There is a stat going around this fall that shipping fees now beat price. It is a misread of the source. In Narvar’s holiday survey with eTail Insights, 52% of retailers said shipping costs and free-shipping availability will most influence how shoppers buy this season, a full ten points ahead of product price. That is what retailers believe. It is not what shoppers do.
Shoppers in the same survey ranked product price first at 54%, a reliable delivery date second at 50%, and shipping third at 48%. And the single highest-rated factor in the whole consumer survey was not a price at all. It was an accurate delivery date at checkout, which 70% called very important. Retailers are betting on the wrong lever.
Retailers are betting on the wrong lever
The retailer instinct is to buy the sale with free or faster shipping. The data says shoppers will not reward either the way retailers expect. 76% said they would accept slower delivery in exchange for a free option, so speed is not the thing they are protecting. And Narvar’s own read of the pattern was that “promise-keeping, more than promise-speed, appears to drive the purchase decision overall.”
Free shipping still matters, but as a floor, not a lever. AlixPartners found 94% of consumers say free shipping affects their purchase decisions, with an expected free delivery window averaging 2.7 days. When everyone offers it, it stops being a differentiator and becomes table stakes. The thing you can actually win on is the promise you attach to it.
Uncertainty is a cost the shopper pays before you do
Think about what makes someone close the tab. Baymard Institute puts the average documented cart abandonment rate at 70.22%, and among US shoppers who abandoned for reasons other than browsing, 40% cited extra costs, 20% slow delivery, 13% an unsatisfactory return policy, and 12% not being able to see the total cost up front. Almost all of that is uncertainty, not price. The shopper is being asked to commit without knowing what it really costs or when it really arrives.
The delivery date is the sharpest example. Narvar’s 2025 research found 73% say estimated delivery dates influence their decision, and if no date is shown, 40% will not buy. A missing date is not a neutral omission. It reads as risk, and the shopper prices it in. This is where intent quietly dies, at the step where a question goes unanswered, and it is why high-consideration buyers increasingly research the risk before they commit the way they would vet any serious decision.
Notice that none of those abandonment reasons is the sticker price. Extra costs, slow delivery, an unsatisfactory return policy, a total the shopper could not see: every one of them is a question the page failed to answer before asking for the order. A shopper who cannot tell what something will really cost, or when it will really arrive, does not experience that as a good deal waiting to happen. They experience it as risk, and the cheapest way to lose a considered purchase is to leave the risk sitting there while you discount the one number that was never the problem.
The refund is part of the price
The same logic runs through returns, and it has moved to the front of the purchase. Narvar’s 2025 data found 90% of shoppers check the return policy before buying, and this year 46% said they avoid retailers that charge for returns altogether. 89% are more likely to shop where refunds come back quickly, and 56% have delayed or avoided a purchase because they did not know how long a refund would take.
Returns are expensive, and the instinct to protect margin by charging for them is understandable. NRF and Happy Returns expected 15.8% of annual sales to be returned in 2025, about $849.9 billion, and 19.3% of online sales. But the reported cost of the fee lands on the front end. NRF and Happy Returns data reported by eMarketer found 72% of retailers now charge for some returns, up from 66%, and of those, 37% lost customers, 34% saw average order value fall, and 24% saw sales decrease. The return experience is a pre-purchase decision wearing a post-purchase costume.
This is why the refund terms belong on the product page, not buried behind a link in the footer. By the time a shopper is deciding, they have already asked themselves what happens if this is wrong, and if the page does not answer, they assume the worst and price it in. A clear, fast, reasonably priced return policy is not just a cost center. On a considered purchase it is part of the offer, and it does conversion work long before anyone returns anything.
Why this beats a discount on a considered purchase
Here is the part that matters for how you spend. A discount lowers the price and teaches the buyer to wait for the next one. Certainty lowers the risk and keeps the price. On a considered purchase, every unknown gets priced by the shopper as risk, and a markdown does not remove risk. A trustworthy promise does, and it costs less margin than a coupon. It is the same argument as the luxury playbook for a $99 dress: confidence, not markdowns, is what high-consideration buyers pay for, and a discount-led acquisition tends to bring in discount-shaped cohorts that behave worse later.
I have run this play with real money on the line. At a large retailer I ran growth for, the average sale was about $700 and the conversion that mattered was a booked appointment, not a cart. We removed risk before we ever reached for a discount: financing online and in every store, and an appointment that let the buyer see and try before committing. Those appointments closed at 69%.
Be fair about price, though. The data does not say price stopped mattering. Shoppers still rank it first, and Deloitte found seven in ten shoppers engaging in value-seeking behavior with 77% expecting higher holiday prices. The claim is narrower. Once you are price competitive, the next dollar is better spent on certainty than on a deeper markdown.
Certainty also compounds in a way a discount never does. A shopper who got the delivery date you promised, and a refund that came back when you said it would, has one less reason to hesitate next time. A shopper you trained with a coupon has one more reason to wait for the next one. The first builds a customer. The second builds a habit you have to keep paying for.
What to change before peak season
Five changes, most important first.
- Show an accurate delivery date on product and cart pages, and measure how often you actually hit it.
- Put the total cost, including shipping and returns, where the shopper can see it before the cart.
- State the refund timeline in days, not “processed promptly.”
- If you charge for returns, test it with a holdout before rolling it out, and read repeat purchase and order value, not just return volume, so you can tell a real effect from noise.
- Make the promise readable by machines too. The same delivery and return data belongs in your product feed and structured data, because AI shopping agents read it to decide whether to buy.
Before you fund another free-shipping promo, check the two things shoppers actually rated highest. What does your site promise a shopper about timing, and how often do you keep it?