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A clean pre/post test let Peak Design swap free US shipping for a $99 threshold, lifting AOV 17% and cutting annual shipping costs without a hit to net revenue.
The brand
Peak Design makes precision camera bags, tripods, and travel gear for photographers and adventurers who expect the product to work as hard as they do. The brand has built a fiercely loyal community, a direct-to-consumer business model, and a price point that demands a confident on-site experience.
As shipping costs climbed, Peak Design's data revealed they were losing meaningful money on free shipping, but it wasn't obvious where to start. They needed analysis before action.
The impact
When we initially looked at our shipping data, it looked like the opportunity to save on shipping costs was with international markets. But Surefoot dug in and determined it was actually the U.S. where we were losing the most revenue to free shipping. With their help, we tested the shipping threshold confidently and thoughtfully. The results were awesome and our VP of Finance and I are happy boys. More money back in the ol' profit machine!
The challenge
Internal review confirmed Peak Design was losing money on free shipping, but no one had isolated whether the loss was domestic or international. Without that, any intervention was a guess.
A free-shipping change touches the cart's most sensitive value prop. Any intervention had to be modeled, isolated, and clean enough to defend if it did not land.
The approach
We joined Peak's shipping dataset with order data and surfaced the answer the team didn't expect: US domestic, not international, was the primary loss.
Using the combined dataset, we modeled where a free-shipping threshold would recoup the most cost while protecting AOV and conversion.
Designed and built the threshold treatment in Peak's testing tool (Convert) and coordinated the matching Shopify-side updates.
Launched at 100% of US traffic for 26 days during a window with no promotions or ad anomalies, then modeled pre/post to isolate impact.
With the $99 threshold validated, we recommended a flat $5 sub-$99 shipping iteration and a follow-up $75 threshold test to keep tuning the curve.
What we learned
The team expected international shipping to be the main cost. Joining the shipping and order data showed the larger loss was domestic. Running that analysis first kept the test focused and the results credible.
Running the 26-day pre/post outside of promotions and ad-buy spikes kept the comparison clean. Windows affected by those swings make results harder to read and act on.
Individual cart sizes did not really change. What changed was the share of orders that fell above the $99 line. That's how a threshold can improve AOV without forcing customer behavior.
The results
Over a 26-day pre/post window, swapping free US shipping for a $99 threshold lifted AOV 17% and increased orders above the free shipping threshold. Overall transactions dipped, driven entirely by sub-$99 orders, but the AOV shift offset the lost volume: net transaction revenue was directionally positive and not statistically different from baseline. The real headline number was the shipping cost line: with the new threshold absorbing the most expensive orders, Peak Design recovered hundreds of thousands of dollars per year in shipping spend that had previously been subsidized.
The takeaway
Revenue held steady, and with small orders no longer subsidizing free shipping, more of every sale became profit. A margin win, proven by a clean pre/post test.
Frequently asked
Shipping costs were rising, and free US shipping had become a meaningful line-item loss. The team needed to know where the loss was concentrated and whether a threshold could close the gap without damaging conversion.
Data analysis, A/B and pre/post testing, and Shopify front-end development. The shipping threshold work in particular leaned on data engineering (joining shipping with order data) and a clean experimentation cadence.
Multi-year and ongoing. Peak Design has been a Surefoot partner since 2018, and the program has continued through site rebuilds, product launches, and tooling migrations.
Direction over magnitude. Pre/post tests on shipping economics tend to surface real margin wins, but the magnitude depends on the gap between what a brand is absorbing and what the market will tolerate. The discipline of running a clean window is what makes the result actionable.
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