What is a free shipping threshold? (and how to set yours)

What it means

A free shipping threshold is a rule: "Delivery is free if your cart is worth Rs 999 or more." Below that amount the customer pays a shipping fee. The cart value is simply the total of the products in the basket.

The idea is to give shoppers a reason to add one more item, while you stop paying for shipping on small orders that could never carry it.

Start with your average cart

Look at your last 30 or so orders and work out the average order value. Add up what customers paid for products and divide by the number of orders. Say yours comes to Rs 600.

Now imagine you set the threshold at Rs 999. A customer with a Rs 600 cart is Rs 399 away from free delivery. That is a big gap, and many people will simply pay the fee or leave. A threshold slightly above the average cart, say Rs 750 to Rs 800 in this case, asks for a smaller stretch: one more small item.

Neither number is "correct". What matters is that the gap feels reachable. If you have a Rs 199 add-on product, a Rs 999 threshold is reachable from a Rs 800 cart but not from a Rs 600 one without two extra items.

Check the arithmetic before you promise it

Free shipping is not free for you. Suppose your courier charges Rs 70 on a typical parcel and your margin on products is 40 percent before shipping. A Rs 999 order leaves about Rs 400 of margin before shipping, so paying Rs 70 still leaves roughly Rs 330. That works.

Now take a Rs 600 order that somehow qualifies because you set the bar too low. Margin is Rs 240, shipping Rs 70, leaving Rs 170. Still positive, but you have less room for packing, payment fees and the occasional return. The deeper method is in our post on setting a free shipping threshold from margin.

Remember too that heavier or bulkier products cost more to send. A threshold that works for lip balms may bleed on steel utensils.

Do not assume it always helps

Free shipping can nudge people to add items, but it can also mean you absorb a cost on orders that would have come anyway. Treat the first threshold as an experiment. Run it for a few weeks, note whether your average cart moves, and adjust. Our post on free shipping threshold versus average order value walks through how to read that result.

Setting it on Varchas Stores

In your admin Settings there is a field labelled Free shipping over, in rupees, alongside a standard shipping charge. The store starts with 999 as the default value in that field. Change it to the number you have chosen and save. The post on changing the free shipping threshold in settings shows the steps.

A quick routine

• Work out your average order value from recent orders.
• Work out what a typical parcel really costs you to send, including packing.
• Pick a threshold a little above the average cart, and check you still make money at that exact value.
• Say it clearly on your product pages, Instagram bio and WhatsApp replies.
• Review after a few weeks and move the number if carts are not responding.

Keep the message honest. "Free delivery on orders above Rs 799" is clear and fair. Hiding the fee until checkout annoys people and costs you the sale.