Retail Shipping Archives | Lateshipment.com

WISMO: What it means and how to reduce it?

Ajith Srinivasan — Sun, 15 Sep 2024 09:42:58 +0000

This post-purchase phase, where customers are awaiting their parcels, holds more importance than you think.

While most e-commerce businesses assume to just “hope no things go wrong until the customer gets their hands at their order“, the truth is far.

From the moment the order gets shipped, till it gets delivered, there is a window of opportunity to boost customer loyalty by ensuring hassle-free order delivery experiences that reward your brand with repeat sales in the future.

The catch? Customers love to stay in the know and receive updates on their delivery status and expect you to proactively do so. And when you fail to do so, your support teams are flooded with tickets from anxious customers, all with the same question – WISMO?

What Are WISMO Inquiries?

Customers tend to get anxious during the post-purchase phase, especially when they have limited visibility into the exact whereabouts of their order and often have to depend on opaque carrier tracking pages for clarity about their order’s ETA.

That’s where they typically come in the form of emails, phone calls, or chat messages asking, “Where IS My Order?” WISMO roughly translates to the customer wanting to track their shipment or at least know the status of their order.

The problem here is that carrier tracking pages don’t really disclose the depth of the situation when it comes to delayed packages. This lack of communication for a customer’s simple need for reassurance not only adds to customer service workloads but also signals a potential gap in the post-purchase experience.

Why WISMO Inquiries Are a Major Concern for E-Commerce Businesses

When anxious customers are unable to determine the status of their package, they tend to get frustrated. Of course, there’s the option of them reaching out to you and you can send them to the carrier’s tracking page. However, by that time, the damage was already done. To add fuel to the fire, when they don’t get what they want (even after reaching out), the post-purchase experience takes a huge hit, leading to negative reviews and ultimately loss of repeat business, both of which can harm your growth.

Cutting straight to the point, WISMO calls take up about 40% of your customer support queries, and according to a study by Gorgias – a customer service agent spends an average of 10-minutes per ‘where is my order?’ request. Do the math, if your business receives 1000 WISMO queries a week – at 10-minutes per ticket, that’s about 160 hours of your customer support’s time. Now that’s an alarming number!

That’s not all. High volumes of WISMO inquiries stretch your support team thin, leading to longer response times and higher operational costs. Also, addressing repeated WISMO issues can be costly, as it pulls resources away from other essential business functions.

So, what is it you can do as a business to reduce the number of WISMO calls to optimize the customer experience and save those big bucks in operating costs?

How to Reduce WISMO Inquiries

By now you would’ve already figured out the crux. Dealing with WISMO requires you taking a proactive approach to cut them down, even before your customers get the thought about asking the question.

Here are the different ways through which you can get proactive with your efforts to curb WISMO.

1) Be transparent about your delivery dates :

Unrealistic expectations are one of the foremost reasons for WISMO inquiries. This can be an even more serious issue during times like the peak season when unexpected delays are higher than usual.

As a start, you can include an estimated order delivery date on your product page to give the customer a realistic delivery timeline. For instance, you can categorize these dates based on the customer’s location and chosen shipping method.

There’s still a concern in the form of consistent delays that happen seasonally or due to uncommon reasons such as weather or road closures. In such cases, you can explicitly let your customer know that there might be delays with their order – on your website and checkout page.

2) Over-communicate delivery information :

Despite estimated delivery dates and warnings, WISMO inquiries can still be frequent at the hands of customers whose packages are particularly facing issues. These stem from the lack of communication regarding order status information.

In this case, you can make use of a delivery experience management software that takes all possible delays and discrepancies. You can proactively share this information to keep your customers informed at all times and avoid giving them unpleasant surprises.

Here’s how you can make this work. Send email or SMS notifications as the order progressively updates — from “shipped” to “out for delivery” and “delivered” or delivery exceptions. Remember, it’s always better if any kind of updates (be it good or bad) come from your end rather than customers reaching out to them.

This way, there’s a possibility that the customer’s anxiety and resulting frustration will be mitigated by your efforts to resolve their issues.

Apart from shipping notifications, you can also share order information with customers via self-serve, ‘branded’ tracking pages.

3) Provide self-serve, real-time order tracking :

Offering a branded tracking page that allows customers to track their orders whenever they want from your website rather than the carrier’s tracking page (that is dull and off-brand).

By redirecting your customers to tracking pages that are hosted in your domain, you have an opportunity to reinforce your brand identity and stay on the top of customers’ minds while keeping them engaged with order tracking information.

Additionally, they provide opportunities to offer additional promotions or product recommendations, thereby serving both as a convenience for your customers and a marketing opportunity for your brand.

Also, these branded tracking experiences can be extended to shipping notifications as a way to capitalize their high open rates to double your chances at driving repeat sales.

4) Optimize Your FAQ section and chatbots to deal with WISMO inquiries

Alongside estimated delivery dates and alerts on website/app floaters, many WISMO inquiries can be preemptively resolved by offering a comprehensive FAQ section and help center.

The section can include questions related to order tracking, delivery times, and what to do if a package is delayed. This way, customers can find the answers themselves and are less likely to reach out to your support team. You just have to ensure that this content is easy to find on your website.

You can also extend your efforts at offering proactive customer support by offering multiple support channels like chatbots. This AI-powered chatbot can instantly answer common questions like WISMO and provide tracking information. This reduces the workload on your customer service team without the need for human intervention.

If the inquiry is more complex or if the customer requires additional information, you can also include the provision to easily escalate the conversation to a live agent.

5) WISMO done, WISMR next

Returns often lead to a second wave of inquiries under WISMR or Where is my return, with customers asking about the status of their return, exchange, or refund.

You don’t have to do anything particular here, simply replicate the order tracking initiatives with a seamless returns process.

For instance, include easy-to-follow return instructions with the shipment and on your website. Provide real-time updates on the return status just as you would for the initial shipment. Then, follow up with proactive return notifications to notify customers once their return has been initiated, processed, or their refund issued.

Handling WISMO questions proactively makes things easy. To make things even easier, you can make use of a post-purchase tool like LateShipment.com.

How top brands leverage LateShipment.com to reduce/avoid WISMO calls and cut down on operational costs

In the context of WISMO, LateShipment.com provides your customers with a self-serve order tracking system and sends out regular delivery notifications apart from giving them a real-time delivery estimate but they still choose to reach out to your customer support regarding the whereabouts of their order.

With LateShipment.com’s Delivery Experience Management (DEM) platform, you can effortlessly :

Receive Predictive Delay Alerts – Pay attention to daily deliveries with predictive delay alerts and more on a purpose-built dashboard for support reps.
Resolve Issues Proactively – Proactively communicate with customers to prevent them from having bad experiences due to delivery failures.
Send out Delivery Status Notifications – Send custom or automated delivery status notifications to your customers for traditional events such as “shipped”, “attempted”, “delivered” and exceptions such as “in transit with delays”, “failed deliveries”, etc.
Provide Branded Order Tracking – Build fully-customizable order tracking pages for your customers to improve brand recall and sales.

And so much more…

With DEM, you can resolve WISMO as a pain point for both customers yourself. By implementing proactive communication, offering branded tracking, and optimizing customer support, merchants can significantly reduce these inquiries, enhance the customer experience, and improve operational efficiency (and profits).

In short, resolving WISMO is not only a smart operational move but a marketing strategy that builds trust, increases customer retention, and acts as a competitive differentiator for your brand.

The post WISMO: What it means and how to reduce it? appeared first on Lateshipment.com.

What Does “Out for Delivery” Really Mean?

Sashank Ravindranath — Thu, 01 Aug 2024 06:31:54 +0000

“Get ready to jump with joy as your order is out for delivery”.

A message that all online shoppers can’t wait to see on their device, as this is a sign that their package is nearing them and is about to be delivered soon.

From your (the merchant’s) perspective, while the emotions might differ, seeing the message on the carrier’s page and sharing these notifications with your customers holds the same importance because,

The package has successfully evaded almost 80% of all delivery issues (barring cases of delivery exceptions, order returns, or package theft) and
This is the only thing between your customers and their most exciting orders, the time when you are rewarded for your product and service via customer satisfaction and loyalty

This makes the out for delivery notification special compared to other transactional shipping notifications sent during the post-purchase, order delivery phase of e-commerce.

But what makes this delivery stage so special? To know that we’ll start with what being out for delivery means and where it sits in the e-commerce last-mile order delivery process.

What Does Out for Delivery Mean?

Let’s split ‘out for delivery’ into two perspectives where you stand between. From the shipping carrier’s perspective, this indicates that the package has left the shipping facility and is in transit to the customer’s address. From the customer’s perspective, on the other hand, this implies that the package’s arrival on the specified delivery date is almost confirmed.

Packages that are marked “out for delivery”, will reach their destination on the same day or the next day, given the distance and situation between the carrier’s transportation hub or fulfillment center and the customer’s doorstep.

To get a better context, let’s look at where it sits in the e-commerce order delivery process

a) Where out for delivery sits in the e-commerce delivery process

The traditional last-mile delivery process usually consists of 4 simple events or transactional notifications that are sent to the customer whenever there is an update on their orders.

Shipped – When the order is “shipped”, it implies that the carrier has picked up the package.
In transit – The order is in transit when it leaves the first hub and is on its way to reaching the carrier’s hub at the delivery city.
Out of delivery – Out for delivery indicates the order is now in its final stretch. The package has left the carrier facility and is on its way to the customer.
Delivered – The order is marked “delivered” when the order sits on the customer’s doorstep

Apart from these frequent transactional notifications front, there can also be several uncommon instances such as delivery attempts, in-transit with delays, loss/damage, etc. E-commerce brands such as yours can leverage these events to send shipping notifications that alleviate your customers’ worries and also come with a great deal of benefits for you.

Going back to the context, there can still be some questions like what to do when the package has been out for delivery for 3 or more days? or where is my package that is out for delivery but has not been delivered yet?

In your mind, you need clear answers before you can communicate the same with your customers. And that brings us to dissect out for delivery as an event further.

b) Why does an out for delivery event matter to an e-commerce merchant?

The “out for delivery” event is a critical touchpoint in the e-commerce customer journey. It holds significant importance for merchants due to several reasons.

Apart from minimizing customer support inquiries and improving customer satisfaction by reducing anxiety and uncertainty, this event also comes up with a great scope for marketing opportunities.

Instead of sending your customers to the carrier’s tracking page, you can create your own branded order tracking pages that can be used to promote complementary products or services.

You can also use real estate on your tracking pages to collect customer feedback on their post-purchase purchase experience, thereby gaining valuable insights into identifying areas for improvement.

c) What happens when a package out for delivery doesn’t get delivered

In most cases, a package marked as “out for delivery,” is expected to be delivered on the same day. However, there can be instances where it takes forever to arrive and there can be multiple reasons for such delivery exceptions.

Location – The distance between the distribution center and the delivery address (i.e. the delivery address’s proximity to the distribution center)
Delivery Schedule – Carriers have specific delivery routes and schedules that they target in a day. Multiple delivery locations (stops) and complex routes can impact the delivery timeline of the other packages
Traffic Conditions – Traffic congestion, accidents, or adverse weather conditions on a particular can delay the delivery process
Volume – High shipping volume is a rare instance but probable scenario where the package volume handled by the delivery person gets too much for a single day

Out for delivery vs delivered: The final hurdle

In most cases, when an out for delivery doesn’t get updated to delivered, it means your carrier, be it FedEx, UPS, USPS, or Amazon is attempting re-delivery, dropping off the package at a nearby pickup point, etc.

However, unlike you, customers who shop with you don’t have the patience to uncover all of this. What matters to them is their package reaching on time and when they get slightly anxious about that happening, their actions can go a long way, complicating the problem further.

1. Support reps are bombarded with a huge volume of WISMO inquiries

Even when there are no issues regarding customers’ parcels, their anxiety at the last mile stage leads them to bombard support reps with order status notifications (WISMO inquiries).

Such calls negatively impact your customer satisfaction metrics by consuming all of the support reps’ time and preventing them from dealing with other important queries.

Over 30% of customer support tickets created are SHIPPING and DELIVERY-related

2. Disgruntled customers negatively impact your brand’s online reputation

Delivery issues must be resolved proactively and addressed at the earliest because the first thing irate customers do is take such issues to social media and tarnish the brand’s reputation online.

During such events, every negative review from your customers causes irreversible damage to the brand image and far worse, demotivates their close ones from shopping with the said brand.

93% of the customers say that they read online reviews before buying a product.

3. Higher costs associated with returns and customer acquisition

E-commerce businesses run the risk of losing even their most loyal customer to a competitor after just one bad delivery experience.

Trying to replace these existing customers may not be the best idea because it is 5x more expensive to acquire a new customer than to retain an existing one.

Over 55% of customers won’t return to a brand or retailer after one bad experience, indicating that today’s consumer has nearly zero thresholds for delivery failures.

Even if they choose to stick with you, they can simply refuse to collect their orders, leading to unwanted returns and related expenses.

The saying prevention is better than cure might sound cliche but it holds true in this context. While these issues, the reasons they happen, and how to approach them depend on the shipping carrier and the circumstances — there are actions that you can take to mitigate this from becoming a serious problem.

What to Do if Your Package is "Out for Delivery" for an Extended Period

When a package has been marked as “out for delivery” for three or more days without arriving, it’s understandable to be concerned.

First things first, customers are often anxious regarding the status of orders during the last mile. So, constantly stay in touch by keeping them in the loop of their orders

Integrate your existing email and SMS marketing tools with your delivery management system and send ‘out for delivery’ notifications in the last mile. This way, the customer can stay at the location to collect the delivery or request a change to avoid last-minute delivery exceptions.

Second, it’s better to be the bearer of bad news than to be confronted by the customer on hiding things

In case you see things going wrong, proactively reach out to the customer to inform them of the delay and assure them that you’re investigating the issue.

Tracking your customers’ parcels in real-time gives you complete visibility of your shipments in transit but foresight as well for shipments that are likely to face delays.

Once you gain control over your in-transit shipments facing issues, you can step in before they impact your customers and resolve them. In cases with uncommon issues such as weather delays and roadblocks, a simple preemptive acknowledgment can work in your favor as equal as resolving issues.

Keeping a close eye on the package’s tracking information for progress can help you see if the situation gets better. If not, be prepared to offer solutions like discounts or store credits to compensate for the inconvenience. P.S. Be empathetic and offer sincere apologies (even when the issue is not your fault).

Thirdly, there can be a worst-case scenario with the package getting lost or the customer simply refusing to accept the package owing to the delay

In such cases, you need to be prepared to offer solutions like reshipping or refunds. Don’t worry about these costs because you no longer have to bear the blame and shell out dollars for failures and billing errors by carriers. If the reason for the delayed delivery is due to a carrier error, then you can easily recover refunds from shipping carriers.

You don’t have to do it manually. Make use of an automated parcel audit system like LateShipment.com that identifies 50+ carrier failures including late deliveries and lost packages, thus helping you save up to 20% on shipping costs. Also, regularly claiming shipping refunds can in turn enable your shipping carriers to perform better and prevent such incidents from occurring in the first place.

Bottom Line

Implementing all these last mile best practices by yourself can be difficult. To make it easier, you can make use of a post-purchase solution such as LateShipment.com that does all the heavy lifting on your behalf.

LateShipment.com is specifically built for ecommerce retailers such as yourself to deliver phenomenal post-purchase CX and measurable results, all while effortlessly recovering refund claims from your shipping carriers.

Interested? We at LateShipment.com can’t wait to help you grow your fanbase, savings, and business.

Get in touch with our expert or write to us.

The post What Does “Out for Delivery” Really Mean? appeared first on Lateshipment.com.

What is a Delivery Exception and How E-commerce Business Can Handle It?

Sashank Ravindranath — Wed, 24 Jul 2024 08:10:32 +0000

You don’t need major issues such as packages getting lost or damaged, even small incidents like a ‘delivery exception’ can create unexpected roadblocks that disrupt the smooth journey of a package to its destination and pose a challenge for your e-commerce businesses.

With the excitement of sales and fixation on issues like late deliveries and lost packages, delivery exceptions tend to be often overlooked. However, their impact on customer satisfaction, operational efficiency, and overall business reputation is profound as they have the power to hurt your customer relationships and lead to increased costs.

To better handle the delivery exception, we’ve come up with this article that starts with the basics: what do they mean, why do they happen, and what can you do about it?

What Does a Delivery Exception Mean?

A delivery exception occurs when a package deviates from its planned delivery route due to unforeseen circumstances. These disruptions can range from minor delays to complete delivery failures.

A package in transit is exempted from delivery, i.e., marked as a ‘delivery exception’ at the hands of the shipping carrier when it faces any hindrance that makes it take longer than expected to reach your customers’ doorstep.

In simple terms, this indicates to the recipient that:

The package has crossed its intended delivery timeline
This is not a case of a delay at the hands of the carrier
The courier will deliver the package soon (based on the reason for the exception).

We’ll break down delivery exceptions further to get a better context.

Why do delivery exceptions occur?

We discussed how exceptions are predictable and happen due to external influence in most cases. But how exactly? Here’s how.

Failed delivery attempts – Also known as missed drop-off. Deliveries are marked incomplete due to the recipient’s or an adult’s (in case of special deliveries) unavailability at the drop-off location to sign and receive the package
Address-related issues – Incorrect, incomplete, or ambiguous addresses can also lead to failed delivery attempts and subsequent delays. For instance, when the address on the label is unrecognized or is at an undeliverable location, etc
Man-made causes – Packages are prone to be damaged at sorting facilities and at times, the carrier would abstain from making the delivery citing this
Customs delays – International shipments are subject to customs clearance procedures, which can be time-consuming and prone to unexpected delays
Natural disasters – Severe weather conditions such as earthquakes, hurricanes, wildfires, blizzards, or heavy rain can disrupt transportation networks and cause the package to be held back at the facility to safeguard
Carrier-related problems – Issues with the shipping carrier, including lost or misplaced packages, vehicle breakdowns, or labor shortages
Federal holidays – When carriers refrain from making deliveries on particular days due to federal holidays in the country of origin or destination.
Peak season challenges – Increased order volume during holiday periods or promotional events can strain shipping resources, leading to longer delivery times

These are some of the most frequent reasons behind the carriers getting an exemption from fulfilling the delivery. They are valid and in many cases, you can choose to ignore them with so much as a “It’s just one day, the delivery will be made tomorrow“.

However, can you afford to do that? is the question. And that question is what led e-commerce businesses to take the initiative to address delivery exceptions for more reasons than one.

Why is it Important For E-Commerce Businesses To Address A Delivery Exception?

The consequences of delivery exceptions extend beyond mere inconvenience for the customer. They can have a ripple effect on various aspects of an e-commerce business:

Increased WISMO inquiries – Even when the delivery exception is minor, the customer who isn’t aware of it constantly bombards your support reps with WISMO calls that consume all of their time
Customer dissatisfaction – Frequent delays or failed deliveries that come along with delivery exceptions also come with the potential to erode customer trust and loyalty, leading to negative reviews and social media backlash. In the long term, this can lead to a drop in customer satisfaction metrics such as retention rate and lifetime value
Return processing challenge – When delivery exceptions are due to damages or undeliverable packages necessitates a possibility for the customer to opt for a return that can complicate inventory management
Operational inefficiencies – Delivery exceptions result in frequent re-deliveries from warehouses or returns that can disrupt shipping schedules and operations
Financial losses – Ultimately, returns-related costs (processing costs and refunds), unwanted support tickets, increased labor costs, and acquisition costs due to delivery issues can significantly impact a business’s bottom line

The cost of delivery exceptions for your business is evident. Therefore, it is important to handle them effectively. To make things easier for you, we’ve also come up with some of the best ways for you to handle delivery exceptions.

How To Handle Delivery Exceptions?

Most e-commerce businesses take this myopic approach of resolving delivery exceptions only when your customers are impacted by them. However, given the high expectations of today’s customers, it doesn’t matter how quickly you solve it because the damage is already done. Therefore, all you have to do is comply with your customers’ expectations — solve delivery exceptions even before they become an issue.

Through integrated solutions and metrics, you can be proactive when it comes to handling delivery exceptions and thereby set them up for a great delivery experience.

Handling delivery exceptions: The aftermath

Let’s assume the delivery exception happens, what now?

First, promptly acknowledge the exception by informing your customer about it. You can then follow up with clear and transparent communication regarding the nature of the exception by rerouting or rescheduling deliveries based on convenience to manage customer expectations.
Have a strategy early in place for delivery exceptions, i.e., develop clear guidelines for customer support and operational teams to make adjustments and handle things as effectively as possible.
If the exception is major, possibly due to packages that are lost or damaged, then you need to consider implementing shipping insurance into your existing business practices.

Preventing delivery exceptions from occurring in the first place

Delivery exceptions can happen due to external causes and at times inevitable. But that doesn’t mean you do nothing about it. As an e-commerce merchant, you have the power to cut down exceptions in occurrence.

By implementing proactive issue resolution strategies, you can not only reduce delivery exceptions but also unlock new opportunities to reduce costs and improve customer experiences.

Start by informing potential delivery exception-causing incidents such as carrier strikes, federal holidays, weather-related issues, etc. on your homepage and product page to let customers know that their orders might face issues and avoid disappointments.
Leverage data and evaluate the performance of different shipping carriers to select reliable partners with fewer cases of delivery exceptions and a strong track record of on-time deliveries.
The next step involves making use of real-time tracking to identify potential issues even before they happen and take proactive measures to rectify them.
Extend the capabilities of real-time tracking data by keeping customers informed about shipment status and potential exceptions.
In times like peak periods like the holiday season, you need to anticipate an increase in order volume and adjust staffing, inventory levels, and shipping capacity accordingly.

Bottom Line

While delivery exceptions are inevitable occurrences, addressing them promptly is not only possible but also essential for ensuring a positive delivery experience. By acknowledging and resolving issues quickly, you can effectively minimize customer frustration, maintain trust, and uphold their reputation for reliability and customer-centricity.

Also, don’t forget to prioritize proactive communication through shipping notifications and branded tracking pages to turn delivery exceptions into opportunities that strengthen customer relationships and foster long-term loyalty.

The post What is a Delivery Exception and How E-commerce Business Can Handle It? appeared first on Lateshipment.com.

A Guide to FedEx and UPS Delivery Signature Options

Sashank Ravindranath — Wed, 24 Apr 2024 13:10:49 +0000

In the world of shipping and logistics, ensuring your packages reach their destination safely and securely is crucial and carriers ensure their full-on commitment to it.

One aspect of this process is the carrier getting a confirmation of receipt upon successfully delivering a package to its intended recipient or an authorized individual at the delivery address through a signature. This signature helps carriers ensure security and accountability throughout the delivery process.

Before diving into the specifics of FedEx and UPS signature options, let’s first understand what they entail:

Understanding Delivery Signature Options

Both FedEx and UPS offer various signature options to accommodate the diverse needs of businesses and customers. These delivery signature options allow senders to choose the level of security and verification required for their shipments, depending on the nature of the package and recipient preferences.

Why shippers need to choose delivery signature options

Shipping out packages comes with a lot of risk up until the delivery is made. Hence, shippers need to ensure secure and reliable delivery of packages while meeting regulatory requirements. This is where delivery signature options come in to help shippers maintain accountability and compliance.

Requiring delivery verification, especially for high-value shipments ensures that the package has arrived safely without falling into the wrong hands such as porch pirates among other reasons, and thereby offers you peace of mind.

As a shipper, it’s essential to consider factors such as the value of the shipment, recipient availability, and the level of security required when selecting a delivery signature option.

In this blog, we’ll explore the different delivery signature options provided by FedEx and UPS, helping you determine which one is best suited for your shipping requirements.

FedEx Delivery Signature Options

FedEx provides three options when shippers require a signature upon delivery. Each option accommodates different shipment requirements.

1. FedEx Adult Signature Required

Costs around $8.15 in 2024
Specifically designed for shipments containing age-restricted items, particularly at least 21 years old at the delivery address.
A government-issued photo identification is required
When there is no eligible recipient at the delivery location, FedEx may re-attempt the delivery
Firearms are one type of shipment where an adult signature is required

2. FedEx Direct Signature Required

Costs around $6.75 in 2024
Designed for shipments that are to be delivered at a location instead of a specific individual
Any person physically available at the location can sign for the delivery
When there is no eligible recipient at the delivery location, FedEx may re-attempt the delivery
Automatically applies to all packages equal to or greater than $500. However, the direct signature required fee will not apply to these packages

3. FedEx Indirect Signature Required

Costs around $6.75 in 2024
This allows FedEx to collect a signature even from some nearby the location such as neighbors, front office, or building managers
Even if there’s no eligible recipient at the delivery location, FedEx can still make the delivery without re-attempting, given that the recipient has authorized

Just like FedEx, UPS too has its own set of Delivery Signature Options or Confirmation Services that are served as a value-added service because they’re slightly more safer than just a regular ‘delivered’ parcel tracking notification.

UPS Delivery Signature Options

1. UPS Delivery Confirmation

Costs around $6.75 in 2024
Includes a delivery date, the name of the recipient, and if the package is being returned, the reason for the return is mentioned

2. UPS Signature Required

Costs around $6.75 in 2024
A physical recipient is not required at the location as UPS accepts any electronic acknowledgment of receipt from the individual to deliver the package

3. UPS Adult Signature Required

Costs around $8.15 in 2024
Specifically designed for shipments containing age-restricted items, particularly at least 21 years old at the delivery address.
A government-issued photo identification is required
An additional voice authorization or ‘Proof of Delivery’ option is available, where UPS may call the person physically available at the delivery location for an additional $5.00

Final Word

Be it FedEx or UPS, delivery signature options don’t come cheap. Also, these rates increase during peak season times and have a consistent YoY increase. Of course, paying an additional $7 will give you the peace of mind of your package reaching its destination safely and securely but you can also cut these costs in several ways:

Make full utilization of these options: For instance, let’s say you’ve ordered some wine for your boss’ retirement party and it requires an adult signature. In such cases, ensure that either you or an adult is at the delivery location to collect the package instead of re-delivery attempts.
Limit further re-delivery attempts: When you’re out of town but have a series of packages that require direct signatures, you can redirect your shipments to a FedEx location for 5-10 days.
Negotiate with your carrier: if you’re a high-volume shipper or have a long-standing relationship with the carrier, you can also negotiate a contract with your shipping carrier that includes favorable terms and pricing for delivery signature options.

Also, wrongly added delivery signature costs are a common sighting in your shipping invoices. In such cases, you can audit your invoices and file refund claims for such additional charges.

In conclusion, both carriers offer a range of delivery signature options to accommodate diverse shipment requirements. Make sure you select the right option for your needs and ensure the costs that come along with them aren’t straining your wallet.

The post A Guide to FedEx and UPS Delivery Signature Options appeared first on Lateshipment.com.

7 festive packaging ideas to drive up the holiday sales

Raksna Anand — Mon, 16 Oct 2023 11:02:14 +0000

Have you come up with creative holiday packaging ideas? Holiday packaging is essential to bring a festive mood to the customers.

The sole purpose of a package is to protect the shipment of the product from being damaged while in transit. But, a package can also be used as a marketing tool. Find out how.

Why do you need holiday packaging?

Great Unboxing experience: There are various social media trends out there, but one trend that’s still existing. It is the unboxing experience. When a customer receives a very great package from any brand, they tend to make Social Media videos of them unboxing the package. This could spread your brand awareness and improve a positive customer experience. The customer also gets to be curious and delighted to open the package.
Bringing in the holiday mood: Your site is going to be decorated with festive elements, you will have seasonal products marketed into your strategy, why not enforce the festive touch in your package by adding colourful elements to the whole unboxing experience? This would make it visually appealing and also holiday-themed.
Time-saving for your customers: Often products are purchased to be gifted to someone else during the holiday season. While your customer would be busy during the holiday season spending their time with their loved ones, they’d have to go to an extra length to package the gifts themselves. If you as a brand go the extra mile to do this for your customers, the customer will have an everlasting impression on you that you saved time during the holidays for them. In fact, time is everything during the holiday season.
Free marketing and promotion: This packaging would definitely be branded and holiday-themed. What more can you do for free margarine promotion among your audience?

Here’s a checklist of packaging to-dos.

7 festive packaging ideas to drive up the holiday sales

1. Wax seals

Wax seals are one unique way to seal your packages during the holiday season. Wax seals can be easily customized to match your brand’s theme and the holiday theme, creating a good memory for the customers, which also creates a very great unboxing experience. There is elegance and tradition in wax seals.

2. Personalized note

Personalization is very important, especially during the holiday season. It contributes to retention. You can add the feature of customers writing personalized notes for their loved ones to be gifted during the holiday season. You can add handwritten notes from the brand also wish your customer very happy holidays. A handwritten note would be a nice personal touch and the customer would also recognize your efforts to engage with them, turning them into loyal customers.

3. Interactive Unboxing

Interactive Unboxing would be a very delightful surprise for your customers. On top of not only receiving gifts, they will also have an additional element of surprise in their gifting, which is Interactive Unboxing. Below is a video of an example of Interactive Unboxing.

This increases social sharing, sales and engagement, enhances customer experience, builds brand loyalty, generates buzz and anticipation, and provides customer satisfaction.

4. Eco-friendly packaging

Your product might be sustainable. Make your packaging also sustainable to entice your customers into buying from you.

66% of customers would pay more for sustainable products. (Statista)

This is one trend that is here to stay. Who said that eco-friendly packages aren’t cute? Look at the inspiration below.

5. Creative packaging

Start to get creative with your holiday packaging. Most of the brands would go for the red and white traditional packaging and also establish their branding elements onto the package. You don’t have to necessarily follow that. You can go with different packaging ideas that don’t resemble traditional holiday season vibes but bring an entirely different vibe. That is one perfect way to stand out from the crowd.

6. Adding festive elements inside the package

While you concentrate on the product and the outer surface of what the package looks like, it is important to create a very good unboxing experience too by adding festive elements inside the package also. You can add snowflakes or glitters or dried flowers inside your package so that it falls on to the customer when they open, bringing in a magical spirit to your product.

7. Interactive QR code

Every single area of your package can be utilized to bring in a festive mood. One such creative idea is a QR code. You can leverage AR and VR for the unboxing experience of your customer. You can create interactive QR codes that would take your customers to your holiday content, products on sale, or holiday-themed videos to entertain your customers. Customize your QR code for easy returns and exchanges. Another way to creatively use these QR codes is to enroll your customers automatically for holiday contest entries.

Protect your packages

An e-commerce brand goes to a great extent to give a positive customer experience, starting from luring the customers into their store through various promotional activities, up until the time when they send shipping and tracking notifications to their customers to keep them in the loop. But what if your high-value product or your limited-edition product gets lost or damaged during transit? As an e-commerce brand, you can do many things to protect your package and one such thing is shipping insurance.

Shipping insurance is a great way to get your product insured and if anything goes wrong, you can always file claims with your shipping insurance provider to get back the money that you have invested in the product. While supply chain disruptions are very common during the holiday season, we recommend that you protect your packages with shipping insurance.

Wrapping Up

Remember that you do all these activities to retain a lifetime customer. Giving a positive experience to your customer by concentrating on every single touch, including holiday packaging ideas is a great way to show your dedication towards keeping your customers satisfied. Keep in touch with them by collecting their feedback and making them feel valuable. Send out frequent communications regarding your offer and discounts. Reach out to your customers during their important dates and make them feel satisfied.

Good Luck with the Holidays!

The post 7 festive packaging ideas to drive up the holiday sales appeared first on Lateshipment.com.

Tips for a Great eCommerce Returns Process

Sashank Ravindranath — Mon, 24 Jul 2023 04:57:12 +0000

What a journey has it been for e-commerce returns — From terrifying businesses with the presumption of being customer repulsive and a cost-center to becoming one of the most sought after services from a business.

However, even today, most businesses consider the order experience to end with delivery and see returns as just something trivial instead of a feature that they definitely should embrace.

But is just providing returns enough? Well, not so much in 2023 at least.

Today’s customers have increased expectations when it comes to returns experiences from brands.

Meeting, or rather exceeding these expectations, can lead to a smooth and hassle-free returns process that increases their satisfaction levels and helps you turn a potentially negative experience into an opportunity to win loyal customers.

Thus, without further ado, here are some tips to help you optimize your returns process to create happier customers and enjoy success.

Tips for Improving Your E-Commerce Returns Process

1. Simplify handling returns requests

The first step to make your returns a breeze starts with the first action that takes place when there’s a need to make a return arises from the customer’s end — initiation.

Returns initiation is nothing but the customer having a product that they’d like to return at hand and notifying you of it.

Under legacy methods, this usually involves the customer contacting the support team with a query, which becomes a ticket that needs to be followed up and acted upon.

However, this may not be the best ploy as support interactions may take time and a long initiation process can frustrate customers who may drop off without initiating AND doing business with you.

Up to 40% of customers will stop doing business with a company if the process for initiating returns is complicated.

Worry not! There’s a better way to do this.

Have a clear returns policy

Tailor your returns policy in a way that it meets your objectives as well as is clear enough for your customers to understand.

When customers know what to do and what to expect there is less friction in the initiation process, thus leading to:

Happy customers due to increased satisfaction and reduces frustration levels
Reduced workload on customer service reps
Increased savings on shipping and processing costs, thanks to lower number of returns

Make the returns initiation process as simple and straightforward as possible

Ensure that doing returns with you, comes with a host of benefits such as:

Multiple channels to request returns, such as a dedicated returns portal on your website, or even a chatbot – to display your commitment to providing customers with a great returns process
Flexible return methods such as exchanges and store credits – to make the process more convenient and encourage repeat purchases
Automated and prepaid return labels – to retain control over return-related costs

All of this can make the returns initiation process quicker and easier, and ultimately reduce the chances of your customers giving up on doing returns by enhancing their satisfaction.

2. Deliver a great returns experience

A seamless returns initiation process to begin helps you improve customer satisfaction among other things.

Riding high on that wave, your next action is to provide a great returns experience that boosts loyalty.

92% of shoppers say they will buy again if the returns process is easy.

This means your chance to redefine returns as a growth driver and not customer repulsive is here and well-defined.

Proactively Process Returns

Once returns are received, process them promptly and efficiently to ensure that your customers don’t get any second thoughts regarding continuing business with you.

Aim to issue refunds or exchanges as quickly as possible, demonstrating your commitment to resolving any issues proactively.

You can also employ automation to manage inventory, track the status of returned items, and ensure that items are returned to the correct location and that they are available for sale again.

Provide seamless returns status tracking

Providing customers with real-time updates on the status of their returns builds trust and transparency.

Send proactive updates on returns requests, via automated email and SMS status notifications and provide a live tracking page, to allow customers to stay in the whereabouts of their package. This works in reducing support inquiries and enhancing customer experience, thereby leading to increased customer confidence.

Being proactive with returns also helps in reducing the time taken on handling returns and frees up your support agents and warehouse operators time.

3. Reduce the number of returns

Almost all returns are valid but not all of them have to be refunded or initiated as returns. This is because almost 70% of all returns are size and fit related.

These returns, if not cut down, can prove to be a costly problem for e-commerce businesses, and lead to lost revenue and increased shipping costs.

Lucky for you, there are a number of things that e-commerce businesses can do to reduce unwanted returns.

Implement return reason analysis

Analyze the reasons for returns to identify patterns and potential areas for improvement.

If the data suggests that there are recurring issues with product quality, size discrepancies, or incorrect descriptions, etc, you can take efforts to address the problem at its root cause and implement corrective actions to reduce future returns.

Understanding return reasons can also guide product development and improve product descriptions, leading to a better shopping experience for your customers.

Leverage returns data for business insights

Returns data can offer valuable insights into your business in the form of specific products or categories, seasonality trends, and the impact of marketing campaigns on returns.

This data-driven approach allows you to make informed decisions and fine-tune your inventory, marketing and customer service strategies.

Final word

Improving your returns process is not only crucial for customer satisfaction but also an opportunity to gain a competitive edge in the e-commerce industry.

By offering a clear and user-friendly returns policy, simplifying returns initiation, and efficiently processing returns, you can create a positive post-purchase experience for your customers.

Leverage returns data to make informed business decisions and continuously improve your operations.

Remember, a seamless returns process can turn dissatisfied customers into loyal advocates for your brand. Invest in enhancing your returns process, and watch your e-commerce business thrive.

The post Tips for a Great eCommerce Returns Process appeared first on Lateshipment.com.

An E-Commerce Business’ Guide To Shipping Policy

Sashank Ravindranath — Mon, 15 May 2023 15:44:24 +0000

You might have some of the best products that are also the customers’ need of the hour. You are confident of making a sale but somehow the customer who has passed through stages of funnels doesn’t become your customer. A little analysis of your customer behavior at this stage or simply asking for their feedback will give you an insight into how your shipping policy impacted their purchasing decision.

But why are these shipping policies so crucial that 67% of shoppers check a store’s policy before making a purchase? If you’re a retailer who has just opened an online store, this article stands to provide you with everything you need to create a fine shipping policy that works out well for your business. If you’re someone with experience but still looking for ways to perfect your shipping policy and improve conversions, then you’re at the right place as well. Stay tuned to learn more about shipping policies and the role they play in your business.

The Role of Shipping Policies in Your Business

For the e-commerce novice here, let’s revisit things a little.

Shipping policies are simply a document that covers a set of guidelines and procedures to highlight the ways an e-commerce business handles the shipping and delivery of its products to customers.

While a shipping policy might simply seem like a webpage that communicates your shipping procedures to customers who’d like to shop with you, in reality, it holds more power to help your business:

Set clear expectations about your shipping and delivery times with your customers to offer them convenience and by extension a positive experience as they are awaiting their orders
Improve conversions by including all necessary details to have a comprehensive and shopper-friendly shipping policy

Craft your shipping policy to suit your business’ needs when it comes to aspects such as returns and exchanges to prevent frauds such as wardrobing and reduce unnecessary costs in the long run.

The Whats And Whys of Shipping Policies

Starting a shipping policy from scratch or looking to make changes to your existing one? Here are some things that you need to include (also learn how these additions bring benefits to your business).

1. What are the shipping methods available at your e-commerce store?

The most crucial detail that you cannot afford to miss out on is highlighting different shipping methods for your customers to choose from. For starters, mention whether you provide expedited shipping, BOPIS, international shipping, etc. Remember, providing multiple options when it comes to shipping methods is always better as customers feel in control of their decision by choosing an option that best suits them.

2. When can customers expect their orders?

Mentioning estimated delivery times answers a major question on the customers’ minds “How soon will I receive my package?”. Start by displaying the order processing time and include delivery times based on different shipping methods. By keeping your customers in the loop of such information, you can reduce their pre-parcel anxiety and ensure a positive experience.

3. How much do you charge for shipping?

48% of shoppers abandon their carts due to extra costs. Adding to these woes is 16% of shoppers bailing out early because they couldn’t see or calculate the total cost of the order upfront (Baymard’s study). Thus, it is always a good ploy to display shipping costs to your customers before they start adding items to their cart. Also, highlight what is the minimum purchase for shoppers to become eligible for free delivery, etc to motivate them to spend more. In case if you are shipping internationally, you can add a breakdown of the increase in costs based on international taxes and other additional charges.

4. Are there any shipping restrictions?

In addition to delivery ETAs, you can also include a message in your shipping policy in case there have been unexpected incidents such as bad weather, peak shipping periods like the holiday season, lockdowns, supply chain crises, etc, to inform customers of their orders, possibly taking more time than usual to reach them. Shipping restrictions also occur in the form of your products facing customs regulations at certain domestic or international destinations. For your shoppers from such locations, you can highlight a clause on where you ship to.

5. Where can customers track their orders?

Customers are increasingly anxious regarding their orders and with growing technology, they expect brands to provide them with the ability to track their orders at all times. At that moment, you cannot expect them to reach out to your support team and wait for a response. Instead, add a “track order” button that sends them to the order tracking page, where they can periodically track their shipments. You can also mention that regular shipping updates will be sent to them via notifications to ease their anxiety.

6. How can customers reach out to support teams?

Customers during the post-purchase phase demand support for two major reasons: when they are unable to determine the status of their package or to file a complaint when it gets lost or damaged. While this is a problem for your support reps on its own, what makes it worse is customers’ being unable to find where to reach support for help. In such cases, their frustration worsens and they are prone to take their grievances on social media and tarnish your brand’s reputation. To avoid this, simply add and highlight simple steps on how they can reach your support (via chat, email, or phone) to make things convenient. Keep in mind that this is a short term fix at best. For overall reduced post-purchase-related support queries and saving your support reps’ time, take a proactive approach to resolve delivery issues.

7. What should the customers do in case there’s a need for a return or an exchange?

The average e-commerce return rate is 20-30%. While brands such as yours often assume returns to be a headache, the customers don’t feel that way. They are more likely to choose a brand that offers seamless returns. Thus, it is wise to take the opportunity of capturing your customers’ attention by mentioning the time it takes from your end to process a return, the steps involved, the details and actions needed from their end, deadlines, refund policy, costs (if any), etc on the shipping policy page to provide easy access.

Bonus: Things To Cover While Working On Your Shipping Policy

The points we have discussed so far are the bare minimum when it comes to shipping policy. You have no option but to cover them to satisfy your customers before they start adding items to their carts. To stay ahead of the competition and delight your customers, you need to do certain things more.

For starters, you can add an “additional information” section where you cover details such as:

The carrier(s) you work with (for queries),
Store working days (for calculating order processing time)
Time taken to credit the refund when an order gets canceled before delivery
Clauses of holiday/peak season shipping policy, etc.

If you have extensive information at hand but feel all of it should be clear enough for the customers to understand, then the best option is to set up a FAQ section on your shipping policy page that covers all the bases. You can populate your FAQ section with common questions on the customers’ minds like:

How long will it take for the order to get delivered?
What is the price for the shipping?
What if the order doesn’t get delivered? etc.

Once you’ve planned everything on your shipping policy, the next step is to create and publish them. There are several places on your website to display your shipping policy to have the best effect. You can go with a footer link, in the hamburger menu that takes customers to your help center. Additionally, you can add links in their checkout process, shipping confirmation notifications, etc.

(If you haven’t already) You don’t have to start from scratch to develop a shipping policy for your e-commerce store. Sites like Shopify can help you with a template that you can modify to create your own.

Final Word

Thanks to increasing competition, today’s shoppers have a lot of options to choose from for their shopping needs. If you’re an e-commerce merchant who would like to place their business at the forefront, aspects like shipping policy should be well-crafted. Your shipping policy is a necessity that customers checkout even before adding items to their cart, thus, suiting your customers’ needs should be a priority to make a great first impression and improve conversions.

The post An E-Commerce Business’ Guide To Shipping Policy appeared first on Lateshipment.com.

How to Improve Brand Experience via Post-purchase Communication

Rohan Rinaldo Felix — Tue, 25 Oct 2022 13:40:56 +0000

E-commerce brands prioritize communicating with their customers frequently to influence their purchasing decisions and offer a decent experience associated with the brand.

However, the situation becomes radically different when the critical post-purchase phase of the customer journey begins. This is where the brand’s efforts towards a great customer experience (CX) suffer tremendously due to inadequate customer engagement leading to irreparable problems and lost opportunities.

If you’re an E-commerce or D2C store owner, customer support, or customer experience leader; this article is for you. Here are the things we’ll be covering in it.

Read through till the end if you’re looking at ways to start effectively engaging with customers in the post-purchase stage to improve the brand experience.

What Is Post-purchase Communication?

In simple terms, post-purchase communication is any sort of interaction between the brand and the customer after the latter has purchased with the former.

Any touchpoint that exists in the middle of the order getting confirmed to the order getting delivered or the returned order making its way back to the store qualifies as a post-purchase communication.

Post-purchase communication exists in many forms. Keep in mind that customers always expect brands to initiate communication hence, common forms of communication are order status notifications via emails and SMS, order tracking pages, customer support and social media interactions, delivery and returns feedback requests, etc. We’ll look at all of them in detail below.

Now that we’ve got a hang of what it means, let’s get into the underlying issues that exist in the post-purchase phase of the customer journey due to lack of communication.

Issues That Emanate from Lack of Proper Communication in the Post-purchase Phase

Today’s customers have almost unrealistic expectations when it comes to their experiences and this extends to the post-purchase phase too. Like this one for example.

Jokes apart. The post-purchase is notorious for service failures, billing errors, and everything that comes along with it. Such issues pose a real challenge for brands to meet customer expectations, let alone exceed them.

To make matters worse, brands often leave this valuable phase to third-party shipping carriers. This unfortunately results in a situation where communication suffers tremendously during this critical phase of the customer journey leading to irreparable problems and lost opportunities in the form of:

82% of online shoppers are worried about their orders not reaching them on time.
Up to 40% of support inquiries are WISMO (where is my order) or return status related.
30% of your customer support team’s time and effort is wasted handling repetitive delivery and return issues.
78% of online shoppers won’t purchase from a brand again after ONE negative delivery or returns experience.
12% of revenue is LOST by not selling more to customers during their ‘order’ and ‘return’ tracking moments.

On the other hand, effectively engaging with your customers comes with a host of benefits for your e-commerce brand, particularly related to improving the post-purchase CX among other things.

Why Communicating in the Post-purchase Phase Is Essential to the Brand Experience

Reduce customer anxiety when it comes to tracking their parcels – Pre-parcel anxiety is a real thing and more common than you think. Frequent communication from your end at this stage can mitigate their anticipation levels and reduce WISMO inquiries around parcel status by up to 70%. This can help you create a positive experience associated with your brand. Also, such proactive measures can free up your support team’s time and enable them to focus on other important stuff.
Improve brand recognition and recall – Customers track orders 6 to 8 times before delivery. By sending customers to track their parcels with the shipping carrier, you can stand to lose valuable opportunities to engage with them and build your brand. By taking control of your communicating order tracking information with your customers, you can witness a 30% increase in customer delight and brand recall.

That’s not all! There are also other benefits you stand to gain through the high open rates of shipping transactional emails (80-85%) and a possibility of up to 25% lift in repeat purchase rates with your remarketing efforts.

Now that we’ve seen the what and the why, let’s move on to the foremost question that is pondering in your mind. “So how do I start effectively engaging with customers in the post-purchase stage to improve the brand experience?”.

And the answer to the question is simply proactively communicating with your customers at various stages of the post-purchase phase. How exactly? Here’s how.

How Businesses Can Proactively Communicate Post-purchase

Let’s start with the most basic question, what does one mean by proactive communication in the first place?

Simply put, proactive communication in the post-purchase stands in interacting with the customers about their needs and issues preemptively (even before they become aware of it).

We’ve already talked about how close to 40% of customer support tickets created are shipping, delivery or returns related. These tickets are created out of primary needs such as order status information, inability to determine the parcel’s location, the requirement to return an order, frustrated rants over package issues not being informed, etc.

In all of the above cases, mitigating their frustration is a walk in the park with the help of proactive communication. So, without further ado, let’s start looking at ways e-commerce businesses such as yours can proactively communicate with customers in the post-purchase phase and improve the brand experience as a result of it.

Inform about potential order delays in advance

Your customers’ parcels facing delays are a common sight during the holiday season.

This is primarily due to shipping carriers straining capacity amidst the huge incoming volumes of parcels.

While delays are indeed frustrating for your customers, their impact can be largely reduced when customers are informed of them. And one such way to do it is to throw an announcement on your homepage and the order confirmation page about the possibility of delays.

This way, your customers who are shopping with you will be ready to accept that their holiday gift may arrive later than usual.

Inform shipping deadlines in advance

One such pre-purchase tactic to reduce your post-purchase burden is to inform your customers about the last days to ship for each holiday.

If you’re a frequent shipper, you might be aware that your shipping partner such as FedEx or UPS always comes up with a holiday shipping schedule that they adhere to. Last-minute shoppers who are unaware of these deadlines might receive parcels late, much to their disappointment.

Similar to the possibility of delays, you can also share your shipping deadlines as the customers are placing their orders and selecting delivery options. If you’re a business that doesn’t work on specific occasions such as holidays, you can share that information with customers as well.

Send out an early order confirmation

Unlike other transactional notifications, your order confirmation notifications are not an option but more of a necessity as customers are always expecting the brand to confirm their order ASAP.

This sets your customers towards a great post-purchase experience by giving them the satisfaction of the purchase being a success and the ability to re-check the details and make corrective actions.

As for your brand, order confirmation emails can be your ticket to increasing retention rates via special limited-time offers and product recommendations based on the customer’s recent purchase. Keep in mind that increasing customer retention rates by 5% increases profits by 25% to 95%.

Send delivery status notifications

Shoppers want to be up to speed about when their orders will arrive or what their return status is. Automate delivery and return notifications to inform customers at every event of the package journey.

Some of the common shipping transactional notifications can be sent for events such as order shipped, in transit, out for delivery, delivered, etc. In case everything doesn’t go according to your plan and your customer’s order hits a roadblock, you can send out customized notifications for common events such as delivery exceptions, suspected delays, failed delivery attempts, etc.

You can even up things further by embedding an order lookup widget on your shipping notifications and website to make tracking self-service.

Provide branded order-tracking experiences

Sending customers to a carrier’s website to track their order is old world. While you’re in complete control of your customer’s buying experience, why not their tracking experience?

How to do it, you ask?

Enable your customers to track their orders in a “branded” order tracking page hosted in your domain.

Apart from the generic order summary and tracking information, you can also extend the capabilities of your tracking page by including:

Brand elements such as font, logo, color schemes, etc, which can help brand recognition and recall.
Options to contact support and initiate returns from your tracking pages to offer convenience and improve the brand experience.
Sale announcements and personalized product recommendations to boost repeat purchases.

and so much more…

P.S. You can also enable your customers to track their ‘Order Delivery’ and ‘Return’ status by embedding a 24×7 order lookup widget on your website and chat tool. This helps you in making the brand experience smooth via self-service order tracking for your customers while considerably reducing the need for your support team’s help.

Collect customer feedback around post-purchase experiences and act on it

Allow customers to rate their overall delivery or returns experiences by including a rating/ feedback system on your ‘Delivery Notifications (Email & SMS)’ and ‘Branded Order Tracking Pages’ to gain customer feedback around post-purchase experiences and understand their satisfaction levels.

Getting feedback is one thing. But its true purpose lies in implementing required changes to your existing operations and making improvements that really matter.

Consistently directing efforts to improve CX post-purchase, and getting positive feedback from customers can help you promote brand credibility.

Simplify returns initiation

Customers return their purchases for various reasons ranging from size and fit related to quality issues.

And believe us, customers are not happy about returning the item(s) they purchased, as they’ve waited long enough to get their hands on it. Thus, let’s not make it any more stressful for them. Instead, simplify returns initiation by keeping the process limited to not more than 2 minutes.

Inform customers of the status of their returned orders

Communicate the return status information with your customers at regular intervals via:

Sending proactive updates on returns requests, via automated email and SMS status notifications to keep customers in the loop effortlessly.
Enabling live package tracking that provides complete transparency around return status to eliminate customer anxiety about the whereabouts of their package.

Such measures in turn can help you make the returns experience seamless for your customers and give them the confidence to keep shopping with you.

The start of the holiday season can be a great time to implement all these post-purchase communication tactics right. Here’s a little hack — you don’t have to do all this by yourself. Instead, you can try making use of a post-purchase solution like LateShipment.com, to get things done on your behalf.

How Lateshipment.com Can Help You Provide a Great Brand Experience

Want to deliver delight with every order you ship?

Want to drive more sales during order tracking?

And lastly, want to make returns profitable?

Look no further. LateShipment.com is the world’s only all-in-one post-purchase success platform built for e-commerce retailers, D2C brands, and other businesses shipping parcels, no matter the volume of shipments.

Our Delivery Experience Management (DEM) is here to help you build memorable order delivery experiences and boost revenue during order tracking moments. And our Returns Experience Management (REM) is here to make returns hassle-free with flexible return options and smart automation to help retain revenue.

Also, LateShipment.com seamlessly integrates with 600+ shipping carriers and business tools that include E-commerce platforms, Helpdesks, and Marketing Automation tools to:

Build branded tracking experiences in your domain and increase repeat purchase revenue.
Initiate contextual communication with customers whose parcels may be facing issues.
Automate shipping-related notifications for more than 10 shipping events and keep customers informed of their parcel status at all times.

And drive delightful post-purchase experiences at scale.

The value we offer is most evident when experienced first-hand.

Try LateShipment.com now.

The post How to Improve Brand Experience via Post-purchase Communication appeared first on Lateshipment.com.

How to Respond to Customers After a Late Delivery

Ian — Thu, 13 Oct 2022 11:41:24 +0000

Late delivery incidents are frequent, almost inevitable, and happens primarily because of shipping carriers failing to keep up with their promises of on-time delivery despite their busy schedules during times like the holiday season and while facing supply chain disruptions.

As an e-commerce retailer, it makes sense to take a look at how late deliveries can be problematic to you.

Up to 10% of parcels are delivered late during the holiday season
Nearly half of consumers (45%) say they are unlikely to continue ordering from a company even after just one instance of late delivery
Frustrated customers with delayed holiday gifts will take their frustrations to social media and demotivate others from shopping with you.

On-time deliveries, though, aren’t always within a business’s control. And avoiding customer concerns and complaints when they question you about a late delivery only makes matters worse.

So, here are 4 tips for how you can respond to customers after a late delivery and focus on doing long-term business with them even after a poor delivery experience.

How to respond to customers after a late delivery in 2022

1. Be Honest about Your Capabilities

Don’t put your company in a situation where late deliveries are common because you’re stretching your shipping resources too thin.

Provide customers with realistic shipping times, even if that means your competitors can deliver quicker.

Quick shipping is an attractive benefit to consumers, but knowing when to expect their deliveries is far more important.

Be honest with your customers about how quickly you can deliver an item. You risk damaging your relationship with them if you can’t fulfill your deliveries on time.

2. Be Transparent about Delays

Even if the reason for the late delivery is not your fault (when it’s due to weather or other unforeseen events), acknowledge the delay and contact your customer immediately.

Your customers already hold you accountable for late deliveries and even go to the extent of stopping doing business with you, so why not take responsibility for it and try to ease their frustrations? Also, customers are more forgiving when you’re transparent about the reasons for the delay and the adjusted shipping dates.

For example, Boxycharm women’s subscription box sends out its products in the early part of each month. Its subscribers look forward to receiving their boxes and complain loudly on social media when boxes don’t arrive on time.

When Boxycharm learned there would be a 2-week shipping delay due to product shortages, it notified customers of the delay immediately and told them exactly when to expect their shipments.

While nobody’s happy about receiving a late delivery, consumers do understand that weather emergencies and product shortages can cause delays.

When you let them know about a late delivery in advance, they’re less disappointed and more likely to forgive the problem.

3. Be Generous with Your Time and Compensation

According to an online shopping study, 90% of consumers complain publicly or privately, online and offline, after a late delivery or other bad delivery experiences.

Negative comments on social media aren’t always bad for your brand, though. People view brands more positively when they respond to negative comments. This gives you the chance to win back your original customers and visitors who are reading through your comments and reviews.

Thank complaining customers for their input, and let them know that you value your business and are making every effort to ensure late deliveries don’t happen again in the future.

Many businesses ask unhappy customers to message them privately, and frequently this means they’ll offer some compensation for their inconvenience.

Offering a credit, shipping refund, or free gift to customers whose deliveries are late shows that you value their business. These types of small gestures can help you retain customers who otherwise may not return.

For example, when Grove Collaborative experienced a significant shipping delay with its products, it emailed customers with an explanation, sincere apology, and free gift offer.

By offering a free gift with the next order, Grove increased its chances of customers returning to place an order in the future.

4. Be Proactive and Try Your Best to Resolve the Impact of a Late Delivery

Late deliveries are common and inevitable, yes. But what if there was a way for you to step in before your customers have been impacted by them?

This is where a real-time parcel tracking solution can come in handy.

With the ability to track all your parcels across carriers, geographic locations in real-time, get predictive alerts and flag shipments that seem to be staying behind on schedule. You can then enable your customer support team to intervene and fix the issue before it impacts your customer.

When your customer’s order is facing weather-related exceptions, you can send automated and timely notifications that are customized to the specific situation to keep your customers informed of what’s been happening with their parcels and ease their anxiety.

Even if the issue goes unresolved, your commitment towards taking proactive action can help you strengthen customer relationships and build rewarding delivery experiences.

Communication Can Help Retain Customers Who Experience Late Deliveries

Approaching your shipping operations from a customer-centric perspective helps retain customers in the case of late deliveries or shipping malfunctions.

Your company risks losing customers when shipments are behind schedule.

By communicating in a way that’s honest, transparent, and generous, you can significantly increase the chances of keeping your customers despite a poor delivery experience.

This Artilcle is a contribtion by Riley Panko

Riley Panko is a Marketing Communications Manager for Clutch, a B2B research, ratings, and reviews platform. Clutch helps business buyers make informed decisions about partnering with a business services or technology solutions partner.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) Around Late Deliveries

1. How do you respond to a customer complaint about late delivery?

Be honest with your customers about your capabilities on how quickly you can deliver an item
Notify customers of the delay immediately and tell them when to expect their shipments
When customers who have experienced a shipping delay, write a sincere apology and offer them coupons for discounted prices on their next purchase
Send regular, personalized notifications that are tailor-made to the specific situation to keep your customers informed of what’s been happening with their parcels and ease their anxiety.

2. How do you apologize for delayed customers?

Acknowledge the delay and explain what really went wrong to your customers, offer them a list of solutions and let them choose what’s best for them and provide discounts such as free shipping/ reduced prices on their next delivery.

3. What causes late delivery of products?

The most common reasons for late deliveries are transit confusions due to human error, delivery exceptions such as failed deliveries, poor warehouse management, lack of coordination among the people involved, customs issues (for international shipments), acts of gods such as weather changes or natural calamities, etc. Also delays are more common during the holiday season when shipping carriers are operating beyond threshold.

The post How to Respond to Customers After a Late Delivery appeared first on Lateshipment.com.

E-commerce Delivery Experience Management (DEM) to Drive Customer Delight

Rohan Rinaldo Felix — Mon, 25 Jul 2022 11:24:42 +0000

Customers are no longer just interested in low prices, fast shipping, and free returns have constantly been the three must-haves for an online business to make the cut in today’s market.

They want e-commerce brands to treat them with the proper experience that can lead them to shop again.

However, most brands unwillingly make the mistake of not giving the same level of attention to their post-purchase as they do to their pre-purchase. This is because brands feel the customer journey ends with the ‘buy’ button. Which is not the case.

This lack of attention and leaving out the post-purchase order delivery phase at the hands of the shipping carrier often leads to bad delivery experiences and ultimately a post-purchase CX gap that can cost you customers and money.

In order to close this existing gap and create the opportunity to delight customers in the post-purchase phase, brands must start crafting stellar delivery experiences. Here comes Delivery Experience Management (DEM) that can help you do just that.

To get better context, let’s start with what DEM stands for.

What is Delivery Experience Management (DEM)?

Delivery Experience Management (DEM) is the process of being proactive in ensuring that your customers receive their orders on time and how they expect. It also involves taking action as required to correct delivery issues and constantly engaging customers in the post-purchase phase to validate brand promises.

Organizationally Delivery Experience Management (DEM) sits at the very intersection of onsite customer experience, post-purchase customer experience, and order fulfillment.

DEM is all about offering each of your customers a memorable post-purchase experience that not merely satisfies but also delights and makes them advocates of your brand.

But why does your e-commerce business in particular need DEM?

Why Does Your Business Need Delivery Experience Management (DEM)

DEM, still largely untapped, is sure to provide you a competitive advantage and allow your hitherto unprecedented control over your post-purchase phase. Here are only a few reasons why your business needs DEM:

Resolve critical shipping incidents before they happen with real-time updates – leads to 70% reduction in delivery inquiries
Strengthen customer relationships by keeping your customers informed of their orders – open rates are around 80% for personalized email and SMS notifications
Leverage tracking moments to increase brand awareness – 30% increase in brand recall
Decode customer sentiment and engagement to provide a positive delivery experience – 25% lift in repeat purchases

DEM is chock-a-block filled with aspects, if I may, that can help you craft the perfect delivery experience and drive customer delight. Let’s take a deeper look at tools for a complete understanding on DEM.

How DEM Helps You Craft the Perfect Delivery Experience and Drive Customer Delight

Real-time visibility is an aspect of DEM that allows you to stay on the pulse of each of your parcels in transit (from the moment they’re picked up by a shipping carrier up until it is delivered to its designated destination) and identify issues they face, thereby giving you ample time to set things right.

A lack of visibility into your delivery often comes with a horde of challenges, in the form of:

You, the business becoming aware of a delivery issue only when an angry customer calls in and
Your customer support reps are forced to handle repeated WISMO (Where Is My Order?) inquiries as there is a lack of information to deal proactively with delivery issues.

However, DEM simply eliminates this case by affording a real-time view of all parcels in transit across different shipping carriers and also working predictively to flag delivery issues even before they arise. This arms businesses with all the actionable information required to thwart a possible negative delivery issue for the customer even before it arises, thus enabling customer loyalty over time.

Proactive customer service is enabling your customer support reps to address and mitigate delivery issues before customer impact. This shows your strong commitment to keeping up with the high standard of customer experience you offer.

Not just unresolved issues, even simply being reactive to delivery issues can also hurt your business in the following ways:

Even your most loyal customer can stop shopping with you, leading to lower lifetime value (CLV) and higher acquisition costs (CAC)
Your brand’s online reputation takes a massive hit as frustrated customers post a negative review on social media and demotivate their followers, friends, and family from shopping with you.

This is where a DEM solution can make a major difference.

By providing unbiased real-time insights on the status of each of your parcels in transit, it can prepare you to respond in time when a specific parcel is facing a delay. This is a surefire way for your business to demonstrate to each customer that they are valued, thereby preventing the possibility of them switching over to a competitor.

Also, it considerably reduces the number of calls about parcel whereabouts that a support agent has to face and frees up their time to tend to product-specific issues. Over time, this helps in improving the scores of every member of the support team for which they will be thankful to you!

Handing over the control of the package causes a broken customer experience in the order delivery phase and is also a lost opportunity to monetize tracking moments.

Delivery Experience Management corrects this imbalance by helping e-commerce businesses provide on-brand order tracking experiences that can make more of a mark on their customers and, indeed, delight them.

In terms of branded customer engagement, DEM helps you:

Keep customers informed of delivery status through automated & personalized email and SMS notifications that are triggered and sent to customers when their parcels reach specific events during the shipping process.
Provide customizable branded tracking pages that makes it possible for a customer to track their parcels within your website rather than being taken to the tracking page of a shipping carrier.

Leveraging order tracking moments can work as your e-commerce store’s next marketing advantage by ensuring brand recall and opening up upselling and cross-selling opportunities for your business. Also, adding relevant product information can help reduce unwanted returns.

There has always been a dearth of data when it comes to the error-prone stage of the logistics cycle, the post-purchase phase. This includes the gap in understanding customer satisfaction metrics as well.

While you have CSAT and NPS to know how satisfied your customers are and how likely they are to recommend your brand to others, you still don’t have clarity on when exactly customers feel let down by your business.

Worry not! DEM provides access to a wealth of unbiased data on the delivery performance of your shipping partner(s); data hitherto unavailable to e-commerce businesses like yours; data that shipping carriers have always been hesitant to share with businesses.

This unbiased view of customer sentiment about the quality of delivery experience you offer enables you to:

Take delivery-related decisions that are bound to delight your customers
Know how your shipping carriers’ performance impacts your customers and hold this data to account for their SLAs
Shine a light on the quality of your post-purchase phase
Helps protect your brand’s reputation from negative feedback.

How DEM Integrates with Your Existing Tech Stack

The beauty of a good DEM solution lies in the fact that it allows you to simplify workflows and boost organizational productivity without disrupting your pre-existing solutions.

For instance, a DEM platform like LateShipment.com gives you everything you need to create delightful delivery experiences for every shopper, every time. And the best part, it works with all the tools you work with.

LateShipment.com’s DEM suite is designed to seamlessly integrate with most shipping carriers, eCommerce platforms, order management platforms, CRMs, and helpdesk tools.

Additionally, LateShipment.com also can integrate with custom-built tools and platforms. Our API makes it easy to enable such integrations. This allows you to tap into all the great benefits that can take your business to the next level.

Do Bigger Things with Your Post-purchase

Don’t stop with a great delivery experience. With LateShipment.com, go all out with your post-purchase excellence. It combines stellar delivery experiences with easy, seamless returns – all while significantly reducing your shipping spend by auditing your invoices and recovering eligible refunds from your carriers.

It takes less than 2 minutes to see LateShipment.com in action without any change to your existing workflow.

Try for free now.

The post E-commerce Delivery Experience Management (DEM) to Drive Customer Delight appeared first on Lateshipment.com.

Post-Purchase CX : 8 Strategies to Implement in 2022

Sashank Ravindranath — Fri, 27 May 2022 06:33:08 +0000

As an ecommerce brand, you put a lot of time and effort into your customer experiences (CX) to make them hit buy. But have you thought of what happens later?

The warehouse to your customer’s doorstep is only 50% of the order experience. The CX journey continues post-purchase with shipping, tracking, delivery, returns, reviews, and more.

However, what’s surprising or rather shocking is the fact that this phase is often unwittingly left out by brands who assume the customer journey to end with the ‘buy’ button.

This lack of effort by brands in the post-purchase leads to a big post-purchase gap coupled with carrier errors, customer anxiety, complicated delivery, and returns experiences. All of this takes a toll on your CX and ultimately your wallet.

The Big Post-Purchase CX Gap in Online Retail (And What It Really Means to Your Business)

The post-purchase CX gap (as it is called) is a result of businesses like yours losing control over the experience you provide to your customers after parcels have been handed over to third-party shipping carriers/partners, who may not share the same level of commitment towards ensuring a delightful and frictionless delivery experience.

This gap in turn creates a domino effect and can have a huge impact on your customers, resulting in far more consequences.

The Impact of Post-Purchase CX Gap on Consumers

High customer anxiety before order delivery – The average customer tracks their order 6-8 times during delivery
A surge in the volume of WISMO calls – Over 40% of customer support tickets created are SHIPPING, DELIVERY, or RETURNS related
Customer frustration over order delays – 1-in-3 customers abandon a brand after just ONE bad delivery OR return experience
Your brand’s reputation takes a massive hit – 86% of people hesitate to do business with an ecommerce store if it has negative reviews online
Lost opportunity to drive repeat sales during order tracking moments – 8 to 10 customer engagement and revenue growth opportunities are LOST during the post-purchase customer journey

The aforementioned points evidently bring to light the existing gap in the post-purchase phase of your customer journey and its potential impact on your online business.

While these issues are inevitable, delivering stunning experiences post-purchase can help you turn customer frustrations into fierce loyalty and in turn help you save on shipping costs.

With that said, it’s time for you to close the existing post-purchase CX gap by adopting technology solutions and making full use of the post-purchase phase: a goldmine for brands that ship.

Here are some measures to help you provide your customers with a memorable CX after checkout and cement you as their go-to option. The following post-purchase strategies will have a positive impact on both your customers’ lifetime value and the retention rate of your business.

8 Proven Strategies to Ensure Post-Purchase CX Success

Planning a post-purchase CX strategy is not rocket science!

There are just 3 steps to be followed to ensure post-purchase CX success!

Claim shipping refunds
Deliver delightful delivery experiences
Make returns easy

Let’s look at these steps in detail for a better understanding.

1.Stop overpaying your shipping carriers; Claim refunds

Did you know that there are over 50 shipping carrier errors (service failures and billing errors) such as late deliveries, lost shipments, damaged packages, incorrect surcharges, duplicate entries, etc that are eligible for refunds?

Refunds are just money left on the table. Not claiming them for your carriers’ failures means you’re losing valuable dollars month-on-month.

However, keep in mind that manually filing refund claims can be time-consuming, boring, and complicated. It is important to make use of a parcel audit solution that identifies and automatically submits relevant claims.

Apart from helping you save on your shipping costs month-on-month, regularly claiming shipping refunds also ensures better service quality by your shipping carriers.

2. Monitor your parcels in real-time; learn about delivery issues before they affect your customers

Sure refunds are great. But they don’t make up for the lost customers due to delivery issues.

In that case, you must effortlessly manage your delivery experiences to delight your customers.

The first step in your post-purchase CX action(able) plan is to gain visibility into your post-purchase, by monitoring your in-transit parcels in real-time and being in the know of all your parcels across carriers, locations, and service types.

Real-time tracking data gives you predictive analysis and an intuitive, 360-degree view into your post-purchase, so that you may know where you need to intervene.

3. Enable your support team to proactively handle delivery issues

With the help of real-time tracking, you can now empower your support reps to stay in the know of parcels that are error-prone, and proactively resolve them before customer impact. Such efforts can help you forge strong customer relationships and foster brand loyalty.

Ecommerce brands can also provide omnichannel support on their website, social media, etc, to avoid the issue being escalated and reduce the number of support tickets being created.

4. Send automated shipping notifications via email and SMS; when it matters the most

The significant downside to losing control of the post-purchase CX to the shipping carrier is the lost opportunity to engage with your customers during their order tracking moments, which creates a broken shopper experience that negatively impacts your business.

Therefore, it is important to correct this imbalance and provide ecommerce businesses the ability to engage with their customers in the post-purchase phase. This way, you can make more of a mark on their customers and, indeed, delight them.

5. Build branded post-purchase assets that are visually appealing

Providing post-purchase experiences that are on-brand can help you take a step further in your path toward meeting customer expectations and delighting them.

Make order tracking an extension of your brand experience by keeping your tracking pages aligned with your brand elements.

Instead of sending your customer to the carrier’s tracking page, which is often dull, you can create your own branded tracking pages that are both beautiful and brand-consistent.

You can also embed an “order track” button onto your website and transactional emails and SMS notifications and make order tracking self-service, thereby reducing the number of WISMO inquiries.

6. Drive repeat sales with product recommendations

Make your tracking experience more than just transactional by having product recommendations personalized for every customer.

Use the real estate on your order tracking pages to run relevant product promotional campaigns and upsell/cross-sell your products.

This can double your chances of driving repeat sales by running offers, sales, or marketing campaigns on your tracking page and transactional emails.

7. Get customer feedback around their delivery experience

Collecting delivery feedback is just as important as recording your product feedback. It tells you how your delivery experience fared and gives you important insights into your carrier’s performance as well.

These delivery satisfaction ratings work as an index of your brand’s performance in the post-purchase phase. You can leverage this data to make better delivery choices and consistently improve your brand’s post-purchase experience, to earn fierce customer loyalty in return.

Capturing these delivery satisfaction ratings will also in turn reflect on your overall customer satisfaction metrics such as CSAT and NPS.

8. Make order returns hassle-free

All that hard work you put into your customers’ shipping and delivery experiences will be thrown away the moment your customer wants to return a product and you do not have a proper returns management strategy in place.

Therefore, don’t stop with a great delivery experience. Go all out with your post-purchase CX by providing easy and seamless returns.

92% of shoppers say they will buy again if the returns process is easy.

To make returns an integral part of your post-purchase strategy, Here are some important tips that you can follow.

Have a clear-cut returns policy
Offer free and flexible returns
Self-service returns with zero support interactions
Make returns profitable for your business
Provide live return status tracking and updates

All of this can help you redefine returns as a growth driver for your business and create loyal customers for life.

While each of these strategies may seem challenging to be implemented in the long run, it can be relatively easier with the help of post-purchase CX success tools such as LateShipment.com.

How Lateshipment.Com Helps You Drive Post-purchase CX Success

LateShipment.com is the world’s only logistics cloud tool that helps businesses of every size provide memorable delivery experiences to customers at scale.

At LateShipment.com, our focus has remained steadfastly on the post-purchase phase, typically the part of the logistics chain that is the most neglected.

Here’s how our Delivery Experience Management platform powers post-purchase CX success for your business.

Stay on top of delays by tracking your in-transit parcels across carriers in real-time.
Resolve delivery issues proactively with predictive alerts for shipments facing delays.
Send automated delivery status notifications via email and SMS to reduce your customers’ anxiety.
Build beautiful, branded order tracking pages, personalized for your customers.
Capture your customers’ Delivery Satisfaction (DSAT) rating after every order delivery.

BONUS 1: Save you up to 20% on your shipping bills

With the help of our automated parcel audit and refunds solution, you can have your monthly shipping invoices automatically audited for 50+ shipping carrier service failures and claims refunds on your behalf. The claimed amount is directly deposited into your account. This can save you up to 20% of your overall shipping spend.

BONUS 2: Provide effortless returns experiences

Our Returns Experience Management platform helps you make returns easy and profitable by increasing important CSAT metrics such as conversion rate, repeat purchases, revenue retained, etc all while reducing the time taken per return.

BONUS 3: Plug-&-Play Integrations

LateShipment.com seamlessly integrates with all your tech stacks whether CRM software, eCommerce platform, order management system (OMS) or customer support helpdesk solution. Our pre-built integrations work seamlessly on the backend to help you take charge of your customers’ post-purchase journey and ensure outstanding CX.

The best part is that it takes less than 2 minutes to see LateShipment.com in action without any change to your existing workflow.

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

Interested? We at LateShipment.com can’t wait to help you grow your fanbase, savings, and business.

Get in touch with our expert or write to us.

The post Post-Purchase CX : 8 Strategies to Implement in 2022 appeared first on Lateshipment.com.

10 E-Commerce Shipping Best Practices You Should Know

Sashank Ravindranath — Tue, 26 Apr 2022 15:37:48 +0000

The importance of a quality shipping experience in e-commerce cannot be stressed enough. This is primarily due to the fact that the post-purchase (shipping + delivery) takes up 50% of the overall delivery experience.

However, major e-commerce businesses leave out shipping in their strategy as they consider the onus of it to be with the shipping carrier. You need to make sure that you don’t be like them because your customers will still blame you for shipping issues.

61% of the customers will stop doing business with you after one bad customer service experience, which can often be due to shipping-related issues.

Thus, make sure you understand and follow these 10 best practices when it comes to e-commerce shipping.

1. Enforce a shipping strategy with a well-planned team

As an e-commerce business owner, strategizing and having clear goals will give you the right direction to your shipping game.

If your goal is increasing your customer base then focus on expanding your shipping to different markets.
If it is increasing conversion rates, then look at what is happening at checkout and offer services like free shipping and discounts.

Whatever your goal may be, have a team to execute this.

Make sure your marketing team is sending the right kind of messages. If you want more customers, then they have to expand their strategies as well. Having clear messaging about discounts, sales, and other benefits is essential to improving conversion rates.

The design team can take a closer look at how effective the web pages are and edit them accordingly. Your conversion rates can increase by 35% if you just change the design of your checkout page.

Train your customer service teams to interact with empathy and focus on solving customer issues. You must also have a robust fulfillment team that makes sure the shipment’s journey from order placed to delivery is smooth.

2. Offer free shipping options

61% of customers would abandon the carts if the additional fees such as taxes and shipping costs are too high. This is reasoning enough for you to consider free shipping.

However, are you wondering about your e-commerce business’ profit margins if your overhead costs become too much? Then provide free shipping but with a plan.

All your fellow competitors and market leaders do this. A minimum purchase order and after this shipping is free. Iloveplum even increased its average order value by 91% providing free shipping.

Make this clear on your website through the customer’s journey so they know free shipping is in their control.

3. Be transparent and provide shipping costs upfront

The next thing to free shipping in e-commerce to make your customers happy is being transparent.

Provide options at the beginning of their shopping experience to know the cost of shipping to their location. Ask them to enter their ZIP code and give them details.

This saves them from being surprised during checkout. Maintain a flat shipping rate so they know you are not adding additional costs. They may feel cheated with surprise charges at the end. You don’t want anyone associating your brand with such emotions.

4. Let them choose the shipping option

We know now that customers want free shipping and transparency. You can make this experience better for them with shipping options.

If they choose the kind of e-commerce shipping they want, you are putting them in charge. Whether they want to pay a little extra for early delivery or wait longer with lesser shipping – these options will help reduce the chances of cart abandonment.

5. Leverage a chatbot to improve customer experience

Chatbots are an indispensable tool for customer experience when it comes to e-commerce shipping. They provide service with the quickness and efficiency that is otherwise lacking.

Using chatbots to improve your user’s journey can be a great tool to improve conversion rates too.

It can help customers navigate the website and answer questions with ease. It could recommend products and increase AOV. It could even provide exclusive discounts if a customer is close to abandoning their carts.

Even post shipping, customers don’t have to go around looking for tracking details if a chatbot can do it for them with a simple question. It can provide them with live tracking data and understand where their package is at all times.

6. Provide multi-channel customer support

Whether your employees are attending to the customers or a chatbot – either way, the customer should have a good e-commerce shipping experience. And one of the ways to do that is to have a multi-channel approach.

Here are some customer service trends during BFCM 21.

Wherever they are trying to reach you, ensure you respond in a timely way. Maybe they are taking a concern to a social media platform because your internal team failed to provide a satisfactory resolution. Or maybe they didn’t even respond.

Make sure your team is organized and equipped to provide good customer support and understands that every customer has unique demands. Your reputation and brand loyalty can be at stake if something goes wrong. Pay heed to the customer!

7. Make order tracking easy for your customers

Several times logistics are given over to a third party. However, you must still provide customers with personalized information about you and them. The emails, messages, and notifications must have your branding and accurate details.

After making a purchase, especially if it’s the first time, customers can be apprehensive. But, providing tracking details to them before they even ask you for it, can ease their worries.

From which city is the package currently, the expected arrival date and information about any delays are imperative in providing a positive delivery experience.

82% of customers expect constant communication from brands about the delivery service at every fulfillment stage. With this, you will also increase the retention rate as well!

8. Use a shipping software to manage end to end processes

As your business expands, it becomes increasingly difficult to manage tasks without an end to end fulfillment software. It also makes sense to automate regular tasks and put them on an almost autopilot mode. This way you can take care of expanding your business.

Good software for shipping can help right from collating orders from multiple channels to ensuring smooth exchange and returns.

Choose a software that can help you keep a track of orders, generates shipping labels, produces invoices, provides self-return options, handles failed deliveries, gives tracking details, and other features that are important to your business. Choose the shipping software that meets your goals and pricing requirements.

9. Ensure packaging with care

When customers receive a package, it should make them happy. Packaging is part of that experience.

You might have budget constraints to personalize the packaging. But, you can still make sure the products are packaged with care. They should be able to sustain shipping without damaging the goods. In case they do receive damaged products, make sure your customer support team is on track to help them get a replacement.

Another way to improve packaging while staying within budget is to include small inserts in the packaging as a surprise for your customers. This can be a simple thank you note, a discount code for the next shopping, or a free sample.

10. Enhance the post-purchase experience

If you want customers to shop again from you, then you have to focus on the post-purchasing experience.

Interact with them through emails, SMS, and calls to understand their experience with the brand.

This lets them know you care about their interaction with you. It can give you valuable insights on how to improve your e-commerce shipping and customer experience.

Providing them with forms to answer questions to rate their experience can be a great way to build your Net Promoter Score (NPS). You can also build a repository of reviews through this initiative. You can also stay in touch with your customers through emails, newsletters, notifying them about sales and so much more!

Conclusion

These are some of the best practices you should implement in your strategy to provide the best e-commerce shipping experience for your customers. Understand how each one can make an impact on your brand in the long term and its implications on customer retention.

Prioritize those you can implement soonest and start from there. Ensure your customers are the primary factors in these decisions and you will see results from implementing such best practices.

This is a guest post by Oliver Thyra.

Oliver Thyra is the head SaaS copywriter and content strategist at Your Marketing Digest. His intense passion for marketing and his engineering background in software engineering has made him a guy who understands how to sell software subscriptions with words. In his free time, Oliver enjoys quality time with his pets (he has got 4 golden retrievers!).

The post 10 E-Commerce Shipping Best Practices You Should Know appeared first on Lateshipment.com.

Porch Pirates: How to Handle Them and Prevent Package Theft

Rohan Rinaldo Felix — Wed, 06 Apr 2022 00:00:56 +0000

Imagine if a product you’ve longed to collect for years gets stolen from you. And guess what? It was stolen right at your doorstep by fellow people dubbed ‘the porch pirates.’

Package thefts are so frustrating for the customer because of the fact that they can’t hold anyone responsible for the mishap of not being able to get their hands on their much awaited purchases except themselves and the “pirates” who scooted away with their package.

But you as an ecommerce business owner can save your customers from such bad times and stop package theft by porch pirates or if not even drastically reduce them to a great extent.

However, before we get to know the ‘how’ part, let’s take a further look at porch pirates and their impact on your business.

Who Are Porch Pirates and How They Can Affect Your Business?

Porch pirates are average individuals or a group who steal packages off customers’ doorstep or porches when it is left unattended.

Much like kleptomaniacs, Porch pirates are simply opportunists who cannot resist an opportunity to pick up packages they see lying on doorsteps or porches.

A recent study by Safewise found that a staggering 210 million packages vanished from porches across the US over the past 12 months.

The scale of the problem is only getting worse as more people begin to shop online. The problem gets exacerbated during the holiday season because it’s at this time of the year that people shop online the most. And it is common for people to leave on holiday while ordered packages lie on their doorstep.

Worry not! The situation is not out of hand. There are measures your business can take to stay safe from the scourge of package thieves that America is facing. Here are some things you could do.

What Retailers Can Do to Prevent Package Theft by Porch Pirates

There are a lot of ways in which retailers and shoppers can work together to prevent a theft attempt by porch pirates. Let’s take a look at the ways in the timeline of the order delivery cycle even before it gets shipped.

1. Package discreetly

When a package is dropped off on the porch of a house, it can sit up like a duck waiting to be shot. Porch pirates dream about just such a situation. Packaging discreetly can help avoid this situation.

There are many ways to make a package discreet. One way is to avoid excessive branding. Another way to make a package less noticeable is to reduce the amount of product-descriptive text on it.

Larger boxes are more attractive to porch pirates because they give the impression of a larger pay-off. Using a box that fits the size of the product will help make the package less noticeable while also helping to reduce the cost of shipping.

2. Provide your customers with flexible delivery options

It is best to start by leaving things to the judgment of your customers and the utmost importance for them would be the delivery.

There is a multitude of choices when it comes to making your delivery options flexible.

For example: you can provide multiple shipping and delivery options like Same-day delivery, BOPIS, etc to let your customers choose their own delivery time and follow up with offering 4-5 time windows throughout the day.

Apart from package safety, such flexibility in delivery options can also help you increase conversions, lower cart abandonment, and improve brand loyalty in general.

3. Keep your customers updated about the status of shipments

Proper communication is key to eliminating many of the pain points of the post-purchase shipping experience. This is a good way to deal with the risk of package theft as well.

The first aspect of proper communication with customers is to provide them with the right estimate of the delivery date and time.
The next step to be taken is to give them periodic updates on the status of the parcel in transit. These updates can be provided via SMS or e-mail or both. This will help customers be prepared at the time of delivery.
The final step in this process of communication is to drop a message once the actual delivery is about to be/has been performed. A helpline number can be provided to assist in case of discrepancies.

4. Use emerging technologies to ensure safe delivery

Using emerging technologies can help you stay one step ahead of porch pirates.

A lot of businesses today have come up with package guarding technologies that can come in handy for your customers. You can suggest any of these technologies to your customers and play a role in providing a safe delivery. This, in turn, can help in improving their post-purchase experience.

Amazon has come up with the Amazon Key, a smart lock that allows delivery persons to place packages not only at homes but also in garages and cars when the customer isn’t available at home.
There’s also the Amazon locker at select locations, that customers can make use of to pick up their packages with a unique code.
Suggest using package guarding services such as The Package Guard or Door Box to protect your packages via secure locks and anti- theft alarms, etc.
Encourage customers to install doorbell cameras and home security systems to deter porch pirates in most cases.

Such technologies can be especially useful when shoppers are away on a short trip or a long holiday vacation.

That’s not all! If you’re still concerned about your customers’ packages being stolen, know that there are many measures available to them to deter package thieves.

What Shoppers Can Do to Prevent Package Theft by Porch Pirates

1. Route Packages to Office Addresses

Home deliveries are fraught with problems: package thieves looting drop-off deliveries, irresponsible mailmen or carriers leaving packages on the front door without even knocking or ringing the door, pre-signing delivery without consent, or delaying home delivery by sending notifications too early.

All this can be avoided by routing packages to office addresses where they are processed officially. The probability of losing packages to package thieves is much less with office deliveries. This is also why FedEx/UPS charges more to deliver to residential zip codes than to office zip codes.

2. Mandate signatures on delivery

A mandated signature delivery can help in preventing package theft in most cases. An arrangement can be signed off with mutual consent from the sender and the receiver (you, that is). If a package is lost and there is no signature of delivery, a legal procedure can ensure that you receive a replacement or full refund.

3. Place packages on hold when on holiday

If you are away on holiday, you can opt to place your pending packages on hold. While USPS and FedEx offer a free service to hold packages for a certain period, UPS charges for every rescheduling.

4. Opt for in-store pickup

Click-and-collect is increasingly becoming a trend. Using this mode of delivery, you can order online and collect the ordered parcel from an outlet located near your home. This mode is particularly useful for ordering a larger number of items.

Bottom Line

While the threat of package theft continues to increase year on year, some measures can be taken by both retailers and customers to ensure package safety and a smooth last-mile experience. Retailers, shipping carriers, and end customers need to work hand in hand to stay ahead of package thieves.

A Little about LateShipment.com

We at LateShipment.com work hard to make “parcel shipping & delivery” transparent and help businesses be fully in control of their last-mile success.

Here are some ways in which LateShipment.com can help you regarding packages getting lost or stolen:

With our real-time tracking solution, you can step in before customer impact and proactively address them, thereby instilling confidence in your customers.
With automated and customized shipping notifications, keep your customers in the loop about the whereabouts of their order with proactive communication and free up your support time to focus on more pressing issues.

That’s not all! In case of packages that get lost due to carrier negligence, LateShipment.com can also help you automate refund claims from your shipping carriers for service failures to help you save up to 20% on shipping costs.

The value we add to businesses is most evident when experienced first-hand. Learn more about our solution here.

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How to Deal With Shipping Delays

Rohan Rinaldo Felix — Thu, 10 Mar 2022 06:19:00 +0000

Shipping delays (also known as post-pickup delays) are inevitable even with the most efficient carriers (thanks to the growing consumer demand). And when they happen, they tend to drive your customers away.

That’s not all! The worst part about them is that you do not have control over such events and often feel helpless when they happen.

Worry not! Dealing with shipping delays is no rocket science but first, we’ll start with the basics.

What Are Shipping Delays?

A package picked up by the carrier is marked as ‘shipped’. There are instances where this package gets held up before getting into transit and when that happens, the shipment is considered delayed.

While looking trivial, they can be particularly frustrating because they create a sense of uncertainty and can disrupt plans (on-time deliveries and improving customer experiences).

When delays in shipping are left unattended, they lead to late deliveries or delivery delays and can have worse consequences on your business.

Shipping delays are not only inevitable but frequent. They occur daily and it is somewhat true that they largely happen because of shipping carriers failing to keep up with their promises of on-time delivery despite their busy schedules.

But that’s not the only reason why parcels take time to reach their destination. Here are some of the other reasons why these delays happen.

Why Do Shipping Delays Occur

There are many reasons why the package is prevented from leaving the sorting facility or held by the carrier.

Severe weather conditions
Transportation issues like congestion, accidents, or equipment breakdowns
Peak seasons like holidays, where huge volumes of shipments overwhelm carrier networks
Issues within the carrier’s system, such as sorting errors, poor warehouse management, lack of coordination among the people involved, or labor shortages
For international shipments, customs inspections and clearance processes can take a little extra time

While shipping delays might be inevitable, they sure aren’t unavoidable. With the right course of action, you can mitigate or even prevent their impact on customers and your business.

What You Can Do About Shipping Delays (You Have the Power)

There are a whole lot of things you can do to avoid shipping delays from becoming late deliveries. Assuming that a delay has already happened. Here’s what you can do:

Effective communication with customers in handling their complaints

While customers are prone to get frustrated seeing that there has been a delay with their shipment before getting into transit, that shouldn’t prevent you from hiding this detail from them. This can cause more damage as customers always expect you to keep them informed about the status of their orders and estimated delivery times.

Firstly, it’s incredibly important that you communicate with your customer. The last thing a customer would want to see is that there has been a delay in shipping, and there’s no communication from the shipper. Make the effort to get in touch with the customer and let them know of the status of the parcel.

Secondly, Apologize if you should. Don’t fall to the misconception that this is the carrier’s fault. Your customers do not feel that way and are more inclined to hold you accountable. Therefore, take ownership and explain the whole situation.

Take ownership of the situation

This is probably easier said than done, but make sure you own up and face the ire of the customer if it comes to that. There’s no way you can skirt the issue — understand the customer’s frustration

Aside from giving consistent updates such as order status information, and offering empathy along with alternative shipping options or solutions they prefer.

This will actually show you in a good light and ensure that the expectations of your brand have been exceeded (thanks to your efforts to address their concerns efficiently and follow up to ensure satisfaction).

Proactive Measures to Minimize Delays

Here’s another killer tip for you. Sign up for a service that will help you track your shipments in real-time. This will allow you to identify potential delays early on and respond to issues preemptively. Regularly tracking your shipments also allows you to identify areas for improvement, such as insights into carrier performance.

If shipping delays are a regular occurrence with your carrier, using multiple carriers for different delivery requirements may well be the way to go. Multiple carrier options while being armed with data can help you to make necessary adjustments such as better carrier choices to prevent recurrence.

Final Word

Shipping delays are an inevitable part of the logistics industry. While they can be frustrating, proactive measures, effective communication, and a customer-centric approach can significantly mitigate their impact.

By following the steps mentioned here, you can minimize the impact of shipping delays and maintain customer satisfaction. Remember, effective communication and proactive measures are key to handling these challenges successfully.

The post How to Deal With Shipping Delays appeared first on Lateshipment.com.

Nola Skinsentials – A skincare brand that went from a humble beginning to 200k+ community

Hemalatha Sekar — Fri, 26 Nov 2021 13:22:07 +0000

If two things could define the last two years other than the pandemic, it is the rise of TikTok marketing and conscious consumption of skincare products.

Jane Ormon, a young entrepreneur has taken advantage of both and has built a rapidly growing skincare brand that has grown beyond double its production value in the past year alone. She and her fiance have put in their educational background, personal experiences, and love to create a community to create Nola Skinsentials.

We sat down with Jane herself to know the secret behind the exponential growth of Nola Skinsentials, and their secret to building a loyal customer base turned community. Here’s what Jane had to say about it.

Could tell us a little bit about yourself and your role in the company.

Yeah, so my name is Jane. I am the CEO of Nola Skinsentials. I pretty much handle the entire team. Anything that’s associated with admin, marketing, and customer service, I have my hands on all of that.

We love talking to leaders who are very hands-on with their business as that's where we get the most lessons from. Tell us a little more about Nola Skinsentials, where the idea came from, and how the business has developed from there?

Nola is where my fiance and I, who’s also my business partner, met at a seafood cafe when we were vacationing. We eventually became friends and later started dating. He’s a cosmetic chemist, I was going to school for pre-med. That’s how we got to the idea to start a skincare business with both of us as partners.

That's a really cool story! One thing we noticed about your brand is that you have created a skincare plan that is focused on melanin-rich skin tones. Could you tell us about that and how you pick that particular category? I'm assuming there's a personal connection with that.

Yeah, definitely. Back when I was a college student who was dealing with hormonal acne, there weren’t a lot of skincare products on the market that were compatible, products that were created specifically for women of color, and their skin tones.

Everything was marketed for all skin types and skin tones. And you know that that’s not true. Darker skin tones have different skin ailments and skin concerns than lighter skin tones. We deal with a lot more hyperpigmentation cases, we scar differently. We would need products that cater to our skin tones. We saw the need there and a big gap. So we went ahead and kind of created a solution for that and that’s kind of how Nola Skinsentials originated.

Skinsentials is just a play on the skin, obviously, and essentials. The things that your skin needs. So Nola has what your skin needs and just all that good stuff.

Awesome. Again, we love the effort that you're taking to make beauty and beauty products more inclusive. We see your business doing really well through Instagram marketing. Any tips for brands looking to grow a following on Instagram?

When we first started our brand, we by default created pages on all social media platforms. But the initial engagement we received was from Twitter. It was organic and conversational.

We could be our authentic selves there and create a community. I’d credit our brand’s initial success to Twitter. This made it easy for us to create an Instagram presence.

Even before we started running ads on Instagram, we had good word-of-mouth community building going on. We also started working with influencers and did paid promotions, which were also fruitful.

For newer businesses that are just starting out on social channels like Instagram, what would you offer as advice to them to be successful in these areas?

Starting a new business is no easy feat. It’s definitely super challenging and I feel like it’s even more challenging now because there’s so much competition, there are so many new platforms, and there are so many things that you have to do to be a successful brand.

For people that are just starting out, I would say, focus on your why you’re starting your brand. What is your reason for the mark? Like, why should somebody buy your product, and live by that? Don’t compare yourself to other brands, believe in your brand. Focus on the why. Once your customers understand your why and believe in your products, you’re going to be successful and grow.

Don’t focus too much on paid social, as you wouldn’t be able to create an organic community through plain paid promotions. Fixate on building an organic and engaging community and getting people to understand and what they can benefit from your product. And definitely put your customers first, they’re going to be the backbone of your products.

It’s so hard to get someone to shop at your brand for the first time. But it’s so much easier for repeat customers to keep coming back to you. And they refer their friends.

I'm sure anybody needing this or hearing this is going to appreciate that. How did the pandemic affect your operations as a business? What are the challenges you had to face and how did you overcome them?

One of the things we struggled with was supply chains.

A lot of our packaging and inventory materials come from overseas. So when the pandemic first hit, luckily, our packaging orders were in transit on the way to the US. It just was delayed. But anything after that was super delayed.

We really weren’t able to place large orders like we generally did with our suppliers to get anything done. Because at the same time, while we were struggling to send out our orders, we were growing exponentially. A lot of people migrated to online shopping, and black-owned businesses were getting a lot of support from the social movements.

Meanwhile, the work from home mandate made us lose a lot of employees and the job market was extremely hard to find like top talent. But the main outcome from the pandemic was definitely growth for us.

I'm sure you're expecting even more of a growth spurt as the holiday season rolls those boots. So what are your strategies to combat that spike in shipping volumes? How do you plan for a busy season like that?

First thing is to be super transparent with your customers. If there’s ever an issue, we always are super transparent with them. We’re starting our holiday sale a little bit earlier this year to alleviate the expected delays with shipping to help our customers out.

We were informed by USPS and UPS that there could be massive shipping delays, and with only four weeks between like Black Friday and Christmas. We realized we had to equip ourselves to make all ends meet. Thus we stocked up accordingly and hired additional staff in our warehouse to get things going smoothly.

Can you tell us about the efforts you take on the post-purchase side to ensure that your customers have a great experience? Even after the auto-ship?

Yeah, for sure. A lot of things that I’ve learned just about customer service and post-purchase CX are from the reviews and complaints on the website or social media of our competitors.

Many brands think that when a customer orders from your website and you ship the package to them, their relationship and the service stops which is not true. Because if they’re coming to you for something, it’s our duty as a brand to ensure that they get their items.

We, at Nola Skinsentials, tend to stay in contact with a customer for at least two or three weeks after their order has been delivered because we truly want to know what’s going on and how our customers are benefitting. Thus we focus a lot on our post-purchase phase and make sure that they’re getting the best service that they can possibly get.

As an extension of this, if there are one or two important takeaways from your experience that you would like to leave behind for any new young brands reading this?

Number one is to realize from the very beginning that you cannot do everything all on your own and build a solid team to grow your brand. Building and finding a core team is an investment, and also mentally healthy for an individual as an entrepreneur, and in turn, brings a better return on investment.

Number two, even though you may be an expert in your field and expert in some of the things you study, you never ever stop learning. There are always new things coming out on the market, new platforms, for instance, new-age platforms like tick tock you may not be as well versed in. Open yourself to learning, listening to people, and getting advice, to become the best version of yourself.

We see that your mom has played a very important role in you becoming an entrepreneur. We’d love to hear more about her role in your success.

Coming from a Caribbean background where people take the traditional routes of profession like teachers, doctors, or nurses; my mom never imposed such expectations on me. I never wanted anything traditional even back when I was a kid, and my mom never forced me into anything.

She got me thinking life is full of endless possibilities and gave me the confidence to explore less trodden routes. Thus, I went to pre-med school, started my own skincare brand, and today also own a spa. Had she limited my potential, I would’ve never gotten this far. And I think everyone needs a support system like that to succeed.

That’s inspirational. Do you have any closing comments on how Lateshipment.com has enhanced the customer experience at Nola Skinsentials?

Yes, definitely. Lateshipment.com is one main enabler for us to be transparent about shipping updates and delays, and be in touch with our customers in general as I mentioned before.

I found your app on an integration page of Klaviyo and had my mind blown by the fact that someone was making the post-purchase phase of the customer cycle to be customer-friendly. It also eventually led us to be ahead of the customer service curve, curbing our helpdesk ticket volume.

Before we partnered with LateShipment.com, we were using a different platform that required a lot of money and manpower to ensure our deliveries were made at a maximum of five-day windows.

Since we send an automated email through Gorgias integration on shipping updates, we’ve had so many customers thanking us for being proactive in communicating shipping delays and such. All this wouldn’t have been possible without LateShipment.com.

So again, on behalf of all our readers, and me personally, it was an absolute pleasure to talk to an owner and a business that is very tuned in to the community of customers, and also offering a product that not only meets quality requirements but actually stands for something right. It was a pleasure to talk to you in that regard.

Interview with LateShipment.com CEO, Sriram Sridhar. Transcripted by Hemalatha Sekar.

The post Nola Skinsentials – A skincare brand that went from a humble beginning to 200k+ community appeared first on Lateshipment.com.

Supply Chain Crisis in the US: Causes, Effects, and Corrective Measures

Sashank Ravindranath — Tue, 26 Oct 2021 05:58:15 +0000

If you have happened to follow the news in the recent past, you might be aware of the global supply chain crisis that is happening:

The number of container ships around ports has doubled since April
Dwelling times of containers has reached 6-10 days, way above the average 4-5 days
Railyards have also been clogged, with trains at one point backed up 25 miles outside a key Chicago facility.

All of this can threaten to spoil the Holiday season joy for e-commerce retail businesses such as yours by eating into your profits.

There are more negative consequences of this supply chain crisis but before we look at them, let us find the answer to the question, what really is causing these logjams?

What is Causing This Supply Chain Crisis?

“There are going to be disruptions and shocks to the system as long as the pandemic persists and could last into 2022” – Pete Buttigieg

Americans who chose to stay home and came outside after feeling trapped at home for a long time have been equally spending dollars on shopping goods such as laptops and at places such as restaurants, triggering an unprecedented increase in demand that the nation’s unprepared logistics system was unable to handle.

Consumer goods demand is overall 22% higher compared with pre-pandemic levels (comparing February 2020 with August 2021). – BBC

This sudden increase in demand doubled with the negative consequences of the pandemic such as workers getting affected by the virus, nationwide lockdowns, shutting down of operations, etc., resulted in lower production and distribution businesses and thus businesses ended up not being able to handle the demand.

This demand > supply factor doubled down with external factors such as shortage of workers and effects of climate change, etc is said to have caused this crisis in the supply chain.

E-commerce activity has witnessed major gains and has subsequently impacted warehousing and importing, straining logistics and supply chain networks. – White House media release

Large businesses have the bandwidth to double down on their logistics operations and make sure they are least affected by this global phenomenon. But what about small businesses?

What Does This Supply Chain Crisis Mean for E-commerce Businesses?

Industry experts see momentary changes between the situation getting worse and staying at a standstill. Either way, it doesn’t look like it’s normalizing.

As the customer demand doesn’t seem to be going down anytime soon, you can expect the situation to continue into 2022 (beyond the Holiday season).

This naturally conveys that your customers’ Holiday season orders could hit a slump and would lead to a big blow on your revenue. Everything from Halloween costumes, to tech products such as computers and printers for Black Friday, Christmas decors and lights are all set to reach your customers late due to the current crisis.

The commercial pipeline that each year brings $1 trillion worth of toys, clothing, electronics, and furniture from Asia to the United States is clogged and no one knows how to unclog it. – Washington Post

If these disruptions don’t seem enough to lose revenue, your shipping and freight costs are known to increase, leading to a cut down on your customers’ discounts in order to meet ends.

Moreover, you can as well anticipate lower purchases from customers, who will shop less due to the sudden inflation.

But don’t let your hopes down. There are measures simultaneously being taken and which you can take to counter the crisis. Understand what they are and make sure that you are least affected by them.

Corrective Measures Being Undertaken and What E-commerce Merchants Can Do to Ease the Supply Chain Crisis

Even though the crisis doesn’t look to get any better, the White House primarily and others who have been affected by it have been taking appropriate measures to rectify the situation and reduce considerable damage, if not already done.

Following President Joe Biden’s urge, The White House has issued orders for congested ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach to work 24/7 and keep containers out of ports by doing doubling trips
Biden also said he’s considering deploying National Guard to help ease the stress on the US supply chain as it prompts growing concern about the economy
Retail giants such as Walmart, Target, Home Depot, Samsung, etc and shipping carriers such as FedEx and UPS have all considered committing to increase usage of nighttime hours.

Similarly, experts have some suggestions for growing businesses such as yours to overcome this disruption:

Now that road and sea cargo costs have risen considerably and the fulfillment time difference being huge, businesses can consider aircargo as a better option
This year the holiday battleground is not only the CX you provide but unexpectedly the availability of your products. Therefore, look for ways to keep your inventories stocked
Encourage customers to start shopping early as 3-4 weeks during the Holiday season days, especially right before Thanksgiving and Black Friday to avoid last-minute delays on their orders
Provide a realistic estimated delivery date of delivery even before customers make their purchase so that they become aware of the crisis and refrain from blaming you in case the delivery timeline gets extended
Keep your customers in the loop of their orders via tracking information across post-purchase touchpoints to avoid getting blamed for delays that are no fault of yours.

Bottom Line

From the experts’ point of view, the past stands for an unprecedented issue, the present stands at the situation getting worse before it gets better, and the future is the calling out of the existing logistics operations model.

The supply chain and logistics system will not and should not revert to the original model that existed during the pre-pandemic times as the current scenario calls for desperate measures in the form of modernization.

While increasing operations, availability of products, getting help from everyone possible would indeed help businesses and the economy itself circumnavigate past the Holiday season, the actual transformation of the supply chain model is the key for long-term benefits.

From your customers’ point of view, it looks like they’re indeed aware of what’s happening with their parcels as they would’ve been affected by the delay during the past few weeks. This is what led their work on permutations and combinations to understand where exactly the demand is cropping up.

They will also start shopping earlier this year and not wait for discounts during times like Black Friday. This is because they are well aware that higher demand, labor, and shipping costs will result in businesses, especially smaller ones, providing fewer discounts to meet ends. They will not risk their order getting stuck somewhere for some bargain, which would obviously be an awful gamble.

And as of now, follow the experts’ advice, understand the consumers’ buying behavior, and hope for the situation to get better or ‘normalize’ if there were such a thing.

The post Supply Chain Crisis in the US: Causes, Effects, and Corrective Measures appeared first on Lateshipment.com.

6 Tips to Prepare Your Dropshipping Business for the Holiday Season Surge

Ian — Fri, 13 Aug 2021 12:44:43 +0000

The holiday season is right around the corner, and apart from candied days, happy moments, lots of festive food, and there’s a high demand for gifts. This means a huge opportunity for your dropshipping store to cross your sales target and break your revenue records.

In 2020, the holiday season eCommerce sales in the US are projected to be $135 billion.

This shows how holiday season purchases still hold immense value despite the pandemic and can be a game-changer for your dropshipping store.

Dropshipping is gaining momentum and slowly becoming a more preferred choice than traditional eCommerce businesses as it helps businesses profit by selling products online without managing inventory on their own.

Combine it with the holiday madness, and you’ve got yourself a perfect strategy to double your revenue and to take your dropshipping store to the next level.

But, before we get into our toolkit to prepare your dropshipping business for the holiday season, let’s understand what dropshipping is and why exactly you should invest in it, now more than ever.

What is dropshipping?

Dropshipping is a method to fulfill orders by listing products online and passing them to a third-party supplier responsible for shipping them to the customers.

This business model does not require the store owner to keep a stock of the products but rather get involved in other aspects like management, customer service, and store maintenance.

While we’re talking about dropshipping, it’s safe to say it’s not a get-rich-quick-scheme.

It may look like a great way to make recurring money as you’re just listing and selling products. But, you still need to put in a lot of work in creating a properly functioning store, marketing it, taking care of listings, and customer service, above all.

But if you have a solid dropshipping strategy, it can take off your business profits massively.

Before you start dropshipping, it’s best to know some pros and cons:

Pros of dropshipping

Great source for building a passive income: Once you’ve listed the products, started marketing them, and have organized your processes to work on auto-pilot—you can earn money with little to zero further effort as orders will be placed and fulfilled automatically.
No inventory management worries: Since a supplier takes care of inventory and shipping, you can focus on marketing your store and getting more visitors to your website: more visitors, more sales, more profits.
Low overhead costs: You don’t have to maintain a brick-and-mortar shop or a warehouse for your products. There’s also no need to hire a full-fledged team to manage the store; you can hire a few freelancers on a project basis—and this way, you won’t have many overhead costs.
Lots of scope for experimentation: When you’re the supplier and seller, you need to take care of launching a new product line, but with dropshipping, you can introduce a whole line and if it doesn’t take off, simply remove it from your store. Since you’re not buying wholesale or committing to someone, you can experiment with different products and see what gets you sales.

Cons of dropshipping

Lots of competition: Dropshipping requires low capital investment initially, making it an easy entry point for anyone who wants to start a store
Low-profit margins: There’s only so much you can make by selling third-party products, and the expenses of creating and managing a store along with advertising hardly allow high profits
Minimal control over products: Since you’re just coordinating the efforts, and the supplier is sending the products to your customers, you hardly get to see the product condition or packaging. This gives you little to no control over the quality, which significantly impacts customer loyalty and store reputation
Hard to build your brand: When customers receive the product, they only care about the product, and not the shopping experience since you’re just the messenger. This makes it difficult to build retention for your business and build a sustainable brand for it.

6 top tips to prepare your dropshipping store for the Holiday season

Now that you’ve understood dropshipping from its roots, it’s time to understand how to prep your store for the holiday season. Consumers wait for festive sales because just for the gifts and discounts, hence the surge would be high during these times. This means your store needs to be ready to accommodate a high amount of visitors, checkouts, payments, and orders.

So, let’s fail-proof your dropshipping store and set it up for ongoing purchases for the holiday season with these 6 preparation tips:

1. Talk to your suppliers in advance

Managing the status of your inventory will possibly be the most difficult yet important aspect to handle. Suppose you suddenly start getting a massive number of orders, and your supplier is not prepared for it, you could end up losing customers, or worse, providing a bad customer experience.

Delays in orders, unavailability of a product even if listed on the store, poor packaging owing to order influx are some ways things could go wrong. So, the first step you should take to prepare your store is to have a conversation with your suppliers.

Quite often, dropshipping stores work with multiple suppliers, which makes this step even more crucial. Talk to them about how much they can accommodate and set up a process for the organization.

For example, you could use Google sheets to manage inventory and add them or hire a virtual assistant or intern to help manage the process.

This should be done weeks before the holiday season begins, so you have a clear understanding of what needs to be taken care of and a fallback plan if anything goes wrong.

2. Review your policies

You cannot have your standard store policies running during the holiday season if you don’t want to exhaust your operation on sorting out exchanges, returns, and other order issues.

To avoid the hassle, clearly state store policies telling users how to proceed with refunds and returns during sales. Not only will this ensure consumers are informed about your policies, but it will also instill trust in your store and shows you are committed to an excellent customer experience.

Here’s what you should clarify during the holiday season:

Returns and refunds

Many stores don’t offer returns or refunds during holiday sales.

This is because these products are already discounted, and engaging in returns or refunds can get expensive given the shipping and logistics involved. However, if you still want to offer them, ensure transparency on timelines and processes.

Shipping and taxes

Ask your suppliers if their method can handle surge orders and how much time it would take to ship and deliver them. It would be best to keep a buffer time.

For example, if you generally ship orders in 24 hours, mention you’ll ship in 48 hours. This way, the supplier would have enough time to accommodate the surge.

Similarly, be transparent about the shipping costs, and check with the supplier if the earlier rates can continue to stay or if you need to revise them.

3. Develop an advertising plan and budget

You’ll indeed see loyal customers buying from you during holidays, but you’ll also acquire many new customers. To maximize the results of your efforts, it’s best to prepare an advertising plan and budget before the season kicks in.

91% of consumers are more likely to shop with brands and stores that provide relevant offers and recommendations—which makes advertising crucial.

Before you lay out your plan, it’s essential to assess your most profitable channels. Understand where you get the most customers from—organic search, paid social media promotions, email marketing, and social media channels.

The holiday season is not the time to experiment and invest in new advertising channels. Instead, you need to double down on methods that have worked best for you in the past and optimize them for better results.

Here are some steps you can take to do this:

After assessing your advertising channels, create and allocate a budget to different channels
Create an advertising strategy that allows you to prioritize channels as per past traffic and conversions
Hire a team or assign tasks to an existing team of full-time employees or freelancers so you can put your strategy into motion
Set Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to measure the effectiveness of your efforts like traffic, sources, conversions, channels, clicks, etc
Create great content, and use a solid social media strategy to build buzz around your sale and store.
Use innovative strategies like contests and giveaways, partnering with influencers, and creating a loyalty program so you can promote your holiday sale in the best manner.

Get your advertising strategy in motion well ahead of the holidays. This would provide you with time to create awareness around your store.

Once you launch your deals, people would come in for the familiarity and purchase.

4. Plan your holiday site theme

Holiday sales are not just about listing products at slashed prices on the website. It’s also about creating a memorable store experience for the consumers, so they’re pulled towards making a purchase and referring them to their friends.

Refreshing your website with a holiday theme is one of the best ways to show your store is ready to bring in some festive cheer. If it’s Christmas, customize your store with candy canes, snow trees, and red and white colors to help customers relate to the holiday. Such personalized experiences can go a long way in building customer retention.

In addition to the theme, you can also festively stack your products or bump up those related to the holiday like streaming devices, loaf pans, candles, new dining sheets, and winter clothing for Thanksgiving.

You can also use data from your previous sales and festive store surges to study customer behavior and see how you should optimize and organize the store for more sales.

5. Learn about your top-selling products

Not all products sell the same, and if you can identify and bump up your top-selling products, you could end up making higher sales.

More than offering a range of products, curating and positioning your best-selling products will help you drive more conversions and make the consumers curious to explore your store further.

To discover these products, here’s what you can do:

Study customer purchase history for the past 9-12 months and pick the products with the highest sales. Identify if the product would be relevant during the holiday season, and include it accordingly.
Analyze your previous holiday season purchase history, and cherry-pick those products which sold like crazy. Consider bringing them in again or including an upgrade to those products to push sales.

Once you’ve made a list of your top-selling products, you can position them strategically throughout the website and run promotions on them to attract more people.

Alternatively, you can also study Google trends, communities, and industry reports to understand potential best-selling products that you can also get supplied and listed on your dropshipping store.

6. Conduct a load test to handle the traffic surge

The holiday season can put a lot of pressure on your website regarding increased site visitors, fast checkouts, overburdened servers, and glitches in third-party integrations.

This can show errors to your customers or lead to a slow load time, among other issues which can severely impact their shopping experience, and thus your sales.

The best way to avoid this is to conduct a load test to ensure your site servers have enough capacity to handle sudden spikes in traffic

This will allow you to assess how your website will react to traffic surges and give you an idea of the potential bugs that can cause problems. You can use load testing tools like JMeter and LoadView to help you out with it.

Once you identify issues after running the load test, you can make improvements and optimizations to create a seamless shopping experience for your customers.

Wrapping up

The holiday season offers massive scope for eCommerce stores to ramp up their profits. With dropshipping, you can take it even further with innovative marketing strategies, sales promotion tactics, website optimization, and product experimentation.

Unlike regular eCommerce store owners, you don’t have to worry about the products so that you can optimize the store and overall experience for more sales.

Focus on personalizing the shopping experience for your customers with holiday themes and promotions, which can pull them in further for making purchases.

You can turn the holiday season into a highly profitable quarter for your dropshipping business, but only if you are prepared for it. Use this article as a checklist to prepare your store for the festive surge, and get ready to welcome happy shoppers!

This is a guest post by Hazel Raoult

Hazel Raoult is a freelance marketing writer and works with PRmention. She has 6+ years of experience in writing about business, entrepreneurship, marketing, and all things SaaS. Hazel loves to split her time between writing, editing, and hanging out with her family.

The post 6 Tips to Prepare Your Dropshipping Business for the Holiday Season Surge appeared first on Lateshipment.com.