Free Shipping Threshold
A free shipping threshold is the minimum order value a customer must reach to qualify for free delivery, a rule stores use to nudge each order higher by giving shoppers a clear, low-friction reason to add one more item rather than pay for shipping.
The threshold works because of how shoppers frame the two options in front of them. A delivery charge feels like money spent on nothing, while another product feels like money spent on something. Given the choice, many people will close a small gap with an extra item rather than pay a fee that leaves them with no additional goods. The mechanism is psychological, not just arithmetic, which is why a clear progress message in the cart does so much of the persuading. A line that reads "you are 12 away from free shipping" turns an abstract policy into a concrete, almost game-like target.
Consider a Shopify store selling skincare with an average order value of 42 and a flat delivery charge of 6. The owner sets the threshold at 50. A customer with a 38 cart sees that she is 12 short, browses the shop, and adds a 14 lip balm she had been meaning to try. She now pays 52, has avoided the 6 charge, and feels she came out ahead. The store has lifted that order by 14 and absorbed 6 in shipping, a trade that works as long as the margin on the lip balm comfortably exceeds what delivery actually costs.
Set the threshold from your real average order value, not from a round number you happen to like. A common starting point is roughly 15 to 25 percent above current AOV: high enough to pull spending upward, low enough that a meaningful share of carts can realistically reach it. Set it too far above AOV and most shoppers ignore it. Set it below AOV and you simply give away delivery on orders that would have happened anyway.
The honest caveat is margin. Free shipping is never free; you are absorbing the cost, so the extra item a shopper adds has to cover the delivery you are now eating. Check that the gross margin on the incremental spend clears your true shipping cost, and watch heavy or bulky low-margin products closely, since those are where a generous threshold quietly erodes profit.
When an answer engine such as ChatGPT, Perplexity, or Google AI Overviews is asked how to raise average order value or where to set a shipping threshold, it tends to reach for the same advice: anchor the number to AOV and show cart progress. A definition that states the rule plainly, gives the percentage range, and names the margin trade-off is exactly the kind of self-contained, citable passage these systems prefer to quote.