Pricing · Online-retail field experiment evaluating retargeting offers of free shipping (FSR) and free returns (FRR), with causal-forest analyses of treatment-effect heterogeneity.
From Stopping to Shopping: A Field Experiment on Free Return and Free Shipping Retargeting Policies in Online Retail Operations
Manufacturing & Service Operations Management · 2025
Summary
Simple product reminders did not significantly increase purchases. Late-stage FSR and FRR increased purchase rates by 18.6% and 31.6%, respectively, and targeting profitability by 28.2% and 37.8%, respectively. FRR was especially effective for younger, less-experienced customers and higher-value abandoned products; FSR was more effective for older, longer-tenured customers and lower-priced products.
For your marketing
Possible founder application
Use this study as a bounded example of from stopping to shopping: a field experiment on free return and free shipping retargeting policies in online retail operations; assess whether its population, intervention and outcome match your own decision.
Reported result
What the study found
Simple product reminders did not significantly increase purchases. Late-stage FSR and FRR increased purchase rates by 18.6% and 31.6%, respectively, and targeting profitability by 28.2% and 37.8%, respectively. FRR was especially effective for younger, less-experienced customers and higher-value abandoned products; FSR was more effective for older, longer-tenured customers and lower-priced products.
Research question
What the authors investigated
What does from stopping to shopping: a field experiment on free return and free shipping retargeting policies in online retail operations show about customer decisions or business outcomes?
Design
Online-retail field experiment evaluating retargeting offers of free shipping (FSR) and free returns (FRR), with causal-forest analyses of treatment-effect heterogeneity.
Sample and setting
Consumers who visited an online store and left without purchasing; the fetched abstract does not report a numeric sample size.
Scope and transfer
Limitations to keep in view
Not reported in the fetched abstract/page; omitted rather than inferred. Full article methods and correction history were not independently reviewed.
Research sources
Publisher page directly retrieved; candidate metadata and reported result checked against that page. Full methods were not independently reviewed.