The Ultimate Guide to Ecommerce Shipping Strategy: Best Practices, Tips, and Solutions
Digitalization is transforming several industries, especially the eCommerce market. You know the E-commerce industry is growing, but a well-suited e-commerce shipping strategy is the primary growth segment. Some giants like Amazon and Flipkart cannot make up to such million-dollar growth without adverse shipping plans.
Give it a thought: if the product is not even received by the customer, how can you heighten your business growth? This is where planning a full-fledged e-commerce shipping strategy plays an important role in driving growth and satisfying the customers. If you have an exceptional shipping plan in place, your customer will always count on you.
Are you struggling with the best e-commerce shipping practices? Keep reading the article and explore the E-commerce Shipping Best Practices to walk on the pathway to exceptional business growth.
What is eCommerce Shipping?
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Shipping an eCommerce product should be economical and efficient, while ensuring it arrives safely and on time. Bad shipping strategy is one of the main reason of Shopping Cart Abandonment.
With the advent of eCommerce, products can now be ordered online and delivered the same day. Thus, eCommerce shipping is essential to a successful business owing to its convenience and speed.
How Does E-commerce Shipping Work?
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As part of the e-commerce shipping process, the customer orders a product, and all the e-commerce operations proceed after that to make the product delivery successful. In eCommerce shipping, there are three basic stages:
Order Receiving
When a customer places an order, the seller confirms it. When the products are confirmed in the warehouse and confirmed to be in stock, the next phase can begin.
Order Processing
Every detail of an order is scrutinized during order processing, including ensuring the product doesn't get damaged, checking the order number, checking the delivery address, and choosing the quickest route and courier company. After that, the product can get picked up and shipped by the eCommerce shipping company.
Order Fulfillment
Following all the final checks and inspections, the chosen eCommerce shipping company picked up the order after it had been processed. Customer journeys will differ based on location and proximity to warehouses or fulfillment centers. Upon reaching its destination, the order is unloaded, and it is picked up and delivered by the delivery partner.
Impressive E-commerce Shipping Statistics to Watch Out
- Approximately $6.3 trillion is spent globally on e-commerce
- Although e-commerce sales will slow in 2023, they will still grow by 10%
- Shoppers remain swayed by the promise of free delivery when shopping online
- More than 75% of e-commerce shoppers say that product photos influence their purchase decisions
- Abandoned carts are attributed to extra costs at checkout in 48% of cases
- A customer's loyalty increases their worth by 22 times
- Typically, the cost of fulfilling an order for online retailers is 70% of the order value.
Best Practices for Shipping in eCommerce
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The e-commerce landscape is highly competitive, making e-commerce shipping Best Practices imperative for businesses. The following are the best shipping strategies for eCommerce:
Choosing the right shipping partner
Choosing a shipping partner that is right for your eCommerce business is crucial. It is essential to balance the costs, speed, and reliability of your choice. Compare the rates, delivery times, and coverage areas of different carriers. Check your products' nature; delicate items may need extra handling. In addition, compare carrier reviews with past performance to determine whether your brand's values align with theirs.
Selecting a reliable shipping partner is the first step to minimizing shipping-related issues, enhancing customer satisfaction, customer experience and establishing a reputation for fast and reliable service.
Develop a strategy
Establishing an Ecommerce Shipping Strategies aligned with your business goals is crucial. In an industry such as eCommerce, where shipping is fundamental, understanding the outcome of events is vital. Patek Philippe Replica For businesses to survive and grow, they must determine which shipping methods, partners, and policies work best for their products, markets, and geographical locations.
Get your documents ready
Next, prepare any required documents for shipping. To avoid any hassles during shipping, ensure that the legal documents are prepared before the shipping date, including the names of several customers, the restrictions, and the duties. Two commonly required documents are a commercial invoice and a customs form. The eCommerce international shipping solution you choose should help you print this quickly and easily.
Get your package ready
Taking care of this is an important aspect of global shipping. The wrong packaging will result in you losing not only your product but your customers as well. It is essential to ensure that each product's packaging meets its unique requirements. Whether or not you are trying to provide a packaging experience for your customers, you must ensure their products reach their doorsteps safely.
Shipment destinations
A seller's shipping destination is another critical factor to consider. The best way to handle free shipping is to offer flat rates depending on the zones you ship to. In addition to saving you money, it's easier for your customers, too.
Right return policy
When a customer returns an undamaged item, reverse logistics involves collecting the item from the customer and putting it back on the shelves. When this process is mismanaged, it will affect the profitability of an eCommerce business.
Customer satisfaction with a business's return policy is generally reflected in repeat purchases. Conversely, shoppers unhappy with the return process will likely never shop there again. Therefore, return policies should be customer-friendly, and returns should be processed quickly. Ecommerce store owners use Magento 2 RMA extension to handle product returns, exchanges, and cancellations easily.
Analyzing shipping costs continuously
The cost of shipping is a significant expense for your eCommerce business. Consider ways to reduce your shipping costs regularly. Based on your shipment volume, negotiate your carrier's rates.
By offering free shipping on certain orders over a certain amount or flat-rate shipping on certain products, you can make shipping more cost-effective. If you analyze shipping expenses, it becomes easier to identify trends and make quality, cost-effective decisions.
Also, you can use different Magento 2 shipping extensions as per your requirement for your ecommerce store.
Inspections and quality control
Regarding shipping, quality control is about guaranteeing that the products are of the highest quality. Make sure that the product is accurately inspected, that the product is in good condition and that the packaging is in good condition. Using a quality control system reduces the likelihood of customers receiving damaged or incorrect items by preventing shipping errors. By doing this, not only will you save money on returns and exchanges, but also improve customer satisfaction and brand recognition.
Support for effective customer service
It is imperative to provide excellent customer service support when dealing with shipping inquiries and issues. Train your customer service team on how to track shipments, handle delivery queries, and handle shipping issues. When shipping-related concerns are handled promptly and courteously, they can be turned into positive experiences, fostering loyalty. To maintain customer loyalty and grow your eCommerce business, you need a responsive customer service team.
How Does E-commerce Shipping Benefit Your E-commerce Business?
Shipment automation
A shipping automation system can be used to control eCommerce shipping processes. Various reports are generated by the system, including inventory updates, tracking numbers for orders, courier reports, and order delivery reports.
By automating eCommerce shipping, human error is reduced, and fulfilment operations are simplified. With the best e-commerce shipping solutions, files can be imported and exported, orders can be confirmed or cancelled, inventory status can be updated, and couriers can be selected.
Integration of sales channels
In most eCommerce shipping solutions, purchase orders will be automatically synced with sales orders for further fulfilment operations. Thus, you can track orders and give your customers real-time updates on their orders.
Spend less time and money.
An automated solution enables you to reach more customers and offers faster delivery at discounted eCommerce shipping rates. Correct shipping cost is playing the important role to improve conversion rate.
Reports of non-delivery
Non-delivery and returned orders are huge losses for eCommerce businesses. With the help of the best e-commerce shipping solutions, this loss can be greatly reduced. With automated solutions, delivery, and undelivered order reports can be generated easily. It is possible to determine which courier or carrier was responsible for undelivered packages and take appropriate action. You can determine which partner is diligent and saves you money at the end of each month by analyzing their performance.
Managing returns
A major challenge of running an eCommerce business is handling returns. Using an automated eCommerce shipping solution will make it easier for you to manage returns.
With the system, customers can enjoy an enjoyable shopping experience and manage returns efficiently.
Conclusion
There is a rapid growth in eCommerce. Shipping an eCommerce product is challenging for any company, but it is especially challenging for an eCommerce company. Choosing the right e-commerce shipping Strategies is crucial for every business. There isn't one solution that fits all. No one solution or strategy will work for all companies, and finding the most optimum solution will take time and continuous fine-tuning.
Continually evaluate your strategies for e-commerce shipping to make sure that you are providing the highest level of service at the lowest price, with the best customer experience.
