A timed flash sale for free shipping if they order within a certain time frame
- A free shipping deal on orders over a certain amount
It's completely up to you how you frame your free shipping offer. In fact, it might even be worth A/B testing to see what works best for your visitors.
Either way, just remember: clarity is king. Make the offer simple and easy to grasp quickly—people shouldn't need a math degree to figure out your shipping costs.
Now we know what a free shipping bar is, let’s draw some inspiration from six real-life examples.
1. Sunday Somewhere free shipping bar
Did you know that almost half of shopping cart abandonments happen because extra costs are too high? If a customer adds an item to their cart, heads to the checkout page and is greeted with extra shipping, tax, and import fees, you risk losing them altogether.
Sunday Somewhere uses its free shipping bar to combat this problem:
They make it obvious that free shipping is available on all global orders, causing international shoppers to feel confident that no extra fees will be tacked onto their order at the checkout page.
2. Petco free shipping threshold bar
Your free shipping bar is also an excellent way to increase your ecommerce site’s average order value—especially if orders only qualify if people spend a certain amount.
This example from Petco shows that in action:
Instead of absorbing free shipping costs on low-value orders, they limit their offer to shoppers who spend over $35.
Not only that, but PetCo also uses urgency in their shipping bar.
It’s not uncommon for people to shop around when they’re online shopping. In a bid to stop people from doing that (and either buying from a competitor or just forgetting to do it later), they only offer free same-day delivery if people order before 2pm.
Note: This deadline is likely due to Petco needing some amount of lead time in which to be able to deliver orders the same day. But, this only adds to the urgency factor, as it becomes more genuine and believable.
3. Tsuno product highlight free shipping bar
Do you have certain products you want to highlight in your ecommerce store? Granted, the header of your home page is a great way to do that.
The only problem: not everyone visiting your store arrives on the home page.
So, your free shipping bar is a superb way to also promote your best-selling products.
This one from Tsuno, for example, explains that all subscription box orders (and those over $49) get free shipping:
It incentives people to look at their subscription box even if they land on a product/category page and don’t see the home page header.
4. Gerry’s animated free shipping bar
Speaking of subscriptions, Gerry’s uses a free shipping bar to also promote its subscription model.
The sticky bar entices people to "Join the Social Club for exclusive access to Discounts & Rewards" (one of which is free shipping).
However:
Unlike the other examples we’ve shared so far, Gerry’s free shipping bar is animated. It still sticks to the top of the page as a visitor scrolls, but the text inside the bar moves horizontally across the screen to grab attention:
You'll also notice that Gerry's makes great use of a site message in the bottom-left corner to reinforce this message in the sticky bar—doubling down like this is a great way to increase clicks and conversions.
5. Boohoo international shipping bar
We’ve briefly touched on the fact that international shoppers may exit your website if high shipping or duty costs are added at checkout.
Boohoo tries to stop that from happening with this free shipping bar:
It explains that they cover duty costs on all orders—giving shoppers the confidence to add items to their online cart (and complete their purchase when they arrive at the checkout).
6. Birchbox free shipping + discount bar
Notice how all of the free shipping bar examples we’ve shared so far stick to the top of a page? Here’s a superb example of how you use one at the bottom of a page, yet still have the same effect:
Birchbox also uses the opportunity to combine free shipping deals with other incentives. The 40% coupon code and free shipping acts as a strong push for shoppers to buy the items they’re browsing, and meet the minimum order value.
Ready for some good news? Adding a free shipping bar to your website isn’t as complicated as you might think.
Your ConvertFlow account gets you access to several ready-to-use sticky bar templates—each of which can be configured to promote your free shipping incentives.
You can even add buttons, links, and signup forms, so you can nudge visitors to take action right there in the bar itself.
Plus, ConvertFlow's Shopify integration allows you to target and personalize based on shopping cart data. Meaning you can use simple merge tags to show how much someone needs to add to their cart in order to qualify for free shipping:
Here's a few template ideas to get you started:
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