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Last year, retail eCommerce sales worldwide topped $2.3 trillion. In this booming market, consumer expectations are growing, and it’s all coming down to one key element: shipping. With nearly 40% of online customers refusing to return to an online retailer after a negative delivery experience, getting your shipping in shape has never been more critical.
Sorting your shipping is about more than offering free freight. As an online business, consider which carriers can get your order where it needs to go. Think about what services to implement – same day, next day or 3-hour – and how you’re going to manage that from a pick, pack and dispatch perspective.
Here’s what you need to consider.
Get your ecommerce shipping policy in place
The reality is over 60% of online shoppers will abandon their carts due to high shipping costs or slow delivery times. With more choice than ever, online consumers want it now, and they want it for free. While this is excellent news for the consumer, keeping up as an online retailer can be costly and logistically tiring.
Spend a bit of time looking at your options and putting a shipping policy in place. Even if you’ve already got one, review it regularly to keep up with consumer expectations.
Costs
Free, flat or variable? Your shipping policy should fit both the needs of your customers and your company. When you’re considering if and how to charge for freight, you’ve got three main options: free, flat rate or variable, depending on weight and location. With over 80% of online shoppers citing shipping cost as an influential factor, it’s essential to get this right. Whichever way you go, make sure you do your research and display it clearly on your website. Hiding shipping costs until the last stage of checkout causes high cart-abandonment rates.
Carrier
We’re currently in a time where the customer’s voice is more important than ever. Choice and convenience play a huge role in pushing online conversions, so choosing the right carriers is key to online success. Choosing the right shipping options is one thing; the other part of the battle is managing within your website and pick, pack, dispatch.
Speed
Think about whether you’ll offer same-day or next-day delivery, and how you’re going to manage that with order cut off and pick up times. Same day dispatch and next day delivery are now expected, so do your research and put the right tools in place to help you streamline your shipping.
International
In an online world, geographical boundaries are fast becoming smaller. Do your research and consider whether you’ll offer International shipping, and how you’ll manage that process.
Opt for ecommerce shipping software
While most eCommerce platforms come with built-in shipping integrations, they generally only let you manage the process from one side. So while your consumers can choose from a host of shipping options, the process of selecting and booking couriers, updating tracking numbers, sending notifications and reporting is all done manually.
In today’s market, online retailers need to be ready to make swift and smart decisions. The more time you spend manually handling your logistics, the slower your customer experience will be. A shipping platform can help you pack faster and ship smarter by helping you compare shipping rates. It can also recommend the best way to pack your order, automatically print packing slips, and find you the best carrier for the job. This is all while seamlessly syncing orders and shipping details with your eCommerce platform, and cutting out unnecessary manual tasks.
With the majority of online retailers considering the cost of freight as a major challenge – getting transparency over shipping spend is a deal breaker.
This is where cloud-based shipping platforms stand out. Instant reporting gives online retailers access to all their metrics in one place. Through a dashboard, you can keep tabs of your shipping activity in real-time, see how many shipments you’re sending, how much you’re spending and how your deliveries are performing. You can also get an instant breakdown of everything you’ve ever sent and work out what your shipments are costing you. Costs aside, real-time reporting lets you view and compare carrier performance, and gives you full transparency around how your customers feel about your brand.
Simplify with Shippit
Shippit was built with one main mission in mind: to make shipping simple. Using cloud-based technology, the platform is simple to configure and can be used anywhere, anytime.
Developed on a simple-to-connect API, Shippit integrates directly into your app or eCommerce platform, or you can create plugins to harness the power of simple shipping.
Using a game-changing algorithm, Shippit takes the manual grunt work out of shipping and chooses the best shipping method every time for every order. With instant access to a host of leading carriers, Shippit gives you the flexibility to try a new carrier with the flick of a switch. Because there’s always more than one carrier, one Shippit account gives you access to multiple carriers so you won’t need to set up complex shipping rules or manage various logins.
Customer experience is everything, so tracking history that starts from the time an order is placed online up until it’s delivered. Fewer chased parcels mean fewer customer complaints and more repeat business.
