Sashank Ravindranath, Author at Lateshipment.com

E-Commerce Holiday Shipping: Balancing Cost And Reliability

Sashank Ravindranath — Fri, 22 Nov 2024 05:05:06 +0000

The truth of shipping becoming a defining factor in the customer experience, especially during the holidays, cannot be stressed enough.

This is because most of the orders during the holiday season are by customers who rely on timely gift-giving deliveries. These customers are so invested in them that a single instance of delay or any other delivery issue for that matter can lead to customer churn and lost costs.

Consumers expect holiday gifts to be delivered quickly, with 29% expecting delivery within 2–3 days.

While this is an issue that needs to be addressed, shippers are also put into face with rising shipping costs (due to shipping carriers straining capacity) during the peak season that can quickly eat into profit margins.

With an overwhelming surge in orders and inevitable delivery issues, success in terms of holiday shipping is dictated by balancing managing costs and ensuring reliability.

However, given today’s highly competitive marketplace, balancing these factors is no longer a luxury — it’s a necessity.

That said, there are several complexities that e-commerce businesses must navigate in holiday shipping to strike the perfect balance between cost and reliability and enjoy success. Let’s take a look at some of the major challenges and how you can address them.

Frequent Challenges of Holiday Shipping

1. Carrier capacity constraints

Customers tend to shop more during the holiday season, leading to high order volumes. This sudden influx of orders leaves carriers often struggling to meet demand, leading to delayed pickups, lost packages, and missed delivery deadlines. Customers who face the brunt of these issues are prone to hold you accountable and are more likely to churn.

2. Increased shipping costs

To manage the higher demand of order volumes, carriers typically impose surcharges on select services such as expedited shipping and oversized packages. The costs of these surcharges are borne by you, the e-commerce businesses as low-cost shipping has to be a standard offering for your customers. However, bearing these costs can result in your last-mile delivery skyrocketing and thereby squeezing your profit margins.

3. Lack of visibility and communication

Delays and disruptions are inevitable during the holiday season. However, customers are supportive of businesses that make the effort to let them know of the issue and preemptively resolve it. However, most e-commerce businesses lack real-time order tracking and proactive communication, thereby amplifying customer frustration, which leads to negative reviews and a loss of trust.

How to Balance Cost and Reliability During Holiday Shipping

While the challenges of holiday shipping are significant, businesses can take strategic steps to optimize both cost and reliability. Here’s how:

1. Understand carriers' shipping deadlines

In order to manage high shipping volumes without straining their capacity, shipping carriers come up with service deadlines (last days to ship) before important holiday season days. You can stay updated with these dates and communicate it with your customers to encourage last minute shoppers to plan their purchase accordingly.

2. Stay updated with carrier delay rates

Carriers strain their capacity during times like the holiday season. Understanding their delivery performance can help you choose the best carrier based on service types, locations, etc. Here’s an e-commerce report that delivers unbiased insights on UPS and FedEx on-time performance, highlighting delivery trends, operational challenges, and consumer expectations for speed and reliability for the upcoming 2024 holiday season.

3. Diversify carrier partnerships

Relying on a single carrier during the holidays is a risk. Diversify your carrier network to include regional and local couriers, which can often provide faster and more affordable last-mile delivery. This flexibility allows you to manage capacity constraints, negotiate better rates, and pick reliable shipping partners based on their strengths.

4. Offer smart shipping options

Not every customer requires overnight delivery. Provide multiple shipping options at checkout, such as economy, standard, and expedited shipping. This empowers customers to choose the shipping speed that suits their needs and budget, while also helping you manage costs.

5. Implement proactive communication

Customers are more forgiving of delays when they’re kept informed. Use automated notifications to alert customers of delivery updates, delays, or disruptions. Clear and proactive communication enhances the customer experience and reduces WISMO (“Where is My Order?”) inquiries.

6. Communicate delivery exceptions

Track your parcels in real time to monitor delivery performance, identify issues as they unfold, and automate resolution processes. This ensures reliable delivery while minimizing the cost of failed shipments or customer dissatisfaction.

7. Optimize packaging strategies

Carriers often base shipping costs on dimensional weight. Optimize your packaging to reduce unnecessary bulk and avoid oversized package fees. Additionally, well-secured packaging minimizes the risk of damage, improving reliability.

8. Plan for returns

The holiday season often brings a spike in returns, and a seamless return process is just as important as delivery. Offer pre-paid return labels and easy-to-navigate return portals to provide a hassle-free experience that builds trust and loyalty.

9. Audit your shipping invoices

While most carriers either suspend or extend their money-back guarantee for late deliveries, your invoice may still contain 50 other carrier errors (service failures and billing errors) that are eligible for refunds. Auditing your invoices gives you the opportunity to claim refunds for them. Remember, manual auditing can be a tedious process — make use of an automated parcel audit solution that does this on your behalf.

10. Make data-driven decisions with shipping intelligence

Regularly auditing your shipping invoices, among other things, gives you fulfillment insights such as on-time delivery performance, shipping spend analysis, etc. You can leverage these insights to make precise, data-driven decisions that enhance operational efficiency and reduce costs.

Prepare in Advance for the Holiday Rush

E-commerce holiday shipping is a delicate balance between managing rising costs and delivering a seamless, reliable experience to your customers. By diversifying carrier partnerships, leveraging automation, and communicating proactively, you can overcome the challenges of the holiday rush while delighting your customers and protecting your margins.

The holiday season presents both challenges and opportunities — those who master their shipping strategy will gain not just satisfied customers but also a competitive edge in the market.

Balancing cost and reliability isn’t just about reacting to challenges — it requires proactive planning. Less than a week to go until the holiday season to officially kick off — which means as an e-commerce retailer, you have to make use of the little prep time left to get better equipped to handle the holiday rush. Here are some tips categorized via different stages of the customer journey to help you get ahead of the curve.

The post E-Commerce Holiday Shipping: Balancing Cost And Reliability appeared first on Lateshipment.com.

6 Steps To Take When An E-commerce Delivery Goes Wrong

Sashank Ravindranath — Wed, 13 Nov 2024 08:30:37 +0000

With heightened order volumes and tight shipping deadlines, it is natural for e-commerce businesses to expect high customer service inquiries and frustrations from delivery issues during the holiday season. But you can’t let these things slide as ensuring a seamless delivery experience is essential to keep customers happy and coming back.

While delays and other delivery issues cannot be prevented, you can definitely have a well-prepared customer service strategy to ensure a smooth post-purchase experience, no matter how busy the holiday season gets. To make things easier, we have come up with a “Customer Service Survival Kit” to help you handle post-purchase issues efficiently and preserve customer satisfaction.

Remember, 96.2% of customers will leave a business for poor customer service while 62% of customers will pay more for good customer service.

Holiday Survival Kit for E-Commerce Customer Service

Steps to Take When a Customer’s Delivery Goes Wrong

1. Protect Customer Confidence By Identifying And Tracking Issues Early

Imagine a customer eagerly awaiting their holiday purchase — only to discover their order has been delayed. Their excitement can quickly turn into frustration.

By tracking every order in real time, you can catch potential issues that deter customer satisfaction.

Here’s how it works: Real-time visibility allows you to stay in the know about your parcels and set up alerts when things go wrong. With delays identified early, you can address them even before your customers come to know of it.

2. Strengthen Customer Trust with Transparency by Notifying Customers Early and Often

As soon as an issue is detected, reach out with clear, real-time updates across email, SMS, or WhatsApp notifications rather than waiting for them to contact you. This way, you can proactively reach out to the customer and reassure them you’ll set things right. Remember, there’s no faster way to build trust than by keeping customers informed.

There’s also an additional benefit to notifying customers early: Not only does it reduce worry, but keeping customers in the loop about shipment issues also reduces frustration and eventual tarnishing of your brand’s reputation.

3. Make Help Hassle-Free with Easy Access to Support

Customers don’t just need assistance, they want it done fast and easy. Because no one wants to waste time searching for answers as they’re awaiting updates on their orders.

To counter these issues, you can set up multiple strategies like a 24/7 dedicated support team across channels, chatbots that handle basic queries backed by live chat, and a holiday-specific FAQ page addressing common issues — such as delays, returns, and replacement policies to ensure customers have all the information they need at their fingertips. This way, customers feel supported, less frustrated, and are more likely to return to your brand even if they encounter an issue.

Pro Tip: Place links to your FAQ or help center in your emails and order tracking pages to let. customers know exactly where to go for help without having to search.

4. Keep Customers Informed Effortlessly via Automated Shipping Notifications

Even when there’s no issue with your shipments, your customers can be prone to anxiety due to the lack of order updates. With automation in play, you can ensure that customers stay updated every step of the way without delay.

Here’s how it works: you can set up notifications for key stages (order shipped, in transit, delivered, or any issues such as suspected loss, in-transit with delay) to be sent automatically and proactively so that customers never have to wonder where their package is.

Why it Matters: Customers are reassured by timely updates. This proactive approach cuts down on WISMO inquiries and gives your customers peace of mind, no matter how busy the season gets.

5. Turn Setbacks into Opportunities for Loyalty by Promptly Offering Resolution

While handling delivery issues is a job almost done, you can make things even better by offering a fast and fair resolution, like a discount on their next purchase, refund, or replacement, you make customers feel prioritized and appreciated.

Even if you don’t have the budget to do this for all shipments, you can keep your focus on loyal customers or high-value orders.

Being proactive in your resolution approach shows customers that you value their experience and are committed to making things right. Small gestures, like discounts or a quick refund, can help you transform potential disappointments into positive brand experiences and thereby foster loyalty.

6. Continuously Improve the Customer Journey by Learning and Optimizing for Future Success

The best way to improve your customer service process is to get your hands on data. Compare the holiday season trends of previous years with this year’s regular period, take stock of what worked and what didn’t.

If you don’t know where to start, look for metrics like customer satisfaction scores and response times and recurring issues such as WISMO, unable to reach support, or particular carriers having more delays. These data give you valuable insights into how you can refine your customer service approach, address root problems, and prepare for a better experience for the holiday season.

With the what and the why sorted, here’s how you can do this — Implement a feedback loop after order delivery and returns to get satisfaction scores around the post-purchase and then make continuous operational improvements to enhance the experience and improve brand reputation.

How Lateshipment.com Can Help in Improving Your Post-Purchase Customer Support Efforts

1. Over-communicate and Reduce Customer Anxiety Post-Purchase

After customers place an order, anticipation and anxiety often kick in as they wait for their package to arrive. To alleviate this, you need to proactively communicate with them at every key stage of the delivery process via automated and personalized order status notifications via email or SMS. For customers facing critical delivery issues, such as significant delays or lost packages, proactive communication is key. Reaching out to affected customers before they have to inquire demonstrates empathy and commitment, turning what could be a negative experience into a positive one.

Even when things go right, you can still send shipping transactional notifications to keep customers informed throughout the delivery lifecycle. By keeping customers in the loop, especially during the holiday season, you reassure them that their purchase is on track or being handled with care, ultimately building trust and reducing WISMO (Where Is My Order?) inquiries.

2. Enable Order Tracking Self-Service for Your Customers

Customers appreciate the convenience of accessing information without waiting for assistance. Enable self-serve order tracking by adding a “Track My Order” widget directly on your website and emails. This allows them to quickly check their delivery’s progress whenever they want, without needing to contact customer support, which can reduce your team’s workload.

3. Keep Support Teams on Top of Order Deliveries, Particularly Those Facing Delivery Issues

Empowering your support team with the tools to manage delivery issues proactively is crucial for efficient service, especially during peak seasons. By auto-triggering tickets on your helpdesk for failed or delayed deliveries, you ensure that no critical issue falls through the cracks. This proactive approach enables support agents to address problems before customers even reach out, enhancing response times and customer satisfaction.

Equipping your agents with real-time tracking information within the helpdesk further speeds up resolution times. With immediate access to order statuses and delivery details, support teams can answer customer inquiries accurately and efficiently. This level of readiness enables them to manage delivery issues quickly, reduce handling times, and deliver a seamless post-purchase experience that keeps customers satisfied and confident in your brand.

Final Word

The holiday season brings both opportunity and pressure for e-commerce businesses.

In a time where delivery delays and other post-purchase issues can significantly strain customer relationships, having a well-equipped customer service survival kit is essential.

By identifying issues early, communicating proactively, and offering swift resolutions, you can not only handle delivery issues effectively but also build stronger relationships with customers.

With the right tools and strategies in place, a potential delivery issue becomes more than a service request; it’s an opportunity to demonstrate your commitment to customer satisfaction and build loyalty that lasts well beyond the holiday season.

The post 6 Steps To Take When An E-commerce Delivery Goes Wrong appeared first on Lateshipment.com.

2024 Holiday Shipping Guide: Deadlines, Surcharges, and Smart Strategies for E-commerce Businesses in the US and Canada

Sashank Ravindranath — Tue, 05 Nov 2024 06:23:04 +0000

The holiday season is almost here, just T-23 days as we are writing this article away from things getting really hectic.

For e-commerce businesses, this means it’s time to prepare for the busiest time of the year. And remember, early preparation is key to ensuring a smooth holiday season.

So, in this blog, we’ve covered a comprehensive holiday schedule in the form of information on shipping deadlines and peak season surcharges for the 2024 season.

Why Early Preparation for the Holiday Season is Necessary

The holiday season is a time when shoppers are on a buying spree, looking to get the perfect gifts for their loved ones and deals for themselves. However, this great opportunity brings up a great challenge for businesses such as yours.

The holiday shopping rush can turn out to be overwhelming, leading to issues like shipping delays, inventory shortages, customer service overload, and so much more.
The holiday season is a time when shipping carriers are straining their capacity due to experiencing high volumes of packages, which often leads to delays. This means that you need to plan accordingly to get your products shipped out for timely delivery.
Customers are more likely to make impulse purchases during the holidays, especially towards the last minute. For such customers, we understand carriers’ shipping deadlines to avoid delays and holiday disappointments.

This is why starting your plans for the holiday season early is crucial:

Now that we understand the importance of early preparation, let’s get started.

Before we get into the details, here’s a little heads-up: shipping carriers exceed their capacity to deliver on-time during the peak season. To help you evade delays successfully, we are planning a Q/A session, where our CEO Sri shares insights from the 7th annual edition of our e-commerce holiday shipping report, focusing on on-time carrier reliability and logistics challenges to support your holiday retail coverage.

Join our briefing session and get:

FedEx and UPS On-time Performance Insights: A detailed on-time performance analysis covering Ground and Express services, key U.S. cities, states and retail categories
2024 Holiday Forecast: Get an expert outlook on carrier reliability, factors impacting on-time performance, shipping costs, and consumer expectations for the holiday season.
Interactive Q&A Session: Engage with our host, ask questions, and gain an insider’s perspective on the 2024 peak season logistics; and its impact on retailers and holiday shoppers.

You can register for the session here.

Key Holiday Shipping Deadlines in 2024

Getting your customers to spend with you is just halfway to the finish line. Getting their products into customers’ hands is a bigger challenge for e-commerce businesses during this busy season.

On the one hand, carriers are straining their capacity to ship out huge volumes of packages during the holiday rush. So know what steps you must take to get on the right track this holiday season.

To make things simpler for you, we’ve noted important holiday-season dates for carriers in the US and Canada and have presented them to you.

US Shipping Deadlines

To help shippers plan their deliveries for the holidays accordingly, carriers such as FedEx, UPS, and USPS release their schedule, i.e., a calendar with information on when services will not be operated, special restrictions for certain services, and geographical locations, etc.

Staying updated on this schedule can help e-commerce businesses such as yours follow shipping deadlines and send out deliveries on time.

Here’s a breakdown of key shipping deadlines (the last shipping dates for select services to help ensure your package is scheduled to arrive by December 24, 2024 unless otherwise mentioned specifically) by major carriers in the U.S., including FedEx, UPS, and USPS:

FedEx

FedEx SameDay – 12/24
FedEx First Overnight, FedEx Priority Overnight, FedEx Standard Overnight, Extra Hours – 12/23
FedEx 2Day & FedEx 2Day AM – 12/20 (With an optional Saturday pickup (a $16 per package surcharge), the last day to ship for FedEx 2Day and FedEx 2Day AM can be extended to Saturday, Dec. 21st)
FedEx Express Saver – 12/19
FedEx Home Delivery
- 12/17 (5-day shipping)
- 12/18 (4-day shipping)
- 12/19 (3-day shipping)
- 12/20 (2-day shipping)
- 12/23 (1-day shipping)

FedEx Home Delivery
- 12/17 (5-day shipping)
- 12/18 (4-day shipping)
- 12/19 (3-day shipping)
- 12/20 (2-day shipping)
- 12/23 (1-day shipping)

FedEx Ground Economy – 12/13

Read FedEx’s 2024 shipping deadlines for holiday packages in detail

UPS

UPS Ground – Check ups.com/ctc for details
UPS 3 Day Select – Dec. 19
UPS 2nd Day Air – Dec. 20
UPS Next Day Air – Dec. 23

Read UPS’ 2024 Year-End Holiday Schedule

USPS

USPS recommends the following mailing and shipping deadlines for expected delivery by Dec. 25 to domestic addresses

USPS Ground Advantage Service – DEC 18
First-Class Mail Service (including greeting cards) – DEC 18
Priority Mail Service – DEC 19
Priority Mail Express Service – DEC 21

Read USPS’ 2024 shipping deadlines for holiday packages in detail

Deadlines for Canadian Carriers

Similar to the US, carriers from Canada also announce their holiday service schedule YoY to help businesses that ship plan their dates accordingly and avoid shipping delays.

Canada Post

Priority – December 23
Xpresspost – December 23
Expedited Parcel or flat rate box – December 20
Regular Parcel – December 19

Read Canada Post’s 2024 shipping deadlines for holiday packages in detail

FedEx Canada

FedEx First Overnight – Monday, December 23
FedEx Priority Overnight – Monday, December 23
FedEx Standard Overnight – Monday, December 23
FedEx 2Day – Friday, December 20
FedEx Economy – Thursday, December 19

Read FedEx Canada 2024 shipping deadlines for holiday packages in detail

UPS Canada

December 16th – Last day to ship by Ground for delivery to US & Extended Areas.
December 16th – Last day to ship by Ground for delivery across Canada (domestic).
December 20th – Last day to ship by Air for International delivery.
December 23rd – Last day to ship by Air for delivery across Canada and the US.

Read UPS Canada’s Holiday Shipping Dates 2024

Peak Season Surcharges and How They Affect Holiday Shipping Costs

Carriers strain their capacity during the peak season to meet the increasing delivery demand. They’re hiring additional temporary resources, ensuring all things go well, yes. To manage these operational challenges and additional costs, carriers implement peak season/demand surcharges (applied to specific services and vary based on package weight, size, and destination).

These charges can significantly impact e-commerce shipping budgets, particularly for large or bulky items.

FedEx

FedEx delivery commitment times will be extended by 90 minutes starting Dec 19-24

Domestic surcharges – FedEx will charge a $1–$2 fee per package for express services and $0.30–$0.55 per package for ground residential shipments during the peak season. Large-scale shippers who see a spike in volume during the peak season will also be charged a fee.
International surcharges – For exports, FedEx will charge $0.10–$0.35 per pound for parcels and freight, with a minimum charge of $1–$20 per shipment. For imports, FedEx will charge $0.25 per pound for parcels and freight in Zones F and N, with a minimum charge of $1 per shipment for parcels and $0.50 for freight.
Additional handling and oversize charges – FedEx will charge $3.45 per package for additional handling and $39.50 per package for oversize from February 5–September 29, 2024.

Read FedEx’s demand surcharges for 2024 in detail

UPS (from November 24–December 28, 2024)

Additional handling – $9.95 per package
Large package – $99.00 per package
Over maximum limits – $495.00 per package
Demand surcharge (for UPS Ground Residential, Air, and SurePost packages) – $0.25–$2 per package

In the list of services that are eligible for the UPS Service Guarantee, the guaranteed delivery time for UPS Next Day Air Saver deliveries has been extended to end-of-day (11:59 p.m. on the guaranteed day of delivery).

Read UPS’ demand surcharges for 2024 in detail

USPS

Priority Mail – For packages weighing 0–3 lbs, there is a $0.90 increase in Zones 5–9. For packages weighing 4–10 lbs, there is a $1.45 increase in Zones 5–9. For packages weighing 11–25 lbs, there is a $3.25 increase in Zones 5–9. For packages weighing 26–70 lbs, there is an $8.50 increase in Zones 5–9.
USPS Ground Advantage – For packages weighing 0–3 lbs, there is a $0.50 increase in Zones 5–9. For packages weighing 4–10 lbs, there is a $1.00 increase in Zones 5–9. For packages weighing 11–25 lbs, there is a $2.00 increase in Zones 5–9. For packages weighing 26–70 lbs, there is a $5.85 increase in Zones 5–9.
Priority Mail Express- For packages weighing 0–3 lbs, there is a $1.10 increase in Zones 1–4. For packages weighing 4–10 lbs, there is a $2.00 increase in Zones 1–4. For packages weighing 11–25 lbs, there is a $3.90 increase in Zones 1–4. For packages weighing 26–70 lbs, there is a $9.75 increase in Zones 1–4.

Read USPS’ peak season surcharges for 2024 in detail

UPS (Canada)

The following surcharges are applicable between September 8, 2024, to January 18, 2025 unless mentioned otherwise.

Additional Handling – CAD $7.70 per package (all service levels)
Large Package – CAD $77.00 per package (all service levels)
Over Maximum Limits – CAD $495.00 per package (all service levels)
UPS Canada Domestic Air and Ground Services – CAD $0.55 per package (applicable from September 15, 2024, to January 18, 2025)

Read UPS’ demand surcharges in Canada for 2024 in detail

Canada Post

Oversize and unpackaged items: $30, up from $21 in 2023
Out-of-spec items: $400, up from $300 in 2023

Also, for items mailed between November 24, 2024 (Monday) till January 12, 2025 (Sunday), Canada Post will only honor late delivery claims if the item is delivered two or more days after the delivery standard.

Read Canada Post’s peak season surcharges for 2024 in detail

Impact of Carrier Delays on E-commerce Businesses and Customer Satisfaction

The holiday season brings not only high volumes of orders but also increased pressure on shipping carriers to deliver on time. Despite all best efforts, the surge in holiday shipments can lead to delays that disrupt delivery timelines and create ripple effects for e-commerce businesses. Delayed shipments are more than an operational inconvenience; they come with hidden costs that affect customer retention and brand reputation.

Late deliveries can result in an average customer churn rate increase of up to 15%

Customer Dissatisfaction and Lost Loyalty: Late deliveries lead to dissatisfied customers, with many choosing to abandon the brand after just one poor delivery experience. This is especially true during the holiday season, when customers are anxiously awaiting their orders for time-sensitive gifting.
Increased Support Costs: Each late delivery typically results in additional customer support inquiries. For instance, a delayed package leads to “Where Is My Order?” (WISMO) questions, increasing customer support volume. This can lead to longer wait times, strained support teams, and higher overall operational costs.
Potential Revenue Losses: Customers who experience delayed shipments are more likely to abandon their carts or cancel future purchases. For an e-commerce business, this translates to direct revenue losses as well as the cost associated with trying to re-acquire lost customers.

Strategies to Circumnavigate Surcharges and Avoid Delays

During the holiday season, increased demand often results in higher shipping surcharges and more frequent delays, both of which can disrupt a business’s operations and impact the customer experience. For e-commerce businesses, minimizing these additional costs and ensuring on-time delivery are key to maintaining customer trust and satisfaction. But how can businesses avoid the pitfalls of peak-season shipping while still providing a seamless experience?

Here are some effective strategies.

1. Plan and Ship Early

Encourage customers to shop early by running holiday promotions well ahead of time. This gives your business ample time to process and ship orders before the peak season rush. Shipping early not only helps you avoid the higher surcharges that carriers may impose closer to the holidays, but it also allows for a buffer period in case of unexpected delays.

2. Set Clear Expectations

Consider creating early-bird sales or “holiday countdown” campaigns, offering slight discounts or free shipping incentives to encourage early purchases. Display shipping deadlines prominently on product pages, checkout pages, and in email confirmations. You can also implement a shipping countdown timer to increase a sense of urgency and motivate shoppers to complete their purchases ASAP if they want an earlier delivery slot.

3. Use Regional and Hybrid Shipping Solutions

Partnering with regional carriers or hybrid solutions can be a smart alternative to traditional carriers during the holiday season. Regional carriers may offer lower rates for certain delivery zones, while hybrid solutions, such as UPS SurePost or FedEx SmartPost, utilize major carriers in tandem with local delivery networks to reduce costs.

4. Optimize Shipping Zones with Distributed Fulfillment Centers

Distributed fulfillment enables orders to stay within specific shipping zones, avoiding the higher fees associated with long-distance deliveries.

For instance, if your e-commerce business has a high volume of orders from the East Coast, partnering with a fulfillment center in that region.

You can also offer a local pickup option that can be a valuable alternative during the holiday season in reducing shipping costs and avoiding surcharges but also gives customers a reliable option for securing their items quickly.

5. Consolidate Orders and Encourage Bulk Buying

Encourage customers to buy more in a single transaction by offering bundled products or “buy more, save more” incentives. Consolidating multiple orders into one shipment reduces per-package costs, decreases the frequency of surcharge fees, and can improve efficiency on the operational side.

While these strategies work out for areas in your control, they also lay the foundation for a more positive post-purchase experience.This is where LateShipment.com comes in to ensure that even during the busiest times, customers feel valued and well-informed, creating lasting loyalty and reducing the risk of post-purchase dissonance.

How LateShipment.com can Help E-commerce Businesses During the Peak Season

A key driver of customer dissatisfaction during the holiday season is feeling uninformed or blindsided by delays and extra fees. Proactive communication can mitigate this dissonance by keeping customers informed every step of the way. Here’s how:

Send Real-Time Updates: Use real-time tracking notifications to keep customers in the loop about any potential delays or changes in delivery times. This prevents WISMO (Where Is My Order?) inquiries, reducing the burden on customer support teams.
Communicate Potential Delays and Delivery Options: Regularly update customers on order status, especially if there’s a delay,. Consider using SMS or push notifications for critical updates close to delivery dates. Use clear messaging that conveys empathy and proactive support, improving the customer experience despite delays
Leverage Predictive Alerts for High-Volume Days: Proactively prepare for peak holiday days, such as Black Friday and Cyber Monday, by using predictive analytics to anticipate surges in delivery times and customer inquiries. LateShipment.com’s predictive insights can help you notify customers in advance, ensuring they have realistic expectations and reducing post-purchase dissonance.

By implementing these strategies, e-commerce businesses can effectively navigate the holiday season’s unique challenges. Reduced surcharges and delays mean fewer surprises for customers, and proactive communication helps prevent the negative impact of post-purchase dissonance, creating a smoother, more enjoyable shopping experience during the busiest time of year.

Get Started With Your Holiday Season Plans

Following the schedule of services and operations and understanding the surcharges from shipping carriers like FedEx and UPS can help you plan your shipping game in advance and not succumb to sky-rocketing surcharges.

That’s not all! Planning for the holiday season is a huge task that requires you to tick all the boxes and have everything ready in place to manage the upcoming rush and whatnot.

One area that most businesses unwillingly ignore is the post-purchase phase, which holds incredible value in boosting retention rates and revenue. To help you tick that box as well, we’ve come up with our annual shipping report that highlights delivery trends, operational challenges, and consumer expectations for speed and reliability for the upcoming 2024 holiday season.

Download the report to gain unbiased insights on UPS and FedEx on-time performance.

The post 2024 Holiday Shipping Guide: Deadlines, Surcharges, and Smart Strategies for E-commerce Businesses in the US and Canada appeared first on Lateshipment.com.

Branded Return and Exchange Portal: What Makes One And How It Works

Sashank Ravindranath — Mon, 04 Nov 2024 06:18:13 +0000

A high return rate is a concern for any e-commerce business. However, most brands still don’t have a proper returns system in place to optimize the final leg of the post-purchase loop.

In most cases, customers who initiate returns didn’t expect things to go this way in the first place, thus, the key is to NOT make the returns process even more stressful for them. That brings us to today’s customers demanding seamless, hassle-free returns and exchanges, and your efforts to deliver on them to build customer loyalty.

To make the returns process as smooth as it can get, it is best to use a ‘Branded Returns and Exchange Portal’ that you can build for your e-commerce store. To get a better context, here are some benefits that you stand to gain from using a returns and exchange portal.

What Makes a ‘Branded’ Return and Exchange Portal?

A returns and exchanges portal is an addition to your e-commerce store that customers can use to do ‘everything returns’ from initiating to tracking. Any system that works as an app instead of back-and-forth emails or support conversations can be classified as a returns portal.

The ‘branded’ factor comes through in how the portal acts as a vital extension of your brand experience. When customers initiate a return or exchange, they’re still interacting with your brand, and it’s an opportunity to make a lasting positive impression that helps boost customer satisfaction and loyalty.

Here are several essential features that make the returns process seamless for customers and manageable for retailers:

1. Enhanced Customer Loyalty Access to clear and transparent return policies

Customers appreciate transparency, especially when it comes to returns. Therefore, provide your customers with easily accessible return policies directly from your portal. By ensuring that customers are aware of their options, you can ensure that they make informed decisions and thereby prevent misunderstandings and potential frustration.

In the long term, this seamless return experience reassures customers and enhances loyalty. Here’s how it works — when customers feel valued and have a positive return experience, they’re more likely to shop with you again, even if their initial purchase didn’t work out.

2. Reduction in support volume through self-service returns

A return portal makes returns self-service for customers, allowing them to initiate returns or exchanges with ease. They can select reasons for returns, choose whether to exchange or refund and print return labels — all without needing to contact customer support.

Another common pain point in the return process is the uncertainty about when refunds or exchanges will be processed. A return portal eliminates this challenge by keeping customers informed at every step, from receiving their return to processing the refund or shipping the exchange item, thereby minimizing the WISMR (Where is my return) queries.

Both of these actions play a major role in freeing up your support team to focus on more complex issues. Ultimately, this improvement not only enhances customer satisfaction but also lowers operational costs.

Lateshipment.com’s Returns Experience Management (R.E.M): Self-Serve Returns And Exchanges That Boost Buyer Confidence

There are not one but three reasons why brands who prioritize CX, opt for self-service returns

Witness an increase of up to 92% in repeat purchases from hassle-free returns
Make returns initiation 3x faster for shoppers
There’s a revenue retention of up to 40% through easy exchanges and store credits

Meet LateShipment.com’s R.E.M, a solution to help you offer return experiences that customers will truly love.

R.E.M houses a Branded Returns and Exchange Portal that works to help your customers return products without your help via:

Driving customers to a portal completes your brand experience in the post-purchase order returns phase
Allowing customers to easily start a return from the order tracking page, delivery notifications, or anywhere else in your store
Helping customers better understand your return policy by highlighting return windows, non-returnable items, and more
Enabling customers to easily initiate returns from a self-serve portal that lets them choose what, why, and how they’d want to return in seconds

That’s not all! For a customer, the return portal is where the return takes place. But there’s also the back-end side to it, that’s where automation meets unprecedented visibility. Your return portal gives you in-depth analytics that reveal return trends, common issues with products, and customer feedback.

These detailed analytics allow you to identify patterns, such as frequently returned items or common return reasons, which empower you to make product or process improvements, potentially reducing future return rates, and improving overall customer satisfaction.

The post Branded Return and Exchange Portal: What Makes One And How It Works appeared first on Lateshipment.com.

Using Real-Time Tracking To Reduce Customer Support Tickets

Sashank Ravindranath — Sun, 03 Nov 2024 13:11:36 +0000

Did you know that over 40% of your e-commerce store’s support tickets are post-purchase related?

A large chunk of them are primarily WISMO or WISMR.

Under traditional processes, a ticket is created, an anxious/ angry customer is on the other end, you manually check their order status with the shipping carrier, apologize for the issue, and hope they forgive you enough by continuing shopping.

However, the last part is highly doubtful because

Manually tracking parcels and communicating order status info is going to take a lot of time
Customers prefer brands that engage with them proactively

More than 85% of customers want to experience proactive communication and contact from a business.

On the other hand, customers have little patience for errors these days.

They expect brands to keep them in the know about their parcels at all times and resolve or at least inform them about delivery issues beforehand.

Due to this inadequate control of manually tracking your shipments, you’re putting your customer support reps in the line of fire against angry customers and a high support volume.

If you wonder why this bombardment of customer support tickets should bother you, know that these queries take up a large chunk of your support team’s time.

Each time they are forced to deal with these post-purchase queries, they are prevented from dealing with other major issues at hand, leading to severe problems.

You can avoid this whole scenario with the help of real-time tracking, i.e., staying on top of each of your parcels, from the moment they’re picked up by a shipping carrier up until they are delivered to their designated destination. This unprecedented ability allows you to identify issues they face, which in turn allows you to take pre-emptive action that prevents customer pain.

How Real-Time Tracking Helps You Reduce Customer Support Tickets

Real-time tracking provides you the opportunity to solve delivery issues well before your customer is even aware that an issue exists.

Here’s how it works.

With customers highly anxious about their order status when left in the dark, you can give them detailed information on their orders, so that they are cognizant of their deliveries and stop calling you regarding WISMO or WISMR.
On the same lines, when a customer’s shipment in transit faces distress, especially during the busy holiday season, you can arm your support reps with real-time information to be more proactive in handling delivery issues and mitigate the negative impact on customers.

Both of these ensure greater customer satisfaction and set your customer on the path of repeat shopping.

Track your parcels in real time with LateShipment.com

LateShipment.com’s Delivery Experience Management (DEM) platform comes with a real-time tracking solution that gives you a ton of opportunities to optimize your post-purchase efforts to the fullest.

By proactively resolving delivery issues through DEM’s real-time tracking, you can witness a 72% reduction in WISMO customer requests.

Here’s how it works:

Keep your customers’ anxiety at check with delivery status notifications

The average online shopper tracks their parcel around 8 times post checkout on the tracking page of shipping carriers like FedEx & UPS. This is more than enough to prove that customers are always anxious about their parcel’s whereabouts.

By sending automated and timely notifications via email, SMS, or WhatsApp to your customers about their orders for events such as “Shipped,” “Attempted,” and “Delivered,” so that their anxiety is eased. The best part, you can build flows and automate notifications directly in your marketing automation tool such as Klaviyo and Attentive via LateShipment.com integration.

You can also host a tracking widget on your store (app, website or chatbot) to enable customers to look up order statuses any time they want.

Proactively resolve delivery issues with delivery exception notifications

Today’s customers are less tolerant towards delivery issues and will opt for a competitor at the first chance of bad delivery experience.

Rather than staying reactive, you can get proactive alerts for critical issues like package delays or lost in-transit and proactively notify customers about them to mitigate negative experiences.

You can also reduce additional support tickets by triggering these alerts on your helpdesk to empower support agents with real-time order status information and shorten time to resolution.

Give the full picture with informative tracking pages

Extend real-time tracking onto your order tracking pages by providing detailed shipment information including order number, tracking number, delivery status, delay incidents and package items.

Even when the order is split into multiple shipments or is being sent through multiple carriers, you can enable unified and simple tracking, to ultimately reduce customer queries.

In an era where customers expect speed, transparency, and proactive communication, real-time tracking is a powerful tool for e-commerce businesses to reduce “Where is my order?” (WISMO) inquiries and enhance customer satisfaction.

By providing accurate, up-to-the-minute tracking information, businesses can address customer concerns before they escalate, reducing the burden on support teams and allowing them to focus on more complex issues. With LateShipment.com’s real-time tracking solution, keep your customers informed and strengthen your efforts to improve metrics related to loyalty.

Don’t let delivery issues impact your customer relationships — Get a guided product tour today and transform your tracking experience into a strategic advantage that keeps customers happy and engaged.

The post Using Real-Time Tracking To Reduce Customer Support Tickets appeared first on Lateshipment.com.

Tracking Pages And Shipping Notifications To Get Inspired This Holiday Season

Sashank Ravindranath — Tue, 29 Oct 2024 12:11:11 +0000

The holiday season is a time when the e-commerce and retail space is busier than usual with customers looking to get their list of items at the best rates possible.

But there are hundreds of brands out there and the competition only gets fierce year-on-year.

As an e-commerce merchant, if you’re looking to get into a better position than your competitors, then the holiday season is the perfect opportunity to do that.

We’re not going to beat the bush, here’s the trick — create memorable experiences that turn one-time holiday shoppers into lifetime customers.

One of the best ways to do that is to keep customers engaged about their orders through branded tracking pages and notifications. Let’s explore some inspiring examples, along with templates you can customize to create the ultimate branded tracking experience this holiday season.

The Importance of Branded Tracking Pages and Notifications

Shipping notifications are not the same as marketing emails. In fact, they have an open rate of more than 3.2x. This is because the post-purchase stage is when customers are anxious about their orders and can’t wait to see updates and track them periodically.

You can get your A-game here by sending shipping transactional notifications to customers at various stages of the order fulfillment process without being asked for and following up with ‘branded’ tracking pages with real-time order updates.

While we’ll look in-depth into tracking pages and notifications, let’s start with the impact of these post-purchase assets, serving multiple purposes, and how all of these are particularly valuable during times like the holiday season.

Enhanced Customer Experience

Keeping your customers informed through shipping notifications and tracking pages, allows you to leverage additional touchpoints to enhance customer experience, which usually consists of just “order confirmed” and “order delivered” in traditional methods. Not just benefits for you, customers also appreciate your efforts to provide real-time updates on their orders, especially during the holiday season.

Brand Recognition

Customers are highly anxious in the post-purchase phase. Sending your customers to the carrier’s tracking page and not sharing order status updates, creates a disconnected brand experience, where your carrier’s brand is the last thing your customers will remember about your brand. On the other hand, through effective post-purchase engagement, you can leverage every touchpoint to reinforce your brand identity and build a stronger connection with your customers.

Opportunities for Upselling

Customers track their orders 6-8 times during order delivery and 6-8 additional marketing touchpoints with customers post-checkout. Boost repeat sales with product recommendations on order tracking pages, while also providing relevant product usage information to reduce returns.

Thus, it is clear what role branded tracking pages and shipping notifications play in the growth of your business. To make things easier, here are some guidelines that you can follow while creating these branded tracking assets.

Best Practices for Creating Branded Order Tracking Pages and Shipping Notifications

A branded tracking page is not just a tracking page hosted on your domain instead of the carrier’s. Multiple elements make it unique and beneficial for your post-purchase, in terms of CX and marketing efforts. Here are some of the ‘must-haves’, if you’re looking to build a customized tracking page for your e-commerce brand.

Elements of a branded tracking page

1. Provide complete delivery information

Customers often visit tracking pages to stay updated on their orders, especially during peak seasons or after big sales. Providing clear, accurate, and detailed delivery information reduces anxiety and minimizes customer service (WISMO) inquiries.

What to Include:

Order summary: List items ordered, quantities, and relevant details (e.g., color, size)
Detailed tracking info: Clear order history with details such as shipment date and location updates
Live order status timeline: Show the package journey (e.g., Ordered, In Transit, Out for Delivery, Delivered) with a timeline or progress bar for visual clarity
Expected Delivery Date (EDD): Set realistic expectations with accurate delivery dates. If there are delays, update this information promptly to maintain transparency

2. Replicate brand identity

Consistency reinforces brand recognition and loyalty. When the tracking page matches the brand’s aesthetic (colors, logo, typography), it feels like a seamless part of the brand experience rather than being boring, generic, dull, etc.

What to Include:

Logo: Place your logo prominently at the top to remind customers they’re still within your brand ecosystem.
Brand Colors and Fonts: Use the same fonts and colors from your main website to create a cohesive look and feel.

3. Feature relevant support channels

Even with detailed order tracking, issues can arise and customers can have queries. Providing easy access to customer support channels directly on the tracking page reassures customers that help is just a click away if they need it.

What to Include:

Contact Options: Display multiple ways for customers to reach you (e.g., live chat, email, phone). Some brands even offer a “track or modify my order” button that leads directly to support.
FAQ Links: Include links to common questions related to shipping, returns, or delays. This can save customers time by addressing their concerns immediately.

P.S. Ensure that these support channels and contact information are strategically positioned in an easy-to-find spot on the page.

4.Get customer feedback around the delivery experience and take appropriate actions

Collecting customer feedback on the delivery process provides valuable insights to improve logistics and fulfillment. It also shows customers that their opinions matter, enhancing brand loyalty.

What to Include:

Simple Rating System: A 5-star rating or thumbs-up/thumbs-down option lets customers quickly share their experience.
Optional Comments Section: Allow customers to leave specific feedback about what they liked or disliked about the delivery, such as packaging, speed, or condition of items.

5. Include product recommendations and promotions

Tracking pages are an often-overlooked opportunity to engage customers post-purchase. Suggesting related products or upcoming promotions can drive repeat visits and boost sales.

What to Include:

Personalized Product Recommendations: Use data from past purchases to suggest relevant items or complementary products. For example, if the customer purchased a camera, you can suggest accessories such as a lens, tripod, etc.
Special Offers and Discounts: Show exclusive discounts for returning customers or advertise upcoming sales. You could even offer a discount on their next purchase if they refer a friend.
New Arrivals or Best Sellers: Showcase popular products or new collections, encouraging customers to explore other offerings in your store.

6. BONUS: Capture the spirit of the season

Create a holiday-themed tracking page. Use festive colors, seasonal icons, and a joyful design that reflects the season’s magic. Add playful touches, like snowfall animations or holiday-themed order milestones, deadlines until the holiday offer gets over, etc, to make the page feel interactive.
Include a holiday-specific ‘updates’ section mentioning holiday order deadlines, extended holiday shipping timelines, and changes to your holiday return policy.

Engaging shipping transactional notifications that you can send

Shipping notifications are nothing but the transactional updates of the customers’ orders getting shared with them via email, SMS, or in-app push notifications.

The purpose of a shipping notification is really simple.

Customers are frequently engaged up until the purchase to ensure that they hit that ‘buy’ button. But as they’re awaiting their parcels, the communication between the two parties becomes almost non-existent.

Due to this ‘post-purchase communication gap’, all your efforts to keep your customers engaged get lost along with any chance of retention.

This is where proactive communication with customers about their order delivery status in the form of shipping notifications comes into play to offer customers a memorable post-purchase experience.

Here’s how it works. There are multiple shipping events that occur throughout the post-purchase phase, particularly in the order delivery lifecycle. Each of these events can be leveraged to ensure that your brand remains on the top of the customers’ minds even after delivery. Additionally, times like the holiday season also make room for new and uncommon events as well.

1. Setting Expectations: Your order might get delivered late

In the spirit of transparency, start by sharing potentially less joyful news—some orders may arrive later than expected.

The holiday season is a time when shipping carriers are straining capacity to deliver huge volumes of shipments on time. This often creates a situation where delivery issues such as delays are common in occurrence.

By proactively communicating this possibility during the holiday shopping rush, you help customers adjust their delivery expectations, ensuring their holiday celebrations go off without a hitch.

2. The Exciting Beginning: Your order is shipped

The ‘Order Shipped’ notification during the holiday season takes on a special significance. It’s the first glimmer of hope for customers eagerly awaiting their holiday surprises.

Along with the tracking number, you can include an estimated delivery date and important order-related information such as contents of the package, delivery address, etc. to avoid last-minute confusion.

‘Order shipped’ or the shipping confirmation notification is one of the most anticipated ones as this sets up the conversation towards all the other touchpoints of the post-purchase journey. Therefore, make sure this is sent at the earliest in order to ensure the customer that you take the onus of keeping them informed about their order delivery status.

3. On the Way: Your order is out for delivery

Following the ‘Order Shipped’ notification, the ‘Out for Delivery’ update becomes an eagerly anticipated message. It signifies that the holiday magic is en route to the customer’s doorstep.

Enhance this notification by attaching a link to a branded order tracking page, empowering customers to monitor them on their own. This self-service approach drastically reduces frequent order status inquiries and thereby allows your support teams to focus on priority tasks at hand.

Also, unlike the carrier’s tracking page, sending your customers to your own branded order tracking page, opens new opportunities like improving brand recall and doubling your chances at driving repeat sales through marketing campaigns on your tracking page’s real estate.

4. Mission Accomplished: Your order has been delivered

When the holiday order arrives on time, it’s a moment to celebrate.

Send a ‘Delivery Confirmation’ notification with a heartfelt thank you for choosing your brand for their holiday shopping.

Encourage them to make future holiday purchases and continue building joyful memories with your products.

5. Unexpected Delays: Your order is predicted to face delays

As mentioned, delivery issues such as shipping delays are inevitable and frequent during the holiday season.

But the real issue stands at customers finding that their parcels have been delayed and you not informing them about it.

To avoid this scenario, you can make use of a real-time tracking solution and send ‘Predicted Delay’ notifications for individual packages facing potential delays. This proactive step reassures customers that you’re on close watch of their orders and thereby makes them less prone to frustration.

6. Handling Delays Gracefully: Your order is in-transit with delays

If the predicted delay (or your customers’ worst fears) doesn’t get resolved automatically, then the follow-up shipping notification from your end comes in the form of ‘In-Transit with Delays’.

These notifications should be sent promptly to stay empathetic to your customers, as well as to take their decision on how they want the issue to be resolved.

You can consider sending replacements via expedited shipping options or offer them special coupons for their next purchase.

7. Acknowledging Hiccups: Your order was delivered with delays

Despite all your efforts and fixes, when the package is delivered late, it’s vital to acknowledge the issue, as the chances of customers forgiving you are higher when you do that.

To make it even better, you can add a heartfelt apology note along with a discount coupon for their next holiday purchase, so that they feel less impacted by the issue and may choose to shop with you once again.

8. Addressing Delivery Challenges: There was a failed delivery attempt

A ‘Failed Delivery Attempt’ notification is sent when the order is marked ‘failed delivery’ by the shipping carrier.

This usually happens when the delivery is not being made for reasons such as “no one at home to receive the package”, “wrong delivery address”, “package requiring adult signature”, etc.

In your failed delivery attempt notification, you can include details such as the date, time, and reason for the failure, along with clear instructions on how they can reschedule delivery or pick up their holiday package.

9. In Search of Lost Packages: Your holiday order is suspected to be lost

When a holiday package is suspected to be lost, you must waste no time and promptly send a ‘Suspected Lost’ notification.

Just like delays, customers can be under severe stress when their important orders are on the verge of getting lost, therefore you can offer multiple solutions to let them know that the issue can be resolved.

Keep customers informed about the situation, you can also offer solutions such as locating the package, refunding the cost, or sending a free replacement to mitigate their frustration greatly.

10. Handling the Unfortunate: Your holiday order is lost/damaged in transit

In the unfortunate event of a lost or damaged holiday package, send a ‘Lost/Damaged in Transit’ notification immediately.

Apart from just notifying, the best ploy is to take full responsibility, offer cost-free returns and replacements, and provide discounts or coupons for future holiday orders.

11. Rerouting Solutions: Your holiday order is returned

For holiday orders that are marked returned by the shipping carrier, use the ‘Order Returned’ notification to re-engage with customers.

This notification is primarily sent to let your customers know that their order is now in your possession after a failed delivery attempt.

Additionally, you can enable your customer support team to acquire accurate information from customers such as the address and the date & time of rescheduling etc and effectively follow up with them. This way, you can save on additional shipping costs.

Create Branded Tracking Experiences with LateShipment.com

As the holiday season approaches, use branded tracking experiences to create unforgettable holiday moments and make your customers’ celebrations truly magical.

With LateShipment.com’s you can create branded order tracking pages and send automated shipping notifications via email and SMS to reduce your customers’ anxiety, improve repeat purchases, and ensure that the CX you provide is on-brand. During times like the holiday season when each one-time shopper can be converted to a repeat customer, amplify the chances by offering a great experience via meaningful engagement.

That’s all from us for now. It’s now your turn to create customer experiences that delight with LateShipment.com.

We’re ready when you are.

Or still have questions? We’re all ears.

The post Tracking Pages And Shipping Notifications To Get Inspired This Holiday Season appeared first on Lateshipment.com.

Leverage Existing Tech Stack To Build Exciting Post-Purchase Experiences This Holiday Season

Sashank Ravindranath — Mon, 21 Oct 2024 14:32:02 +0000

The holiday season is a critical time for e-commerce businesses, with the potential to attract new customers and drive significant sales.

To take things a notch further, you need to stand out in a competitive landscape and retain customers. The best way to do that is to deliver an outstanding post-purchase experience to build a loyal customer tribe and grow.

There’s an easier way to do this — leverage their existing tech stack to create seamless and delightful post-purchase experience without starting from scratch. Here’s how to do it effectively this holiday season.

Leverage Existing Tools to Enhance Your Customers' Holiday Post-Purchase Experience

Understanding how you can leverage technology to enhance the experience of your store ultimately comes down to picking the right set of tools to support your scaling efforts and improve your customers’ experiences at every stage of their journey.

With advanced shipment tracking, delivery, and returns management tech, brands big or small can easily provide great post-purchase experiences that drive fierce customer loyalty. The best part is, here are some ways for you to do that without making any changes to the existing tools that you’re using.

1. Leverage Email Marketing Tools for Post-Purchase Engagement

Communicating relevant information at the right time to customers makes a whole world of difference for a customer anticipating their order (especially during the Holiday season when their parcels are prone to delays).

This is where you can leverage marketing automation tools such as Klaviyo, Attentive, Omnisend or Twilio by integrating with a post-purchase platform like LateShipment.com to:

Send post-purchase transactional emails and SMS notifications to keep your customers in the loop about their orders throughout the delivery and returns lifecycle and to keep customers informed when your customers’ parcels are facing uncommon delivery issues such as weather-related delays during the holiday season
Send follow-up emails requesting reviews or feedback about the purchased product.
Trigger personalized upsell or cross-sell emails featuring products that complement the customer’s recent purchase. For example, if a customer has recently purchased a camera, you can recommend accessories like lenses or tripods.

2. Enhance Your Customer Support Reps Tracking and Delivery Visibility Using Delivery Experience Platforms + Help desk Integration

Delivery experience platforms like LateShipment.com can transform the post-purchase journey by providing real-time tracking and predictive delivery alerts whenever something goes wrong with your customers’ orders.

You can extend this post-purchase visibility to your helpdesk platforms such as Zendesk, Gorgias, or Freshdesk to

Automate responses to common queries such as “Where is my order?” or “How do I return an item?” during peak shopping periods to enhance customer satisfaction and reduce support workload.
Automatically trigger delivery-related tickets for several common delivery issues and enable your customer support team to proactively resolve delivery issues by stepping in where necessary and taking necessary corrective measures.

Being proactive mitigates your customers’ worries and sets them on the path towards satisfaction. Moreover, it also reduces the burden on your support team during the busy season and lets them focus on product-related queries. Also, taking preemptive action results in your customers appreciating your efforts, which can prove to be fruitful during times like the Holiday season.

3. Streamline Your Returns Process Via Integrating Your E-commerce Platform/ OMS

An efficient returns process is crucial for maintaining customer satisfaction, especially during the holiday season when return rates tend to spike. Returns management software, such as LateShipment.com, can help streamline this process.

Integrating your e-commerce store or Order Management Systems such as Shopify, BigCommerce, Magento, Linnworks, ShipStation, etc, can enable you to streamline your shipping processes and enhance the post-purchase experience.

This integration allows businesses to automatically sync order data, track shipments in real time, and proactively manage delivery exceptions. Additionally and more importantly, this integration also allows businesses to provide seamless returns experiences via:

Allowing customers to initiate returns, print labels, and track the status of their returns through a self-service portal and thereby reducing the manual workload for support teams
Leveraging returns data to identify common reasons for returns and make adjustments to product descriptions, quality control, or sizing information.
Improve revenue by incentivizing customers to opt for exchanges or store credit over refunds for each return

And ultimately make returns easy, frictionless, and an integral part of your post-purchase strategy.

One Simple Integration, a World of Retail Benefits

Pairing LateShipment.com with your existing e-commerce, order management, marketing automation, and helpdesk tools allows you to tap into all the great benefits that can take your business to the next level.

LateShipment.com integrates seamlessly with your existing tools and makes it possible to boost their capabilities in the following ways:

Additionally, LateShipment.com also can integrate with custom-built tools and platforms. Our API makes it easy to enable such integrations.

At LateShipment.com, we are committed to enabling your business to wrest control of the post-purchase experience you provide customers. Therefore, integrate your tech-stack with LateShipment.com and stand apart from your competitors by offering your customers near white-glove service in the post-purchase phase.

Ready to try out some of our integrations? – Get Started

Still have questions? – Talk to our integration expert

The post Leverage Existing Tech Stack To Build Exciting Post-Purchase Experiences This Holiday Season appeared first on Lateshipment.com.

Package Delivery (and Returns) Satisfaction Ratings: Driving Customer Retention and Revenue Growth

Sashank Ravindranath — Sun, 20 Oct 2024 09:44:09 +0000

Today’s consumers have more choices than ever when it comes to their shopping needs.

With customer experience (CX) being a cornerstone of customers choosing brands to shop with, you need to go above and beyond to provide a positive delivery and returns experience in order to keep customers coming back.

Here’s what the stats have to say:

95% of customers share negative experiences online, compared to 47% who share positive experiences online
93% of customers read online reviews before making a purchase.
74% of consumers say they would stop doing business if they had a bad experience.
86% of buyers are willing to pay more for a great customer experience.

Fierce competition and a low threshold for customer tolerance. There’s only one way to counter both. Raise the bar with your CX and spread the word out to attract other potential shoppers. The best way to do both — simply ask them.

Satisfaction Ratings: A Metric to Measure Delivery Experience Quality

At its heart, the Satisfaction rating (SAT score) is a surprisingly simple system that allows your customers to rate their delivery experiences on a scale of 1–5.

After each successful delivery or return, these ratings give you a clear and unbiased view of customer sentiment about the quality of the experience you offer. They act as a window into the world of customer experience, allowing businesses to gauge how well they’re meeting their customers’ expectations.

These unprecedented insights stand to benefit your e-commerce business by helping you:

Measure Post-Purchase Customer Experience on Par with Pre-Checkout Customer Experience – While most businesses place a great deal of emphasis on the onsite experience they offer their customers, the post-purchase phase is inevitably neglected. While CSAT and NPS provide an idea of customer sentiment in the pre-checkout stage, DSAT and RSAT can help shine a light on the quality of your post-purchase phase

Identify Which Areas of Your Logistics Operation Need Attention – The feedback mechanism that the DSAT or RSAT system provides allows you to unambiguously identify which areas of your logistics operation need attention in order to allay customer concerns. By identifying areas of improvement and taking appropriate action, you can now address issues, rectify mistakes, and streamline your delivery and returns processes. In the long run, this leads to operational efficiency, cost savings, and improved customer experiences.

Understanding customer satisfaction levels in the order delivery or returns phase is just one part of things, the important challenge remains in the form of amplifying customer satisfaction, as it translates to increased retention and profits.

The Importance of Positive Customer Feedback Around Delivery and Returns Satisfaction Ratings

Satisfaction Ratings: A Window into Customer Retention

DSAT (Delivery Satisfaction) ratings provide a detailed assessment of customers’ delivery experiences by measuring key factors such as delivery timeliness, tracking accuracy, and the quality of communication throughout the shipping process.

RSAT (Returns Satisfaction) ratings provide e-commerce businesses with a comprehensive measure of their customers’ returns experience. Customers can rate their experiences based on factors such as ease of returns processing, clarity of returns policies, returns status communication, and speed of refunds.

These ratings provide customers with a platform to voice their opinions and share their experiences. By giving regular feedback, customers now feel heard and will more likely continue their association with your brand.

That’s not all! Each time a negative review is taken seriously and improvements are made, customers will begin to trust the brand with their choices. As this becomes a routine, happy customers become loyal patrons and will return time and again.

On the other hand, for your business, these ratings offer valuable insights into how satisfied customers are with the delivery and return process, helps you identify areas for improvement.

The Domino Effect: Revenue Growth

Customer retention is closely linked to revenue growth.

Satisfied customers not only come back for more, but they also become brand advocates. They recommend the brand to friends, family, and even share their positive experiences on social media.

Moreover, satisfied customers are more likely to explore other offerings from the same brand. Cross-selling and upselling opportunities increase as customers gain confidence in your efforts to improve the delivery experience. This translates directly into higher average order values and increased revenue per customer.

How E-Commerce Businesses Can Improve Delivery Satisfaction Ratings

Here are some ways your retail business can boost customer satisfaction in the last mile:

Improve on-time deliveries: One of the top-most expectations of customers when it comes to delivery satisfaction is their packages being delivered on time or even earlier. On the other hand, each time there’s an unannounced delay, there’s a possibility of a negative review that can affect your overall satisfaction scores.
Improve returns processes: Offer a seamless, self-service returns experience to customers where they can easily initiate returns, print return labels, and track the status of their refunds.
Ensure proactive communication: Delays are inevitable and almost all customers understand this. This is why, despite the underlying disappointment, they will appreciate your efforts to keep them informed about the status of their orders.
Focus on proper packaging: Ensure that the contents of your customer’s purchase are well-protected from damage during the shipping process via proper packaging techniques such as using the right box, sufficient protective measures, and fragile stickers (if necessary). During times like the holiday season, customers also appreciate receiving their packages in themed and personalized packaging.
Bring in efficiency to your customer support: The chances of all your customers’ parcels facing issues while it’s on its way to reaching their doorstep are low but never zero. In such cases, customers expect to be able to get the help they deserve from your customer support representative. By empowering your customer support team to step in before customer impact and proactively address issues, you can boost your customers’ confidence to keep shopping with you.
Invest in technology: There are a number of technologies that can help businesses improve their delivery processes, such as real-time and self-serve tracking, predictive analytics, automated ticket creation, proactive notifications, etc. These technologies can help businesses to improve on-time deliveries and to provide customers with more information about the status of their orders (delivery and returns).

In the quest for constant enhancement of delivery and return satisfaction ratings, you can adopt these data-driven strategies to take a proactive approach that not only prevents future disappointments but also showcases the brand’s commitment to providing your customers with a great post-purchase experience.

Decode customer actions in the post-purchase order delivery phase with LateShipment.com

LateShipment.com doesn’t just help you deliver phenomenal experiences but also helps you understand whether all that money, time and effort spent is working in your favor or not.

By capturing customers’ delivery and returns experience ratings, you can now learn from your customers about the experience your brand delivered. All you have to do now is to consistently direct efforts and get those 5-star ratings that promote brand credibility.

That’s not all! LateShipment.com also helps you gain insights on:

User engagement metrics – To measure how your customers are engaging with your brand post-purchase via your tracking page, emails, and SMS notifications and to know what your most effective channels are
Carrier Performance Scores – To review your carrier choices based on a detailed assessment of how your carrier’s delivery performance fares against service-specific delivery standards.

Conclusion

In the ever-evolving landscape of e-commerce, package delivery and return satisfaction ratings emerge as a critical factor in driving customer retention and revenue growth. They offer customers a voice, allowing them to shape the way brands operate. By paying attention to these ratings, businesses can build trust, enhance customer experiences, and pave the way for long-term success. After all, a satisfied customer today is an ambassador for the brand tomorrow.

The post Package Delivery (and Returns) Satisfaction Ratings: Driving Customer Retention and Revenue Growth appeared first on Lateshipment.com.

How to Choose the Right Shipping Insurance For Your Business

Sashank Ravindranath — Thu, 17 Oct 2024 05:34:42 +0000

Despite state-of-the-art tracking systems and parcel protection strategies, there’s always the possibility of your customers’ packages getting lost, damaged in transit or stolen.

This is where shipping insurance comes in — to protect your bottom line from unexpected losses. But with so many options out there, how do you choose the right insurance that suits your e-commerce business?

That’s where we come in — to guide you through the essential factors to consider when choosing a shipping insurance provider.

1. Understand Your Shipping Risks

Shipping insurance is never unnecessary. However, there may be cases where the cumulative cost of insurance might be higher than the occasional loss you experience as a business.

In such cases, before choosing a shipping insurance provider, you need to evaluate the specific risks your business faces. For instance, if you’re shipping electronics, luxury goods, or fragile items — you are at a higher risk for damage and loss and thereby need insurance more than ever.

Ask yourself the following questions:

What kind of items am I shipping (Fragile or high-value)?
How often do I experience lost or damaged shipments (Frequency of issues)?

Understanding these factors will help you choose an insurance provider that offers the right level of protection based on the risks you face.

2. Compare Shipping Insurance Options (Carrier-Provided vs Third-Party)

Many e-commerce businesses rely on carrier-provided insurance, which can be convenient but may not always offer the best value or coverage. To put it into comparison:

Carrier-Provided Insurance: Shipping carriers like UPS, FedEx, and USPS often offer insurance as part of their shipping services. While this is convenient, the coverage limits can be restrictive
Third-Party Shipping Insurance: A third-party insurance provider offers more flexibility and often provides broader coverage options than carrier-provided insurance. They may also be cost-effective for businesses with high shipment volumes.

3. Determine Coverage Options

Not all shipping insurance policies are equal. Different providers offer varying levels of coverage depending on the type of goods, shipment destinations, and the specific needs of your business.

Here are some factors to consider:

Comprehensive Coverage: Protects against a wide range of risks, including loss, damage, and theft.
Maximum Coverage Limit: Sufficient coverage for your most valuable items
Exclusions:Specific items or scenarios that the insurance won’t cover, such as high-risk international shipments, perishable goods, partial coverage (loss but not damage or certain shipping methods), etc
International Coverage: Ensure your provider covers international shipments if you sell globally.

Make sure you choose insurance that aligns with your shipping habits and the level of protection you require. If your products are high-value or shipped to locations with higher risk, you’ll want more comprehensive coverage. Choose an insurance provider that offers flexibility in coverage limits, allowing you to adjust based on the value of each shipment.

4. Consider Rule-Based Shipping Insurance

One of the latest innovations in shipping insurance is rule-based insurance, which allows e-commerce businesses to automatically apply insurance based on specific conditions.

For example, you can set pre-set rules to:

Automatically insure orders above a certain value.
Set insurance rules for fragile or high-risk items.
Customize policies based on customer location or shipping methods.

This flexibility not only saves time but ensures that you’re only paying for insurance when necessary, avoiding the cost of insuring low-risk shipments while fully protecting high-value orders.

5. Evaluate the claims process

A key aspect of shipping insurance is how easy and fast it is to file and resolve claims. When evaluating shipping insurance providers, pay close attention to:

Claims Filing Process: Is the process straightforward, or does it involve complicated paperwork?
Claims Resolution Time: How long does it take to process and approve claims?

Filing claims manually can be time-consuming and often results in delays in receiving reimbursement.

When choosing a shipping insurance provider, look for those that offer automated claims management. With LateShipment.com, all things insurance happen inside a unified portal, giving you access to a centralized view of submitting claims, tracking statuses, and everything else, thereby helping you save time and improve accountability.

Final Word

Choosing the right shipping insurance for your e-commerce business is an important decision that can save you time, money, and headaches in the long run.

By understanding your shipping risks, comparing options, automating insurance for high-value shipments, and evaluating the claims process, you can find the insurance solution that best fits your business needs.

Platforms like LateShipment.com make it even easier by integrating automated, rule-based shipping insurance into your workflow, giving you peace of mind with every shipment.

Investing in the right shipping insurance not only protects your business but also ensures a smoother experience for your customers, leading to higher satisfaction and loyalty.

The post How to Choose the Right Shipping Insurance For Your Business appeared first on Lateshipment.com.

What is E-Commerce Automation And How It Works For Your Business

Sashank Ravindranath — Tue, 08 Oct 2024 09:22:56 +0000

Did you know that e-commerce sales are expected to grow to $6.3 trillion in 2024 and $7.9 trillion by 2027?

Verdict: E-commerce is growing. And the result — competing businesses, especially market leaders are keen to lean on innovation in order to stay relevant and at the top. If you’d like to be a part of these succeeding businesses, all you have to do is two things: streamline your operations and exceed your customers’ expectations.

If your goal is to achieve that and thrive in this highly competitive market, you don’t have to do anything new. The framework is already set. E-commerce is already undergoing a transformation trend through automation. All you need to do is to keep up. But what exactly is e-commerce automation, and how can it transform your business?

Understanding E-Commerce Automation

E-commerce automation refers to the use of technology to automate repetitive tasks of an e-commerce business. It works via APIs and plugins to sync with your store to automate tasks based on triggers or specific workflows.

In simple terms, as a small business, you might have the provision to manually handle tasks such as handling inventory or processing orders. However, as the business scales and order volumes go up, these tasks can become cumbersome and error-prone. This is where automation comes in — to take care of these time-consuming processes and allow merchants and respective teams to focus on more strategic aspects of the business.

Since e-commerce is a broad spectrum of activities, experts generally classify automating tasks into front-end automation (customer-front tasks such as email marketing and chatbots for customer support) and back-end automation (tasks to streamline operations such as inventory management).

Now that we’re clear on the basics, let’s move on to the other focus of this article, how does automation work for your e-commerce business?

How E-Commerce Automation Works For Your Business

A key component of e-commerce automation software is that it should integrate with your existing e-commerce platform (Shopify, WooCommerce, Magento, or any other). This is because your e-commerce store launched on a particular platform serves as the central hub for your business operations and contains data on customer orders, inventory levels, product catalogs, shipping details, and more.

If e-commerce automation has a purpose, it is to ensure that the business aligns with its goals more effectively — bring in additional revenue and keep existing revenue from getting lost. To achieve that, let’s take a look at some of the most important ways to enable automation in your e-commerce business.

Key processes that can be automated

1. Inventory Management

Issue: Running out of popular products, especially during peak seasons, can result in lost sales and missed opportunities. This can lead to a negative customer experience, lost revenue, and a permanently damaged brand reputation.

Task: Preventing stockouts

Actions:

Continuously monitor stock levels across multiple sales channels and provide a unified view of your inventory, ensuring that stock levels are always up to date in real time.
Set predefined inventory thresholds for each product. When stock levels fall below a certain point, the system triggers an automatic alert, notifying you that it’s time to restock.
Automatically place restock orders with your suppliers.
Forecast future inventory needs based on historical sales data and trends.
Provide detailed reporting and analytics on your inventory performance to easily track which products are selling the fastest, which are slow-moving, and where bottlenecks might occur.

Benefits:

This proactive approach ensures you never run out of best-selling products, allowing you to fulfill customer demand without interruptions.
For instance, items that have not sold for a long period — can be flagged, allowing you to take corrective action, such as discontinuing the product.

TLDR: Effective inventory management is crucial for e-commerce businesses to meet customer demand without overstocking or running into shortages. Automation tools can significantly streamline this process and can help you transform your e-commerce operations.

2. Order Management

Issue: Manually processing orders is a time-consuming task

Task:

Instantly generate shipping labels as soon as an order is ready for fulfillment.
Once the order is shipped, automation can intelligently route orders to the closest or most appropriate fulfillment center based on factors like customer location and shipping costs.
Eliminate manual record-keeping by beginning the fulfillment process as soon as orders are placed

Benefit: Ensures faster delivery times, reduces shipping costs, eliminates complexities, frees up time for your employees to focus on other tasks, and minimizes human error.

TLDR: Order management is an area that is best suited to be automated in e-commerce. As your business grows and orders pour in, automating order fulfillment-related tasks ensures reduced human errors and speeds up the fulfillment process.

3. Customer Support

Issue: Customers today want instant gratification and have very little patience and a low threshold for errors in the order tracking phase.

Task:

By integrating helpdesk software or using chatbots, businesses can respond to customer inquiries instantly
Automate email responses for common issues, further reducing customer wait times
Automated chatbots are programmed to handle frequently asked questions (FAQs) that customers often have, such as checking order status, delivery dates, return policies, or shipping costs. Rather than waiting for a customer service representative to respond, chatbots provide immediate answers 24/7, even outside of business hours
There will always be complex issues that require human intervention. In these cases, chatbots and helpdesk systems can be programmed to collect relevant information (such as order details or the nature of the problem) and escalate the issue to the support team, ensuring that the human agent is fully prepared to assist the customer.
Automated customer support tools can also be personalized based on customer data. For example, chatbots and automated email systems can greet customers by name, reference their order history, and offer relevant solutions based on previous interactions.

Benefit:

Especially useful for handling common questions like order status (WISMO – “Where is my order?”) or return policies.
Significantly reduces the customer service team’s workload and customer wait times, especially during high-volume periods like the holiday season.
A personalized touch makes customers feel valued and ensures that their issues are addressed more efficiently.

TLDR: Automation works across multiple channels, including website chat, email, social media, and SMS. Many businesses use omnichannel customer support strategies, and integrating automated chatbots and helpdesk software ensures that no matter where the customer reaches out from, they receive a consistent and immediate response.

4. Marketing Automation

Issue: On average, nearly 70% of online shopping carts are abandoned before a purchase is completed.

Task:

Automated marketing tools can detect when a customer leaves the site without completing their purchase and trigger a series of follow-up emails to encourage them to return and complete their transaction.
Personalization is key to successful marketing. By analyzing customer behavior, such as browsing history, past purchases, and interactions with your site, these platforms can generate automated emails that suggest products tailored to the individual’s preferences. For instance, if a customer frequently purchases skincare products, the system can automatically send personalized recommendations for complementary products, such as moisturizers or serums
Send triggered email sequences based on specific customer actions or milestones. These actions might include signing up for a newsletter, making a first purchase, or leaving a review.

Benefits:

This increases the likelihood of repeat purchases by enhancing the customer experience by providing value through relevant product suggestions.
Engage customers at every stage of their journey, providing timely and relevant communication that keeps them connected to your brand
Fosters emotional connections with your brand, leading to long-term loyalty

TLDR: Automated marketing campaigns are essential for e-commerce businesses looking to nurture customer relationships, increase engagement, and drive sales by setting up highly targeted, data-driven campaigns that are triggered by specific customer actions or behaviors.

5. Post-Purchase Experience

Issue: The post-purchase experience is a critical, yet often overlooked, phase in the customer journey.

Task:

One of the biggest concerns for customers after making a purchase is knowing when their order will arrive. Automated delivery notifications can keep customers informed every step of the way. From the moment the order is shipped to when it’s out for delivery and finally delivered, automated tools can send timely updates via email, SMS, or even in-app notifications.
By monitoring shipment statuses and tracking potential issues like late deliveries, automation tools can trigger proactive responses to affected customers. For example, if a customer’s order is delayed, the system can automatically send an apology email along with an updated delivery estimate, a discount for future purchases, or free shipping on the next order as a goodwill gesture.
When a customer decides to return an item, the system can generate a return label automatically and send it to the customer via email or set up a portal to provide step-by-step instructions on how to return the product. Automation tools can also track the returned item with real-time updates on their refund status.

Benefit:

Reduce customer anxiety and minimize the volume of WISMO (Where Is My Order) inquiries, common during the post-purchase phase to make sure that customers no longer need to reach out to ask for updates.
Resolve delivery issues such as late deliveries and lost and damaged packages before they escalate into customer complaints.
Make the returns processes can be made effortless, transparent, and customer-friendly.

TLDR: While most businesses unwittingly miss out on their efforts, providing exceptional post-purchase experiences can help build long-term loyalty, encourage repeat business, and improve customer satisfaction. Automation plays a vital role in enhancing the post-purchase experience by ensuring that every aspect—delivery notifications, customer feedback collection, and returns — is handled efficiently and seamlessly.

Benefits of E-Commerce Automation for Your Business

Increased Efficiency and Productivity – By automating repetitive tasks, businesses can free up valuable time that can be spent on more strategic areas like product development or marketing. Automation reduces the need for manual intervention, allowing employees to focus on growth initiatives.

Cost Savings – Automation reduces the need for large teams handling manual tasks like order management, inventory tracking, or customer support. This translates into significant cost savings in labor and resources, allowing businesses to scale without proportionally increasing operational costs.

Improved Customer Experience – Via proactive order status updates and issue resolution, automation helps businesses deliver a better CX, particularly in the post-purchase phase. Automation also ensures faster response times and personalized customer support experiences.

Scalability – As your business grows, manual processes can become bottlenecks. Automation ensures that your e-commerce operations can scale seamlessly to handle more orders, customers, and queries without needing additional resources.
Error Reduction – Human errors, such as incorrect order fulfillment or missed inventory restocks, can cost businesses both time and money. Automation minimizes the chances of these mistakes, leading to more accurate operations and happier customers.

Time To Automate Your E-Commerce Business’ Processes

As sales increase and operations scale, e-commerce businesses must keep up with the pace of change.

Maintaining high customer satisfaction can sometimes seem nearly impossible. However, by implementing well-designed automation strategies, merchants can reduce the burden of manual processes while prioritizing the customer experience.

Automation can consolidate sales channels, manage inventory across those channels, and coordinate shipping. Automation is the key to connecting your business to customers where they already spend their time, in a way that provides them a seamless experience, so that they will return again and again.

The post What is E-Commerce Automation And How It Works For Your Business appeared first on Lateshipment.com.

BFCM 2024: How E-commerce Businesses Can Prepare for Success

Sashank Ravindranath — Wed, 02 Oct 2024 14:01:38 +0000

Just like how the Super Bowl is a day for sports enthusiasts or the re-release of a famous franchise movie is a treat for the fans, Black Friday and Cyber Monday (BFCM) is a tailor-made event for e-commerce businesses to boost revenue, attract new customers, and build brand loyalty.

As BFCM 2024 approaches in less than two months, it’s time for you to be well-prepared to capitalize on the opportunities and stand out from the competition. To help you do that, we’ve come up with this BFCM special where we’ll explore preparation strategies and provide tips for a successful 2024 season, using insights from previous years and evolving trends.

What is BFCM and Why is it Special for E-commerce Businesses?

BFCM is a two–way street, customers have been following the tradition of shopping more than usual for Thanksgiving gifts from the brick-and-mortar days, and with the rise of e-commerce, customers who wanted to get their shopping done ASAP to prevent their favorite products from going out of stock, began shopping for Christmas right at the end of Thanksgiving. Businesses too saw this as an opportunity to spur them to spend more via sweet deals.

Technically BFCM is just Black Friday and Cyber Monday (the Friday and Monday following Thursday’s Thanksgiving). However, in the recent past, due to increased shopping sprees and businesses’ efforts to capture more sales, BFCM has become much more than just two days of deals and is now Thanksgiving, Black Friday, Small Businesses Saturday, and Cyber Monday, also dubbed as the Thanksgiving Weekend or Cyber Five.

There’s usually high demand for items such as toys, home furnishings, mattresses, and apparel on Black Friday. At the same time, Cyber Monday is known for low prices on tech-related merchandise, like smartphones, laptops, TVs, gaming consoles, and VR devices.

BFCM also marks the unofficial start of the peak holiday shopping season, where you have to come up with effective strategies to increase sales and prevent issues that might affect your goals.

Why BFCM stands out for e-commerce businesses

Largest shopping event of the year – BFCM has evolved into the biggest shopping event, generating billions of dollars in sales over a few days. Consumers actively seek deals, and businesses see record-breaking sales, often surpassing the entire quarter.
High customer acquisition potential – BFCM is synonymous with deep discounts and exclusive offers. Shoppers expect lucrative deals and are prepared to make more and more purchases during this time. For you, this is a prime time to reach a broader audience and acquire new customers.
Increase sales revenue – For many e-commerce businesses, BFCM accounts for a large portion of their annual sales. Some businesses say as much as 20-30% of their annual sales volume is generated during this short period. This makes it a crucial event for you to maximize revenue and meet your sales goals.
Boost brand awareness – With customers actively looking for deals, BFCM creates the opportunity for you to dramatically boost your brand’s visibility by running well-targeted marketing campaigns and increasing your share of voice in a competitive market.
Increased customer retention opportunities – If your retention game is as strong as your acquisition, then BFCM is the best time to build long-term relationships (through exceptional post-purchase experiences) and convert one-time holiday shoppers into repeat customers.

In summary, BFCM is special because it is a short window of opportunity to access a large pool of potential customers and set the tone for long-term business growth. It’s a crucial moment, where you need to capitalize on consumer demand and cement your presence in a crowded marketplace.

Key Preparation Strategies for BFCM 2024

Here are some tips and tricks for you to make the best out of BFCM 2024:

1. Start early: create buzz and build anticipation

The BFCM hype doesn’t start on the day — it builds over weeks or even months. Most customers have their top pick of purchase in mind as early as July while looking for the best deal to get them. If you’d like to make the most of this, you should begin teasing deals and promotions to build excitement. For starters, you can offer early access deals to create a sense of urgency or exclusive offers for loyal customers.

64% of consumers surveyed plan to take advantage of early promotions and discounts.

2. Optimize your website for traffic surges

BFCM attracts a massive influx of visitors, so it’s essential to ensure your website can handle the increased traffic without crashing or slowing down. Test your website’s performance and optimize page speed. Also, make sure that your store offers the same level of seamless experience on both desktop and mobile, as a large portion of BFCM shopping happens on mobile devices.

In 2023, a record 79% of Cyber Week e-commerce traffic originated from mobile phones.

3. Fine-tune your inventory and delivery processes

One of the worst things that can happen during BFCM is running out of stock or delayed orders. To avoid this, plan your inventory well in advance by analyzing data such as last year’s sales data and anticipated demand or predictions based on carrier delay rates. You can also consider strengthening your supply chain by coordinating with suppliers to have an accurate inventory or shipping with multiple carriers to ensure on-time deliveries.

4. Offer competitive promotions and deals

Discounts are the main attraction during BFCM, everybody’s doing it. So, how can you do things differently to beat the competition? The answer: think beyond basic percentage cuts. Offer bundles, free shipping, and limited-time flash sales to entice customers. A good ploy is to implement tiered discounts to increase the average order value, such as “Spend $100, save 20%.”

With the checklist or ‘must-haves’ for BFCM covered, we’ll move on to the next section: the list of items that will be the ‘talk of the town’ for this year’s BFCM.

E-commerce Trends for BFCM 2024

As mentioned, for e-commerce businesses, BFCM is a golden opportunity to boost sales and acquire new customers. It’s that time of the year when people have their wallets readily open.

Over the years, there’s been a lot of innovative trends and campaigns driving sales. Let’s look at some unique strategies that e-commerce brands must incorporate to stand out during BFCM 2024.

1. Personalization will be at the forefront

In 2024, customers expect more personalized shopping experiences. AI-powered personalization tools have become more accessible, allowing e-commerce businesses to tailor product recommendations and promotions based on individual customer behavior. By using data from previous interactions based on customer preferences or shopping history, you can create highly targeted email campaigns, show personalized offers on their website, and offer custom discount codes.

2. Omnichannel shopping experience

With shoppers engaging across multiple platforms (websites, apps, social media, and even physical stores), providing a seamless omnichannel experience is paramount. You need to leverage tools that unify customer data across channels and allow you to offer consistent and personalized experiences, regardless of how customers engage. For instance, promotions or items added to a cart on social media should sync with the e-commerce website or app for a smoother shopping journey.

3. Video commerce and live-streaming shopping

Video commerce has been on the rise, with platforms like TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube enabling brands to showcase their products through short-form videos or live shopping events. Integrating shoppable video content or hosting livestream events with exclusive BFCM deals and real-time discounts can help create a sense of urgency.

4. Social commerce

Social commerce has continued to grow in 2024, with platforms like Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook offering native shopping features. Brands should focus on creating direct shopping experiences within social platforms, making it easier for customers to purchase products without leaving the app. Using BFCM-specific hashtags, promoting exclusive deals, and leveraging user-generated content are some strategies that can enhance your reach and boost conversions.

Over 73% of people actively shop on social media for Black Friday in 2024.

5. Influencer and affiliate partnerships

In 2024, influencer and affiliate marketing remain powerful channels for BFCM promotions. Partnering with influencers who align with your brand allows you to tap into their engaged audiences, while affiliate programs can amplify your reach. Both approaches can help you reach new customers who might not have discovered your brand through traditional advertising.

Most businesses who give their all to implement the aforementioned strategies miss out on putting the same effort to optimize their post-purchase. One of the primary reasons behind this disparity is that businesses often assume that a BFCM sale ends with the customer’s purchase. While that’s partly true, your after-sale efforts such as offering a seamless post-purchase experience can improve repeat purchases and turn one-time BFCM shoppers into regular customers.

Here are some strategies to optimize your post-purchase right on time for this year’s BFCM.

Post-Purchase Strategies for BFCM 2024 Success

1.Handle WISMO (Where Is My Order) inquiries in advance

The surge in orders during BFCM inevitably leads to an increase in customer inquiries around order status. Implementing proactive communication with customers about their order status can drastically reduce these WISMO inquiries and improve customer satisfaction. For starters, you can automate shipping updates through email or SMS by using real-time tracking tools to keep customers informed of their orders at all times.

2. Automate post-purchase customer service for delivery issues

Delivery issues are frequent during times like BFCM due to high shipping volumes. In order to minimize their effect, you need to stay on top of them instead of relying on the carrier to take action. You can make use of automation to enable proactive customer service — such as notifying customers of potential delays. This can help prevent your support reps from getting overwhelmed while reducing frustrations by providing your customers with immediate assistance.

3. Ensure a seamless returns process

With higher order volumes comes the likelihood of more returns. Offering a clear, easy-to-navigate returns process can encourage hesitant customers to buy with confidence, knowing they can return or exchange items if necessary. Also, customers might already feel frustrated having to return their holiday purchases. So, make returns as easy as possible to mitigate their dissonance. Here’s how you can do it — provide a self-service returns portal that automates the entire process to streamline the experience.

4. Create loyalty programs and VIP access

Customer loyalty has become a top priority in 2024, and leveraging exclusive VIP programs or early access for your most loyal customers can significantly boost sales during BFCM. Offering special deals to existing customers before BFCM begins, along with reward points or exclusive perks, helps strengthen customer relationships and encourages repeat purchases. Additionally, VIP access can create a sense of exclusivity, driving early sales.

Think you’ve got it all figured out? We’ve got more. Here are some last-minute tips and tricks that can help you with your whole BFCM strategy.

Last-Minute Tips to Maximize BFCM 2024 Sales

Leverage Social Proof: Showcase customer reviews, testimonials, and user-generated content across your website and social platforms to build trust with new shoppers.
Ramp Up Customer Support: Prepare your customer support team for increased inquiries by adding extra hands or using automated tools to handle common questions. Ensure live chat options are readily available for quick assistance.
Abandoned Cart Recovery: Set up email reminders or retargeting ads for customers who leave items in their carts. Use incentives like free shipping or additional discounts to encourage them to complete their purchase.
Use Countdown Timers: Add urgency to your offers with countdown timers for flash sales, limited-time deals, or when stock is running low. This drives conversions and reduces cart abandonment.

BFCM can be one of the most profitable weekends you can have if you have the proper strategies in place. If the customer is impressed with your BFCM, if the customer is comfortable with the BFCM experience, they might revisit your website to buy something else for the holidays.

In the moments leading up to BFCM 2024, take a deep breath and trust in your thorough preparation. The potential for growth and success is significant, and your dedication to serving your customers and delivering value will be the foundation of your achievements.

Here’s to a successful Black Friday and Cyber Monday, filled with joy, growth, and memorable customer experiences.

Happy Holidays!

The post BFCM 2024: How E-commerce Businesses Can Prepare for Success appeared first on Lateshipment.com.

How to File UPS Claims for Service Failures

Sashank Ravindranath — Mon, 23 Sep 2024 07:37:22 +0000

Despite a massive fleet, state-of-the-art tracking systems, and delivery procedures, your customers’ parcels shipped through United Parcel Service (UPS) can be delayed, lost, or damaged in transit.

Behemoths such as UPS strive to provide an impeccable service every time. This is what leads them to provide a money-back guarantee for most services under their Service Guarantee.

Shippers who have faced service failures and billing errors at the hands of UPS can request a refund on their shipping costs. But before submitting UPS claims, here’s something to understand UPS’ Service Guarantee even better, so that we can get better at claiming UPS refunds.

Understanding UPS’ Service Guarantee and Refund Options

UPS’ Service Guarantee exists for orders that are delivered later than the scheduled delivery time/ date, then UPS owes the shipper a refund on the shipping cost. In simple terms, it is a ‘delivery will arrive on time or free’ guarantee made by UPS.

Service Guarantee (previously Guaranteed Service Refunds or GSR) is part of the shipping contract that stipulates that UPS will refund 100% of shipping charges if parcel delivery is delayed by even 60 seconds except in exceptional circumstances (natural disasters, weather delays, etc).

UPS offers Service Guarantee for most of its services, including UPS Ground, UPS Next Day Air, UPS 2nd Day Air, UPS 3 Day Select, and UPS Freight.

Apart from the Service Guarantee, UPS also offers a provision to file refund claims for issues such as lost or damaged shipments and billing errors that result in overcharges.

Now that we’re familiar with the basics of Service Guarantee and UPS refunds for service failures and billing errors, it’s time to explore things further.

Things to keep in mind before filing UPS refund claims

Filing claims through UPS and getting refunds might look really straightforward but there can be occurrences where your refund claim may get rejected (not quality for a refund).

For instance,

Not all UPS services (UPS SurePost, etc) are eligible for the Service Guarantee. Check if the shipment service you’ve opted for is eligible under Service Guarantee
Your agreement with the carrier can prevent you from claiming credits. Make sure you haven’t signed a Service Guarantee waiver and given up your right to claim refunds
The delivery issue has happened outside of UPS’s control (weather-related delays, customs issues, etc.)
The shipment is sent around the holidays when there are peak season exclusions (UPS temporarily turns off Service Guarantee due to high shipping volume that strains their performance).

If you’ve ticked all these boxes and are sure that your shipment qualifies for a UPS refund, then let’s move on to how you can submit claims via UPS.

How to File UPS Claims for Service Failures

Filing refund claims is a step-by-step process that can be really easy if you’re familiar with the basics:

1.Prepare required information

Have all the necessary information ready that streamlines the start of this process. This includes gathering the following details such as tracking number, date of shipment, shipment weight, details of the package content, value of the goods (if filing for loss or damage), invoices or proof of the product’s value, etc,.

2. Initiate the claim

Once you have all the required information, you can proceed with the to file a claim.

Go to the UPS site and choose “File a Claim” under the “Support Resources” section. You can also find one under the “Quick Links” tab in the homepage
Log into your UPS account to file a claim (you can also file claims as a guest)
Fill out the details requested such as tracking number, your status (shipper, receiver, third-party, etc)
Select the reason for the claim — late delivery, lost package, etc
Upload any documentation or other evidence to support your claim (photos, payment receipts, product descriptions, etc)
Submit your claim

Or, you can also contact the number of UPS claims support at 1-800-PICK-UPS (1-800-742-5877) and say “Refund.”. Plus direct numbers are available for more load-specific claims.

3. Monitor your claim

After submitting, you can monitor the status of your claim in your UPS account under the Claims History section. UPS typically takes up to 10 business days to process claims and at this point, they may request additional information if necessary.

4. Receive your compensation

If your claim is approved, UPS will compensate you for the service failure by refunding the shipping costs.

While this looks relatively simple, however, it is not always the case. The process for manually filing UPS claims is a hassle to claim refunds, especially for businesses that ship frequently.

What Makes Manually Filing UPS Claims a Hassle

The problem with manually filing UPS claims is simply the conditions that come along in the Service Guarantee that make it intentionally hard to get successful refunds.

The Service Guarantee is filled with fine-print clauses that you have to strictly meet or else your claims can get rejected.

First and foremost, check if you have signed a Service Guarantee waiver. This straightaway prevents you from claiming UPS refunds and is also not an efficient move.
Wait 24 hours from the expected delivery time to claim refunds for lost packages. There are chances for your package to be delivered to you. However, you can straightaway submit refunds for late deliveries (for select services).
Refund requests must be submitted within 15 calendar days of the scheduled delivery date or the date listed in the tracking details or your proof of delivery, whichever is later.
In the case of lost packages (after ruling out incidents of misplaced packages in your garage with your neighbor or porch pirates) you have less than 60 days from the delivery date to file a claim.
While manually filing refund claims, you have to make sure to enter the correct information such as the recipient’s name, address, date of shipment, package weight, tracking number, etc. Which can be tiresome and time-consuming.
The claim process itself can sometimes take up to 10 days to be completed.
The Service Guarantee does not apply to all services and destinations that UPS undertakes. Check for the validity of your claim!
You need to submit all shipping documentation including labels according to “UPS’s Guide to Labeling”.
In case of international shipments, you have to submit documentation required by the country of origin or destination to support your case.
If the parcel involves a Saturday delivery route label, that must be included as well.
The parcel must be tendered to UPS before the stipulated collection time. Check the timestamps to ensure that.
If the parcel requires additional handling, you are not eligible for a refund.

That’s not all! Your UPS claim can still be rejected with finer-print terms and conditions.

The process of manually submitting UPS claims is doable IF you only ship a parcel or two a month.

But if your volume is something i.e just remotely more than that, you need A SOLUTION THAT CAN ACTUALLY SCALE!

It is not that carriers such as UPS do not have all the documentation for them to make the process efficient. They intentionally don’t make the claim process easy so it puts people off from claiming the refund money they are rightfully eligible for.

How to Successfully File UPS Claims

Many business owners do not realize that unclaimed UPS refunds are just money left on the table. This money runs to the tune of over 3 billion dollars annually. But what should matter more to you is this: Experts say that you can bring your shipping budget down by up to 20% if you claim every single refund you are eligible for.

Market leaders have their own processes in place to automate the refund process. But what does every other business do?

Most SMBs do not have the bandwidth or money to invest in an in-house team to handle refunds. This is where LateShipment.com has your solution.

If you were probably not aware of this before, we have an automated parcel audit and shipping refunds tool.

All you need to do is integrate this tool into your existing shipping operations while you focus on your core business functions.

How LateShipment.com Can Help You Claim UPS Refunds [and Save up to 20% of Your Shipping Costs]

LateShipment.com exists to help businesses like yours hold your shipping carrier accountable and ensure that you do not lose money that is rightfully yours.

Our parcel audit and shipping refunds solution automatically audits your shipping invoices and identifies 50+ carrier errors from UPS such as lost or damaged packages, incorrect surcharges, etc to ensure maximum refund recovery.

Also, by monitoring and claiming refunds regularly on your claims dashboard, you can ensure better performance from your shipping carrier and result in more successful last-mile deliveries.

Not just UPS, LateShipment.com also helps you file claims and recover refunds from all major carriers such as DHL, FedEx, Purolator, and Canada Post… to name a few.

The value we add to businesses is most evident when experienced first-hand.

Talk to our product experts today to get started with this incredibly simple way of recovering refunds for late deliveries, lost and damaged parcels, and more. Make UPS pay what is rightfully yours.

Frequently Asked Questions about UPS Refund Claims

1. Can I get a refund if UPS is late?

Yes, UPS promises on-time delivery for various service types including late, damaged, lost and 50 other. If your package is late by even 60 seconds you are eligible for a complete refund.

2. How long does it take to get a refund from UPS?

The UPS claim process might take an average of 10-15 days depending on the service error.

3. How do I file a claim with UPS?

Check out for manual claims here. To have an automated claim process Sign Up with LateShipment.com and automatically file refundclaims for eligible packages.

4. Why didn’t I get a refund for my UPS late package?

There are multiple reasons why you might not have received a refund for a late UPS package, that includes:

Force majeure: The package gets delayed due to events beyond UPS’s control, such as weather or customs.
Service type: The type of service used may not have been guaranteed, such as UPS SurePost.
Shipping agreement: The shipping agreement (you signing a refund waiver) may have prevented you from claiming a refund, etc.

5. How can I make filing UPS refund claims easy?

Manually filing refund claims is always a hassle. To make things easy, it is best to make use of an automated parcel audit solution such as LateShipment.com that files claims on your behalf and also goes to the extent of depositing the refund money directly into your account.

The post How to File UPS Claims for Service Failures appeared first on Lateshipment.com.

How 3PL Providers Can Extend Their Capabilities With Post-Purchase Automation

Sashank Ravindranath — Thu, 19 Sep 2024 07:41:22 +0000

A report indicates that 90% of Fortune 500 businesses use 3PLs to handle their logistics and supply chain operations. The primary role of a 3PL provider is allowing their customers, i.e., primarily e-commerce and B2B businesses to scale without needing to invest in additional warehousing or labor. This includes warehousing, picking and packing, shipping, etc,.

Recently, there has been an increase in the herculean responsibility of the post-purchase phase (dealing with high customer expectations for timely, transparent, and reliable delivery). However, as your 3PL business scales and your customer base grows, managing post-purchase operations manually can become unmanageable.

The post-purchase phase comprises shipping, delivery, and returns — all of which you have almost no control over and have to rely on carriers and the experiences they provide.

As these areas, which you have no expertise in, now fall under your responsibility, achieving your fullest potential or meeting the end user’s expectations can be a real challenge.

Why Should 3PLs Reevaluate Their Post-Purchase Strategy?

1. You are overpaying shipping charges by 6-8%

Delivery issues like lost/damaged shipments pose a constant worry to the packages you’re in-charge of. While you can file claims and obtain refunds, the process to do it is difficult and time-consuming due to high shipping volumes. To make things worse, there are more than 50 carrier errors such as late deliveries, invalid delivery exceptions, incorrect surcharges, duplicate charges, etc. In the long term, this implies that you’re never actually getting full value from your carrier service.

Impact: When not kept in check, delivery issues and overcharges can lead to increased shipping costs and put a dent in your savings.

2. You have limited visibility into shipment status and carrier performance

As a 3PL provider, you often work with multiple businesses of different scales, in both e-commerce and brick-and-mortar formats, and ship through multiple carriers, each with their own tracking systems. This puts you in a position where you lack proper insights in the form of organized shipping analytics. Without a proper system in place, this can result in limited visibility into the exact status of shipments and the overall performance of carriers.

Impact: Limited visibility hinders your ability to provide accurate delivery estimates and proactively address potential issues. There’s also the lack of insights to optimize the overall efficiency of delivery operations (identifying underperforming carriers and optimizing carrier selection).

3. You lack opportunities to provide quality post-purchase experiences

3PL giants have their systems in place to scale, but what about the others? They have to compete amongst themselves to gain customers and keep them forever. Coming up with efforts to scale, such as value-added services to improve the customer experience, can be challenging, especially when you’re dealing with multiple carriers and a high volume of shipments.

Impact: E-commerce businesses always rely on 3PLs who offer the best possible service for them. This includes providers who emphasize customer experience. Lack of provisions here always puts you in the backseat, leading to low retention and revenue rates.

Of course, you can use up routine, repetitive tasks to manually optimize these processes and streamline workflows. However, these tasks are time-consuming and take away attention from more complex issues that need to be solved.

On the other hand, reducing manual effort provides you with more time to focus on important tasks around improving post-purchase processes. This can be achieved through technology and cost-saving measures, i.e, automation.

How Automation Helps 3PL Companies Maximize Value To Themselves And Their Customers

Automation is not the future. It’s already here (and you don’t want to stay left out).

By Integrating an intelligent post-purchase platform, you can join the many 3PLs that enable automation to optimize operations and thereby maximize value for you and your customers.

Automation for 3PL providers

1. Parcel audit and shipping refunds

As a 3PL provider, integrating automated parcel audit solutions into your service offerings acts as a differentiator in a competitive market.

How it works: A parcel audit system effortlessly goes through each and every invoice and manages all eligible claims, including those for lost and damaged shipments where service level agreements (SLAs) around delivery performance were not met, and automatically files claims for refunds for them.

Benefits: Automation of parcel audits and shipping refunds helps you recover costs by up to 20% associated with service failures and other billing errors. Also, by systematically identifying and addressing these discrepancies, you can reduce the time spent on manual audits and claims processing.

2. Shipping analytics

An extension of auditing shipping invoices and claiming refunds is its effect to give you detailed insights into carrier performance.

How it works: Audit systems help you with advanced shipping analytics that provide data-driven insights to identify patterns and trends, enabling you to make data-driven decisions about carrier and service selection. To make things even better, automation also allows you to track and monitor all customers’ shipments in-transit service failures in real-time and know what’s happening at a glance.

Benefits: Gain complete visibility into anticipating and resolving issues such as frequent delays. and other inefficiencies to make smarter shipping decisions that help in improving operations and optimizing shipping costs. This especially comes in handy during times like peak season, when shipping volumes are multifold and late delivery refunds with major carriers are temporarily suspended.

Automation for e-commerce businesses using 3PLs

3PL businesses need to differentiate themselves from competitors and customer retention acts as a key differentiating factor. It’s easy to connect these dots. You need to own your post-purchase process by delivering value-added services that go beyond the basics and help you improve retention (and revenue).

1. Reduce customer inquiries

Customers are always anticipating their orders and you’re staying dependent on carriers and their delivery experiences don’t really help.

How it works: Automating key aspects of the post-purchase journey, such as real-time order tracking, enables even more in the form of proactive issue resolution and automated notifications. For instance, you can enable e-commerce businesses to keep their customers informed about their orders at all times, including issues that happen, and suggestions to resolve them. Additionally, there are also post-purchase solutions that help businesses take things up a notch via branded tracking experiences.

Benefits for e-commerce businesses: Real-time shipment tracking with proactive order status updates and support alerts for shipment issues to reduce WISMO calls by 72%. Additionally, including marketing assets on order tracking pages and notifications can increase recurring revenue by 12%.

2. Streamlined returns experiences

Additionally, when things go wrong with deliveries, you don’t have to direct brands to external returns platforms by partnering with a post-purchase automation platform, you can integrate returns into your existing workflows.

How it works: Automated returns solutions make returns self-service for end users. For instance, customers with a need for a return will no longer have to reach out to support reps but instead initiate returns and exchanges on their own.

Benefits for e-commerce businesses: Post-purchase solutions with flexible return options, automated returns updates, and a self-service process can reduce returns processing time by up to 95% and increase revenue by 40%.

With a complete post-purchase automation system in place, you can now enable e-commerce merchants to offer excellent post-purchase experiences to their customers and have an assured chance at improving retention.

The exceptional value you can gain by implementing automation is evident. You can not only elevate your client relationships but also transform your logistics operations. This is where LateShipment.com comes in – to back up automation with post-purchase solutions that are designed specifically for 3PL providers.

Lateshipment.com: Empowering 3PL Businesses Like Yours To Deliver Exceptional Value To Your Customers

LateShipment.com understands the unique challenges faced by 3PL providers in the post-purchase space.

You can trust LateShipment.com to automate key post-purchase processes, optimize your delivery performance, protect your shipments, and keep your customers coming back for more.

Here’s how LateShipment.com can help you grow together – empowering your e-commerce clients while boosting your 3PL’s success:

Gain full visibility into your shipping costs and recover lost revenue with precise, automated audits and claims management
Enhance customer retention through branded sub accounts that offer a centralized master dashboard to track and monitor all customers’ shipments in-transit service failures in real time
Boost your revenue via partner commissions for any additional LateShipment.com products your customers sign up for

In crust, our platform seamlessly integrates real-time order tracking, proactive issue resolution, automated shipping insurance, and efficient return management into ONE powerful solution.

LateShipment.com also integrates with leading e-commerce and helpdesk platforms to enable seamless automation of existing workflows

With LateShipment.com, 3PLs can enhance transparency, reduce operational costs, and improve customer satisfaction.

That’s it from us! It’s time to create a win-win partnership with advanced post-purchase solutions — help your clients retain customers while you gain increased retention, differentiated services, and greater efficiency. Together, we drive growth and success.

We specialize in empowering 3PL businesses like yours to deliver exceptional value to your customers.

See why top 3PLs choose LateShipment.com as their post-purchase partner:

Discuss your strategic post-purchase goals, unique needs and challenges
Put money back into your business with an in-depth understanding of your shipping performance for optimization and value-added features that enhance customer retention
Learn about our 1200+ integrations with shipping carriers and e-commerce apps

Book a consultation call with our product experts today.

The post How 3PL Providers Can Extend Their Capabilities With Post-Purchase Automation appeared first on Lateshipment.com.

What Does “In Transit” Really Mean?

Sashank Ravindranath — Tue, 20 Aug 2024 12:30:14 +0000

Most of us who are unaware of a package’s delivery journey, assume that a package gets shipped out from the warehouse and then gets delivered to the customer, right?

Having this assumption is not wrong. After all, this is what we’ve seen happening on that front. But on the back end, there are a lot of things that happen between “shipped” and “delivered”.

As an e-commerce merchant, understanding these different delivery lifecycles of the package journey helps you communicate better with the customer and use these touchpoints to improve repeat sales.

One such touchpoint is the “In transit” order, which we must’ve witnessed on multiple occasions. But what does In transit really mean?

What Does In Transit Mean?

In transit is usually the stage when the order makes its way after being picked up by the carrier to the first stage of the delivery lifecycle, i.e. the warehouse.

Now, the order marked as in transit doesn’t mean that the order is in movement. There are cases when the order is idly sitting in the warehouse before being out for delivery and yet the order is marked as in transit (with a description, of course).

For international or long-distance packages, multiple warehouses or checkpoints can be between the place of origin and the destination. In this case, both the stops before the order is out for delivery are marked as in transit.

In short, any package that is on its way or in a carrier sorting facility waiting to be dispatched for delivery is marked as in transit.

FedEx, in their definition of in transit, mentions that unless there’s an in transit or customs delay, the package would be delivered on the scheduled delivery date. Now, you might be wondering what causes a package that is in transit to get delayed. We’ll take a look at them in the upcoming section.

How Long Does In Transit Take?

As customers, we can’t wait to hold our joy when the order is shipped or marked out for delivery. But in transit? That’s boring. Trust me, this is not because of the stages left in the delivery cycle or the issues the package is prone to face (an order in transit faces fewer issues than an order that is out for delivery). So, what is the reason?

Without taking factors like shipping method, delivery option, and carrier choices from your end, a package in transit can take anywhere between 1-5 business days. It is understandable that from your customer’s PoV, In transit is one of the longest stages of a regular package (the one where all things go smoothly and conveniently).

Let’s decode them further.

What are the factors that affect transit times?

Here are several factors that can influence how long your package stays “in transit”:

Shipping method: Unless there are rare instances where replacements are sent, the preferred shipping method is selected by the customer placing the order. If they’ve selected a faster shipping option than standard shipping, then there is a low in transit time on their orders
Distance: It’s a no-brainer. Longer distances naturally take more time. Picture this: you’ve ordered from your favorite brand, which is based out of San Francisco and you’re living in Atlanta. The package, shipped out by the e-commerce brand, would reach the carrier’s facility in Frisco first, make its way to their facility in Atlanta, and only then be ready for delivery
Carrier efficiency: Different carriers have varying levels of speed and reliability. For instance, a carrier who is known for their speed advertises their in transit times between the standard 1-5 days. While some carriers would focus on realistic timelines and highlight their in transit times of 3-7 days
Unexpected delays: Bad weather, the package being held at customs, or unforeseen circumstances like labels found to be damaged in the sorting facility or the package getting lost in transit, can all lead to an increase in transit times

What You Can Do When A Package Gets Stuck In Transit

The longer a package is stuck in transit and the longer you’re doing nothing about it, it’s going to frustrate your customers. All those reasons don’t matter to them. What matters to them is their package getting to their hands on time and if not, at least some proper communication on it.

But again, you can’t wait for your customers to bring up a query or an issue about their package in transit as the damage has already been done. This is where you get proactive and follow a series of steps that mitigate the impact on them.

1. Share the estimated delivery date with your customers

When customers place their orders and select their preferred shipping method, you can share an estimated delivery date on the product and checkout pages to let them know when their order will be arriving and thereby how long it will take in transit. You can also get information from carriers and display the latest service alerts and weather disruptions at the top of your website/app and information pages.

2. Share proactive updates about the status of the package

Don’t let the customer wait for 2 days and then contact you with a WISMO request. Instead, reach out proactively with the order’s current status (held up at customs, etc). Keeping them in the loop of their orders, even before they feel the need ensures that their anticipation is kept in check and thereby, they are less prone to get frustrated with the delivery experience. Aside from providing information on why the package is delayed in transit, you can also offer solutions on what the customer can do in the meantime.

3. File a claim for packages confirmed lost

Real-time tracking of your packages will give you insights and predictive alerts on packages that are suspected to be lost. For such packages, you can make use of a parcel audit system that files a claim on your behalf and ensures that the carrier refunds you for the lost shipping cost. In the same line, you can also make use of shipping insurance options to recover the product costs as well. A complete post-purchase solution like LateShipment.com can help you out on all the necessary fronts.

Bottom Line

While “in transit” is not the most specific status update, it’s a sign that your package is out for delivery next and is set for a lot of challenges and actions from your end to offer a seamless delivery experience to your customers. Also, in transit itself is a stage that can be capitalized to keep your customers informed and manage delivery expectations.

The post What Does “In Transit” Really Mean? appeared first on Lateshipment.com.

Yes, Shipping Insurance Is Worth It

Sashank Ravindranath — Thu, 15 Aug 2024 12:32:04 +0000

Shipping insurance costs a small percentage of your shipment value, but when things go wrong, they cover the entire value to compensate for the loss or damage of your packages.

But do I have to insure my packages? Is not insuring my packages worth it? Some questions are probably in your mind when you’re considering shipment protection. It is absolutely valid to have these questions. However, the potential savings far outweigh the cost. Consider this: without insurance, you’re taking a gamble with every package you send. If something goes wrong, you’re responsible for the entire loss. Shipping insurance transfers that risk to the insurer, providing you with peace of mind and financial protection.

Ultimately, the decision to purchase shipping insurance depends on you. However, in this article, we have highlighted the importance of insurance and when it is best to use shipping insurance.

Where to Get Your Packages Insured

There are two different types of shipping insurance:

Carrier Insurance; is offered by shipping carriers like FedEx, UPS, USPS, etc.
Third-party insurance; is offered by third-party insurance providers specializing in shipping coverage.

While most shipping carriers promote their shipping insurance service to you when shipping with them, carrier insurance may not always be preferable as they have limitations in terms of coverage and reimbursement.

With third-party shipping insurance, you can get more flexibility, as they often provide broader coverage options than carrier-provided insurance. They may also be cost-effective for businesses with frequent shipments.

The question now is: Do you need to use shipping insurance for every shipment?

Short answer: No (that really depends on your needs)

When Do You Need Shipping Insurance

Shipping insurance is a worthy investment based on the products, quantities, or conditions you’re shipping:

1. High-Value Items

When shipping goods such as electronics, jewellery, artwork, or any luxury items, it is worth investing in shipping insurance for these shipments. Due to their high financial value, any damage or loss of parcels will lead to a significant loss for your business.

2. Fragile Goods

Despite packaging and efficient handling, there is still a possibility of having fragile products broken during transit. If you’re a shipper of goods like glassware, ceramics, or instruments, you should be insured to cover the potential losses on that front.

3. Bulk Shipments

Shipping goods in bulk can be cost effective but the cumulative cost of the entire goods is substantial enough that it shouldn’t be left uninsured. When dealing with large amounts of parcels in transit, ensure they are insured.

4. Peak Shipping Seasons

During the holidays or special seasons, the volume of shipped goods increases dramatically due to heightened consumer purchases.

With numerous goods in transit during these seasons, shipments experience various challenges like carrier strains that lead to damage or loss. Using shipping insurance is necessary at this phase.

When Shipping Insurance May Not Be Necessary

If you ship low-value shipments, the cumulative cost of insurance might be higher than the occasional loss you experience as a business. In these cases, the financial loss from damage or loss of a parcel is something your business can manage without insurance, so investing in insurance may not be necessary.

But does this mean you have to stop making use of a shipping insurance provider? Absolutely not.

With a third-party shipping insurance provider like LateShipment.com, you can make insurance cost-effective by enabling customizable rules that allow selective insurance.

That is, insure just the shipments you want, be it high-value shipments, international deliveries, or any other high-risk orders.

Final Word

In conclusion, shipping insurance is a very reliable safety net that protects you from the financial burden of lost or damaged packages. While it might seem like an unnecessary expense, the peace of mind and potential savings on high-value shipments make it a worthwhile investment.

LateShipment.com simplifies the process of securing shipping insurance. With comprehensive coverage options that fit your specific needs and automated insurance, you can maximize cost savings on a large scale.

FAQs On Shipping Insurance

1. What is covered by shipping insurance?

Shipping insurance typically covers losses due to damage, loss, theft, etc. Specific coverage can vary by policy.

2. Is shipping insurance worth it?

The value of shipping insurance depends on the value of your shipment and your risk tolerance. Because, despite proper packaging techniques and precautionary measures, there are chances of packages getting lost or damaged while in transit. For high-value or fragile items, it’s often worth the investment.

3. Can I get shipping insurance from my shipping carrier?

Yes, many shipping carriers offer insurance options. However, it’s wise to compare prices and coverage with third-party providers, who might offer better coverage options and claim process, have better customer reviews, etc,.

4. How do I choose a shipping insurance provider?

Weigh the pros and cons of carrier insurance, third-party, and self-insurance, and understand what’s usually covered, and how you can get the best out of it. Here’s a guide that covers all the information you need to choose a shipping insurance provider.

This is a guest post by Jeremiah Obikoya

The post Yes, Shipping Insurance Is Worth It appeared first on Lateshipment.com.

Do You Ship Fragile Items Frequently? Here’s What You Need To Know

Sashank Ravindranath — Tue, 06 Aug 2024 14:51:34 +0000

Are you an e-commerce merchant that deals with fragile items such as glassware, ceramics, electronics, musical instruments, etc? Then you are in the company of businesses that are ever under threat of shipments getting damaged.

While damage is a constant worry for all e-commerce merchants, those who are frequently dealing with shipments that are fragile and tend to break easily must certainly make extra efforts to ensure that products reach customers safely without any damage.

Why Do You Need To Worry About Damaged Goods

Damaged goods are a serious issue that takes up one of the top 3 spots for delivery issues that tend to drive your customers away. Research shows that around 15% of all shipments are damaged in a year, with costs accounting for $1 billion.

These costs account for multiple areas such as the original product, shipping, and returns along with replacement and operational costs. It’s not just valuable money, each damaged shipment also comes with the risk of the customer experience taking a hit, further leading to frustration and ultimately customer churn.

These customers who defect from your business won’t stop at that and are prone to share their negative reviews that hurt your business’s reputation and demotivate other potential shoppers, ultimately hurting your profit margin.

Not to forget the existing troubles for all your teams in handling returns and replacements, issuing refunds, and managing customer complaints, all of which consume valuable time and resources.

The ‘damage’ from damaged goods is evident. So, what you need to do is safeguard your shipments during shipping to ensure that damages don’t happen and that the items safely make their way to the customer.

How To Ship Fragile Items?

Here’s a step by step guide for e-commerce merchants shipping fragile items:

1. Choose the Right Packaging Materials

The guide to prevent damage to your fragile items begins with packaging — at your warehouse. Think of packaging as the first line of defense. If this works out perfectly, then the chances of breakage are cut down to half or even much lower.

Sturdy, corrugated boxes should be your go-to. Remember, your box should be slightly larger than your product to accommodate ample cushioning
If your package’s contents are multiple items, use custom inserts for dividers or wrap each item individually — paying particular attention to corners and edges, so that they don’t stick out
For exceptionally fragile items like glassware, consider multiple layers of packaging
Secure the product firmly within the box without any movements within through bubble wrap, foam, air pillows, etc,
Reinforce the cushioning around the product by packing peanuts or crumpled paper to prevent movement within the box
Tape the box securely, ensuring the lid is firmly closed

2. Label your box clearly

Damages are mostly accidents, sometimes due to man-made incidents although unintentional. Workers at carrier sorting facilities deal with a huge volume of shipments on a day-to-day basis.

So, mishandling is a common occurrence that can be less of a concern for a retailer who sells teddy bears. But as someone shipping out fragile items, you can’t afford these chances. This is where you bring in clear and informative labeling.

Labels that say “Fragile” and “Handle with Care” labels are your product’s advocates. These labels let the handlers know of the contents and ensure your package(s) are treated with extra care.

3. Know your carriers

Major carriers such as FedEx, UPS, DHL, and USPS all have their list of suggestions and deadlines for retailers shipping fragile items.

FedEx – For fairly new merchants, FedEx provides the option to purchase standard and specialized boxes based on the item and charges an extra amount for packaging fragile items
UPS – Similar to FedEx, UPS also helps merchants with packaging fragile items such as lamps, furniture, pianos, artwork, mirrors,and vases
DHL – Apart from guidelines, DHL also offers shippers, options such as faster delivery options, special handling, and shipping insurance, all of which are charged an additional fee
USPS – Unlike other carriers, USPS has a particular service for shipping fragile items called Special Handling-Fragile that can be availed at $12.15 and works with multiple USPS services, including Priority Mail Express, Priority Mail, First-Class Package Service-Commercial, and more

Final word

As a frequent shipper of fragile items, following these steps might be extremely handy to minimize the chances of damage.

However, damage like all delivery issues is inevitable, even with the best of the packaging carriers. In such cases, proactive customer communication is your best option. Be empathetic about the incident and offer a solution to mitigate their frustration.

Even if damaged shipments cannot be avoided, you still have a shot at redemption. Shipping carriers offer the option for retailers to claim refunds for shipments that have been damaged in transit. Instead of filing these claims manually, you can make use of a parcel audit solution that automates the process.

Apart from taking the hassle, an automated solution also helps you keep track of reports that enable you to continuously monitor your damage rates and identify areas for improvement (changing carriers or service types).

If you’re a business that particularly deals with fragile items, then a recommended solution would be to consider third-party shipping insurance that offers peace of mind while shipping. Here’s a guide to shipping insurance where we have covered the basics, the different options, and how to get the most out of protecting your package.

The post Do You Ship Fragile Items Frequently? Here’s What You Need To Know appeared first on Lateshipment.com.

How To Keep Your E-Commerce Store’s Return Rate In Check

Sashank Ravindranath — Tue, 06 Aug 2024 07:17:29 +0000

Here’s the thing — returns are a great benefactor to your CX but that’s only when they’re handled right.

However, if they are left unchecked and run rampant, they can have serious consequences for your business across multiple areas.

Therefore, it is important to address a high return rate to ensure you handle returns effectively.

What Happens When Your Return Rate Is High?

To start with the most pressing issue up front, frequent returns lead to several operational challenges like increased workload and complexities for the staff from restocking inventory that is already time-consuming and expensive.

To add more trouble, a lengthy and difficult return process also has the power to hurt customer relationships and can erode your customer’s trust in your brand. These dissatisfied customers are prone to share their negative experiences, thereby hurting your reputation.

Ultimately, both these occurrences represent a loss in revenue, directly impacting profit margins. Not to forget the increase in the risk of fraudulent returns and refunds that come with them.

But there’s got to be a logical explanation behind everything right? Return rates being high is a phenomenon but why do they happen? Why do customers return their purchases, for which they’ve waited for long enough?

Why Do Customers Return Items?

According to NRF, The average return rate for e-commerce stands at around 18% — almost double the rate of returns at a physical store. When you see this and your first assumption is customers returning their purchases because they looked different online, congratulations, You’re correct!

Remember, understanding why customers return products is crucial in cutting return rates. Hence, we’ll go further on the most common reasons:

Product issues: Mismatches in sizing/color/style, faulty products, or products not simply living up to the customer’s expectations — you name it. All of the above are immediate return triggers. Customers at physical stores touch and feel the product they’re about to purchase, but since the room for this is eliminated in e-commerce, there’s a high chance that the product doesn’t live up to their expectations in terms of quality or performance.
Order issues: On the same lines as product issues, these are cases when the wrong item or quantity is shipped out, when the customers change their minds or make an impulsive purchase, or when the order gets delayed or damaged to the extent that the customer no longer needs it.
Customer issues: Hate to say it but not all returns are valid. Some customers wear items and then return them for a refund in an act called ‘wardrobing’. These customers are serial returners who don’t really intend to keep their purchase.

As we touched upon earlier, analyzing common return reasons can be a great start in implementing tailor-made strategies to address these issues and reduce return rates. But before we get to the ‘how’, there’s something more important to take note of. The stakes in a story, the motive in a crime, the science in sci-fi — why do e-commerce merchants need to cut down return rates in the first place?

Why Does Reducing Product Returns Matter?

Apart from preventing all the stuff that we covered in the part that talked about the things that happen when your returns rate is high, reducing the number of products being returned, also has other great deal of benefits for your business.

Despite manual processes, lower return rates translate to a reduction in return processing time for your customer support and operations teams
Understanding the true cost of returns helps you make cost-cutting decisions that impact your bottom line and help you save on returns-related revenue
With streamlined international operations (less time taken for returns), there is a huge opportunity to provide an enhanced return experience for your shoppers
Customers satisfied with their returns experience are more likely to return, thereby leading to an increase in repeat purchases

What – check, why – check, and that brings us to the final question — how. How can return rates be reduced to ensure the long-term success of your e-commerce business? Here are some strategies to do exactly that.

How To Keep Return Rates In Check?

Product-related improvements

Make sure you try as much to replicate the shopping experience of a physical store. This can be achieved through:

Detailed information about the extensive features, the exact dimensions, the materials it is made up of, and care instructions, if any.
High-quality images and videos that showcase the product in 360 degrees across multiple angles
Accurate sizing information and recommendations (70% of all e-commerce returns are size-and-fit related)
Encouraging customers to share their experiences on a particular product to motivate others to make a decision
Major brands such as Gucci, Burrow, and Allbirds have been integrating with Augmented Reality (AR) solutions to display how the product would look at the customer’s place or how they would look in a particular outfit

Such comprehensive information about the product gives the shopper even more knowledge on what they’re getting into and prevents returns arising from impulsive decisions.

Optimizing the post-purchase CX

Did we mention that returns are a necessary evil? If not, here’s it. Returns might seem like a headache when you see them coming in initially but with the right CX efforts, you can not just minimize returns but can also ensure that your customers don’t consider returns as a ‘bad thing’ and still choose to shop with you.

Might seem like a domino effect but delivering products promptly and safely holds the power to reduce the likelihood of returns due to delayed or damaged shipments. For delays, ensure that there is transparent communication via regular shipping updates so that your customers don’t blame you for the delay in the first place. To prevent damaged goods and thereby reduce the return rate, you need to protect the package’s contents with high-quality packaging.

In the event such incidents happen despite strict measures and the return is initiated, proper and proactive support from your end can mitigate frustration and ensure that your customers give you another chance. For instance, you can start by acknowledging the mistake, ensuring that an action has been taken (refund, replacement, or offering discounts on upcoming purchases as compensation), etc.

Not just shipping and delivery but even return experiences play a significant role in optimizing your post-purchase CX. While this may seem like a long game, making improvements to your returns process indeed has the power to cut down returns.

This starts with a clear and concise returns policy that highlights return windows, non-returnable items, and more; moves to a seamless returns experience that removes any kind of hassle and makes the whole process stress-free thereby improving customer satisfaction, fostering trust and loyalty; and ultimately ends with the opportunity to collect customer feedback and gain insights into returns data that can help pinpoint issues and lead to improvements that prevents return in the future.

Promote exchange or store credits over refunds

“How is making the customer opt for an exchange or store credit over refunds/chargebacks going to help me cut down returns?” is a valid question to ask. And to answer that question, no it doesn’t. At least not directly.

While exchanges don’t reduce return rates per se, they help cut down the impact of frequent returns and make sure you’re spending much less than what you were going to.

Here’s how it works.

An exchange instead of a refund on product returns means you still have to pay for all the return-associated costs such as processing, replacements, and labor costs.

However, here’s where things get different. In cases of returns like a damaged product, a late delivery, or one from a wardrobing customer, there’s a possibility that a refund might be the last time you hear from the customer. By simply replacing money with another product, you now have an opportunity to not just keep the sale but you can also provide an even better CX to delight and build loyalty.

P.S. This doesn’t mean you simply eliminate offering refunds altogether as it can put the customer in a spot, i.e., force them to keep purchasing and result in a bad return experience. Instead, you can get creative and encourage exchanges or store credits over refunds via incentives.

What's Next?

Returns are not just inevitable but are absolutely necessary for every business. Cutting down return rates doesn’t mean you simply avoid allowing returns at all (that can do more harm than good). Instead, you can try to cut down unwanted returns wherever possible to reduce workload, costs, etc.

The steps that we’ve covered in this article should give you insights into how you can proceed with reducing your returns. Instead of manually implementing them (the hard way), you can easily take control of all your returns from a returns center that makes the initiation self-service, automates the process, provides intelligence, and retains revenue.

LateShipment.com’s Returns Experience Management helps you do just that. LateShipment.com is an incredibly simple way of managing e-commerce returns — fully self-serve and automated for you and your shoppers alike.

Learn more about how LateShipment.com’s Returns Experience Management can work for you, help you reduce your store’s return rates, and offer return experiences that your customers truly love — talk to us today.

The post How To Keep Your E-Commerce Store’s Return Rate In Check appeared first on Lateshipment.com.