Automation Archives | Lateshipment.com

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

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

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

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

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

Understanding E-Commerce Automation

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

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

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

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

How E-Commerce Automation Works For Your Business

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

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

Key processes that can be automated

1. Inventory Management

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

Task: Preventing stockouts

Actions:

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

Benefits:

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

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

2. Order Management

Issue: Manually processing orders is a time-consuming task

Task:

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

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

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

3. Customer Support

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

Task:

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

Benefit:

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

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

4. Marketing Automation

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

Task:

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

Benefits:

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

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

5. Post-Purchase Experience

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

Task:

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

Benefit:

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

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

Benefits of E-Commerce Automation for Your Business

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

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

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

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

Time To Automate Your E-Commerce Business’ Processes

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Why Should 3PLs Reevaluate Their Post-Purchase Strategy?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Automation for 3PL providers

1. Parcel audit and shipping refunds

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

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

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

2. Shipping analytics

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

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

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

Automation for e-commerce businesses using 3PLs

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

1. Reduce customer inquiries

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

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

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

2. Streamlined returns experiences

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Book a consultation call with our product experts today.

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

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

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

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

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

Why Do You Need To Worry About Damaged Goods

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

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

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

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

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

How To Ship Fragile Items?

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

1. Choose the Right Packaging Materials

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

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

2. Label your box clearly

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

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

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

3. Know your carriers

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

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

Final word

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

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

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

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

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

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

Introducing LateShipment.com’s E-commerce Shipping Insurance — Smart, Simplified, and Automated

Sashank Ravindranath — Wed, 08 Nov 2023 10:54:01 +0000

E-commerce Shipping: Everything That Is In Control And That Isn't

As an e-commerce merchant, you put in a lot of effort to meticulously curate the stage of the customer journey that is under your control to motivate them to click that “BUY” button, make a successful sale, and bring in profits.

However, at this critical juncture, the reins of control slip from your grasp.

This part of the customer journey that follows: from dispatch to delivery or, in some cases, returns — known as “the post-purchase phase”, is filled with uncertainties and challenges.

To make things worse, these challenges have the potential to hurt your business and undo all your efforts till that point.

Inevitable Post-purchase Issues and Their Impact on Your Business

The post-purchase phase is highly error-prone. Once shipped, your customers’ packages inevitably encounter unforeseen issues such as getting lost and damaged while in transit.

32% of customers say that they have not received at least one package they ordered in the past six months because their packages were lost in the mail.
7% to 11% of customers’ online orders arrive broken or damaged
$500K is the estimated loss for e-commerce businesses just from lost and damaged packages in a year

Over time, businesses that consistently face lost and damaged package issues have a competitive disadvantage and face a negative impact when it comes to growth.

So, what is it that you can do to ensure that your bottom line stays protected, each time lost or damaged package incidents happen?

This is where shipping insurance steps in to save the day.

What is Shipping Insurance And Why Is It Important For Your Business?

Shipping insurance is a safety net that is designed to protect e-commerce shipments, particularly against loss and damage.

If an insured parcel gets lost or damaged while being shipped or the contents in the package go missing, then you are entitled to a financial compensation of the package value or the insured value from the insurance service provider.

There are multiple reasons why shipping insurance is necessary for your e-commerce business:

Peace of mind from the assurance of financial security and thereby having reduced concerns about potential delivery incidents.
Protection, especially against high-value goods such as jewelry and electronic items going missing and packages getting lost or damaged during transit.

In short, with parcels insured, you will no longer have to worry about losing money due to delivery issues.

Instead, you can both confidently approach customers who’ve faced delivery issues with your repeat purchase efforts, as well as direct the expenses towards growing your business and stay ahead of the competition.

If you’re unaccustomed to shipping insurance — we’ll get right to how you can get started with choosing the right service provider for your needs.

On the other hand, if you’re someone who’s been insuring your packages via old-school techniques, here’s why it may not be the best option for you in the current state of e-commerce and package deliveries.

Why Old-School Shipping Insurance Techniques Might Not Make The Cut in Today’s Post-Purchase Landscape

Generic shipping insurance options can provide a certain level of protection. But in the current state, where lost, damaged, and missing package incidents are repetitive in occurrence, they may not always be sufficient for your business for several reasons:

Limited Coverage: Generic shipping insurance options often come with limitations on what they cover. They may not fully cover the value of high-ticket items or certain types of products, leaving you exposed to dealing with potential financial losses.
Complex Claims Process: Filing a claim for lost or damaged goods through generic options can be complex and time-consuming. Customers may need to file manual claims, provide extensive documentation, follow up regularly, navigate through a bureaucratic system, and wait for an extended period to receive their compensation. This can be too much of a hassle.
Lack of Customization: Generic insurance options typically offer just one type of solution for all needs, thereby preventing you from tailoring rules and coverage options based on specific preferences.

This brings us to address the need for specialized shipping insurance solutions that are well-integrated into your post-purchase efforts and offer diverse benefits that make things easier for you.

For specialized solutions that are designed to help you stay ahead of shipping losses and damages, meet LateShipment.com’s E-commerce Shipping Insurance.

Introducing LateShipment.com's E-commerce Shipping Insurance — Smart, Simplified, and Automated

Generic shipping insurance has always been rigid and unreachable for the average e-commerce merchant and we at LateShipment.com wanted to change that status quo and make things accessible and convenient.

With claims backed by “A” rated U.S. insurance company Shipsurance, we are bringing shipping insurance into our existing post-purchase suite to offer comprehensive insurance coverage that brings substantial savings compared to carrier-provided insurance and expedited claim payments.

Here are the specific ways LateShipment.com’s Shipping Insurance stands apart while being beneficial to you.

LateShipment.com: the (Revolutionary) New Way of Insuring Your Parcels

What’s Covered?

Comprehensive shipment protection – With every incident of lost, damaged, or missing items being claimed for coverage of up to $2000 per package across the globe, involving a majority of shipping carriers, LateShipment.com offers highly comprehensive shipment protection that you can ship out on every order with peace of mind.

Read coverage terms and conditions to learn more.

What’s new?

Forget the hassle of opting to insure with every order – Seamlessly include insurance into your order fulfillment workflow, with automation that begins as soon as the label is generated.
Your insurance, your rules – Tailor your rules just to insure the shipments that align with your unique insurance needs.
Ensure you are never over or under-insured – Flexible coverage options to help you avoid overpaying for insurance. Opt for a full shipment value cover or set your preferred rate and include shipping costs if needed.
Add insurance on-demand – Small business or occasional shippers? We’ve got your back. Effortlessly add insurance on your own just when you need it, in one click.
Centralized claims management – With all things insurance happening inside a unified portal, you have access to a centralized view of submitting claims, tracking statuses, and everything else.
Quick claims from the Help desk – Enable your support agents to address lost/damaged tickets instantly with a claim portal right inside the helpdesk.

What’s better?

Following and managing claims being a hectic task is a thing of the past. With our automated claims management in place, manage Insurance claims effortlessly.

Effortless claims handling – As our claim management is an automated process, it only takes 2-steps from your end to select the shipment and upload your proofs. Automation will handle the rest.
Lightning-fast claims approval – The best part, your claims are resolved in a very short time of less than 5 days, so you can gladly skip the waiting period.

Discontent due to package losses and damages is a thing of the past.

With comprehensive risk coverage, intelligent automation and claims easier than ever, LateShipment.com’s Shipping Insurance is the smarter way to protect your bottom line.

The post Introducing LateShipment.com’s E-commerce Shipping Insurance — Smart, Simplified, and Automated appeared first on Lateshipment.com.

3 Ways To Boost Post-Purchase Customer Experience And Loyalty With Yotpo And Lateshipment.com

Sashank Ravindranath — Sat, 06 May 2023 11:09:20 +0000

Are you up for a simple exercise that will predict how successful your business will be? If yes, answer the following question. What measures do you consciously take to improve your customer’s purchase journey once they’ve hit the buy button?

Before we get to the context of things, remember that the post-purchase phase takes up 50% of the overall customer experience. But most eCommerce brands, who take a top effort to convert prospects into customers, unwillingly neglect to do the same for what comes after. This creates a situation where you have unsatisfied customers who are prone to leave your brand, leading to multiple unnecessary costs in the form of churn rates and acquisition costs.

So, if you’re an eCommerce retailer who is looking for ways to optimize your post-purchase phase, here are some insights on how you can provide integrated experiences that come in handy in improving customer satisfaction after the ‘buy’ button. But first, here’s a look into what great post-purchase experiences can do for your brand, particularly from a customer standpoint.

The Impact of Great Post-Purchase Experiences on Customer Loyalty

1) Strengthened customer relationships – The post-purchase phase is the last thing your customers are going to remember about your brand. Thus, it is important to make things memorable in a positive sense and build stronger customer relationships. This also leads to additional revenue for your business as loyal customers are worth up to 10 times the value of their first purchase.

2) Reduced customer service inquiries – Increased anxiety levels of shoppers in the post-purchase phase, lead to higher “Where Is My Order” (WISMO) calls and shipping-related support ticket volume. On the other hand, by keeping customers informed about their orders regularly, you can witness a reduction in support inquiries tickets, and ultimately the costs associated with it.

3) Increased repeat purchase rates – Positive delivery experiences are a sure-shot way of ensuring your customers are satisfied and will keep shopping with you. Rather than leaving it idle, you can leverage this opportunity to send out targeted cross-sell campaigns and double your chances of driving repeat purchases.

How To Optimize Post-Purchase Customer Experiences With Yotpo And Lateshipment.com

Now that you know the benefits of post-purchase CX, here are 3 ways to optimize them and use them to improve loyalty with the Yotpo – LateShipment.com integration.

1) Proactively communicate order delivery status to improve customer convenience

Over 40% of the support inquiries received are order delivery and returns status related. This shows that customers are highly anxious as they are awaiting their orders, so it’s non-optional to keep your customers in the loop of their orders via proactive communication. This allows you to mitigate your customers’ anticipation and ensures that they have a great post-purchase experience.

Yotpo helps eCommerce businesses trigger shipping updates via SMS notifications. With order-tracking information from LateShipment.com, you can set up a total of 13 custom events like Shipped, In-transit with delays, Failed deliveries, Delivered, Return initiated, etc. The best part about these bumps is the fact that the triggers are completely customizable and can be modified end-to-end. Live tracking links can also be sent with these shipping updates to endlessly engage customers.

Also, with custom-built floating pop-ups via the Yotpo SMS bump on LateShipment.com’s branded tracking page, you can capture SMS subscribers for marketing purposes such as notifying them about membership programs, etc, and gain valuable engagement opportunities.

2) Incentivize customers for order delivery mishaps and improve customer retention

Over 10% of e-commerce shipments, irrespective of the shipping carrier or partner you use, face issues such as delivery delays, lost order, damaged parcels and more. The worst part is that your customers are unforgiving of these issues and won’t shop with you again even after just one incident. In such cases, an effective compensation for their patience in the form of loyalty points, in addition to an empathetic response and acknowledgment of the incident, can come in handy.

Via LateShipment.com’s integration with Yotpo Loyalty, eCommerce businesses can reward customers with completely customizable loyalty points, when their orders are facing delivery issues. With data from LateShipment.com retrieved in real-time, you can take up the opportunity to drive a quick solution and mitigate customer frustration as early as possible.

3) Understand customer satisfaction levels with delivery experience feedback and product reviews

70% of consumers are likely to purchase exclusively from brands that understand them and their needs. A great way to understand how your customers feel about your brand is to simply ask them for feedback. Using these insights, you can take action to make regular improvements and promote brand credibility.

Yotpo Reviews help eCommerce businesses collect reviews with smart prompts. With real-time tracking information from LateShipment.com, you can now get both faster and more accurate feedback. The Yotpo review widget can also be added to your branded tracking pages. This will display the star ratings of the products ordered by customers each time they track their package.

Thus, it is clear that integrated experiences are the way to go when it comes to making your post-purchase customer-centric. The Yotpo X LateShipment.com helps you go the extra mile in delivering an integrated experience for your customers while also helping you keep track of your performance to make informed decisions.

TL;DR - How the Yotpo - LateShipment.com integration works for your business

Trigger flows for shipment events (13 events throughout the order delivery and returns stages along with existing transactional SMS) to help you make proactive communication your selling point.
Set up post-purchase triggers for loyalty points to reward customers and gain engagement where you can.
Add the Yotpo Star Rating to the LateShipment.com tracking page builder to display reviews on your Branded Tracking Page.

The Yotpo – LateShipment.com integration stands to help you collect reviews, provide shipping updates, promote your products, and manage everything seamlessly. To get started with things right away, you need to set up the integration, which is designed to be easy to connect and use.

If you haven’t already, sign up for LateShipment.com and Yotpo Reviews
Connect your LateShipment.com to Yotpo Reviews from the Yotpo Marketplace
Pick the Shopify store connected to your Yotpo account and log in to your LateShipment.com account to complete the authentication.
Once you have configured the integration settings, click “Enable” to start the integration.

That’s all from us! It is now your time to make use of LateShipment.com’s integration with Yotpo to initiate customer reviews, send proactive SMS notifications, offer loyalty points, and do so much more to improve key metrics such as Customer Retention Rate (CRR) and Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) in the post-purchase phase.

The post 3 Ways To Boost Post-Purchase Customer Experience And Loyalty With Yotpo And Lateshipment.com appeared first on Lateshipment.com.

8 Tips to Handle the E-commerce Holiday Rush

Sashank Ravindranath — Thu, 08 Sep 2022 14:00:23 +0000

Less than 2 months to go for the holiday season to officially kick off — which means as an e-commerce retailer, you have to make use of the little prep time left to get better equipped at handling the holiday rush. Here are some tips categorized via different stages of the customer journey to help you do just that.

Pre-purchase: Awareness and Exploration

1. Plan your promotional strategies in advance

The holiday season is the best time to spread the word about your product and e-commerce business. However, it can be difficult amidst your competitors trying the same thing. This is why you need to be unique with your promotional campaigns.

For starters,

Bring the whole holiday spirit across your website and marketing campaigns to let customers know that you’re relevant.
Keep posting interactive content on your Social channels to catch the viewers’ attention
Add a touch of personalization in your conversations to make sure that your brand is at the top of their minds.
Provide timely offers and discounts across different funnel stages to increase your chances of sales and repeat sales and reduce cart abandonment.
Influencer partnerships and event marketing to spread the word about your product on a larger scale and increase your lead base.

2. Optimize your online store

If your online store’s website or application is ineffective to handle the holiday rush, then all your promotional efforts just go down the drain. Therefore, keep in mind to optimize your website and motivate shoppers to get converted as customers.

Here’s how you can do it right before the holiday season:

Increase website load speed
Optimize the User Interface and Experience (UI, UX)
Enable seamless checkout
Proper and interactive content.

3. Talk great content

One of the things that go well with a great-looking website or application is content — which needs to complement each other to enhance brand content and widen reach.

Your content is your key to the locked doors of holiday shoppers’ hearts. Therefore, take care of it before the holiday rush gets into action.

Here are some suggestions that you can keep in mind:

Fill your content with relevant holiday-aligned keywords to increase your ecommerce site’s traffic.
Include User-Generated Content (UGC) in your content strategy to cement social proof for your e-commerce business.
Add product reviews and customer testimonies to make your brand seem trustworthy.
Keep your content holiday-themed and make it interactive to engage with shoppers who visit your online store.

Purchase: Conversion

4. Enhance your sales game

The holiday season is your chance to make more sales than the rest of the year combined. Therefore, look out for strategies that help you make use of the holiday rush and maximize revenue.

When it comes to your sales strategies, here are some areas that you can cover:

Open doors to new sales channels like marketplaces, to reach customers where they spend most of their time (Amazon, Instagram, TikTok, etc).
Make effective use of social commerce to improve brand recognition and increase incoming order rates.
Identify your industry products that are the “buzz” or “sensation” for this year’s holiday season, ensure you have proper stock of them, and promote them as your bestsellers.
Use the holiday rush as an opportunity to cross-sell products that might go along great with their recent purchases.

5. Automate whatever you can

In the retail e-commerce space, it is always wise to stay relevant and implement technological advancements if you need to keep up with the ever-growing competition. One of such technology trends is to automate specific areas of your existing business operations to make your process efficient.

Here are different business areas where you can introduce automation:

Automate email and SMS notifications for different transactional shipping events such as order shipped, in transit, delivered, etc.
Keep track of your inventories and avoid over-stock and out-of-stock issues with the help of an Inventory Management solution or a Third-party logistics (3PL) partner, who can help automate logistics.
Automate customer support by incorporating chatbots into your mix and make issue resolution self-service.
Make returns management automated by integrating with a system that centralizes returns and enables easy configuration, management, and tracking.

Post-purchase: Loyalty

6. Empower your support reps

The holiday rush makes your customers increasingly anxious regarding their orders. This leads them to bombard your support reps with repeated order status inquiries and consumes all of your team’s time.

Therefore, it is time to empower your support reps to properly address customer issues and display your strong commitment to the high standard of customer service you offer. Here’s how you can do just that:

Enable a live chat option 24/7 to ensure faster issue resolution with low or even zero support interactions.
Empower your support team to proactively resolve issues and take preemptive action before discrepancies impact your customers.

7. Provide delightful shipping and delivery experiences

Your customers hitting the ‘buy’ button is only half of the job done. There’s an entire phase of the customer journey called ‘the post-purchase experience (shipping, delivery, and returns)’ left that plays a great role in your CX efforts.

Focusing on your post-purchase experiences, particularly during the holiday rush is not just an option because 1-in-3 customers will stop shopping with a brand after just ONE instance of a bad post-purchase experience.

Here are some ways for you to optimize your shipping and delivery experiences. We’ll focus specifically on returns later:

Partner with multiple shipping carriers (FedEx, UPS) and provide multiple delivery options (two-day, BOPIS) to manage incoming shipping volumes and reduce the odds of delivery delays.
Employ real-time shipment tracking to enable customers to seamlessly track their orders via order tracking pages and know what’s happening at a glance.
Keep your customers in the loop of their orders throughout the delivery lifecycle and mitigate their anxiety.
Delight your customers by providing on-brand order tracking experiences via shipping notifications and tracking pages.
Regularly collect delivery feedback from your customers to make better shipping decisions and improve customer loyalty.

8. Create a frictionless returns strategy

Up to 30% of eCommerce orders are returned and 96% of the customers will shop with a store again if it offers seamless returns and exchanges. Therefore, make sure your returns strategy is easy to process for the customer, while also not compromising your revenue.

Here’s how you can do it:

Draft a clear-cut returns policy that is neither too strict to repel customers nor too lenient to encourage fraudulent returns.
Make returns easy and seamless for your customers with faster returns initiation and frictionless returns status tracking.
Provide flexible return methods such as exchanges and store credits to convert returns into repeat purchases.

Bottom Line

As we mentioned earlier, the holiday season is a time when the rush is high and you can bring in more sales.

Therefore, it is incumbent upon you to focus on the tips, highlighting different areas of the customer journey to provide memorable experiences (CX) this Holiday season.

Preparing for the upcoming holiday rush is just one part of the Holiday season. There’s more to do if you’re looking to get your hands on a great holiday season sale.

Make use of our e-commerce holiday sales checklist — a collection of strategies, along with relevant factual and unbiased insights that help you maximize holiday sales in 2022, at a time when inflation is having an impact on consumer spending.

Download, read through, and let us know your feedback on how helpful it was for your business. Feel like we’ve missed something? Share that as well, so that we can make improvements.

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The post 8 Tips to Handle the E-commerce Holiday Rush appeared first on Lateshipment.com.

How Automation Transforms the Post-Purchase Customer Experience

Sashank Ravindranath — Mon, 01 Aug 2022 10:09:20 +0000

In the always-on retail environment, the convenience of a seamless experience is the key to winning more customers. According to Linnworks research, over 80% of shoppers are looking for a frictionless, cross-device ecommerce experience.

The challenge for retailers is that they’re busier than ever merchandising products, processing payments, delivering orders and juggling a multitude of other daily tasks. To scale the business without sacrificing convenience, companies should consider automation services, such as LateShipment.com. The benefits of automation are clear for the business as a whole, and automation can also transform the customer experience even when the customer isn’t directly involved.

Shopping and checkout experiences can be managed directly by the customer, but that’s only half of the overall order experience. The post-purchase phase can present a series of complex tasks ⁠— including shipping, tracking, delivery, returns, reviews and more ⁠— and automation helps ensure these tasks are managed in an efficient manner. Automation helps create a positive post-purchase experience for the customer and can have a significant impact on engagement and revenue opportunities.

Managing Orders

Supply chain disruptions have affected businesses and consumers across the board, causing growing dissatisfaction among buyers and leaving sellers to find alternative vendors, products and solutions.

While automation won’t necessarily resolve these issues, it can help scale ordering processes to provide efficient fulfillment services and eliminate delayed or partially fulfilled orders. For example, automation can help logistics and fulfillment centers communicate with each other to locate alternative products and routes for orders. In other cases, automation can be used to prevent a customer from placing an order for out-of-stock products.

Automation can also help eliminate manual record-keeping, freeing up time for your employees to focus on other tasks and minimizing human error. As orders are placed, automated systems can begin fulfillment processes while monitoring inventory levels.

Fulfillment

Managing Inventory

In what we call the effortless economy, consumers have high expectations for convenience. They expect to order from their chosen channel by selecting the shipping or pickup option that works best for them. Of course, customers can’t place orders if there’s no product to sell. Running a successful ecommerce business requires companies to have inventory management automation tools that order the right stock in the right quantity and at the right time to ensure order fulfillment occurs without delay.

Not only is it important to understand the demand for each product, but you also need to know how long it takes to replenish that inventory. This knowledge helps prevent delays, out-of-stock notices and poor customer experiences. Automation systems can be established to place orders directly to suppliers as inventory is sold, eliminating slower manual processes.

Managing Listings

Supply chain disruptions can cause significant issues for consumers and retailers alike. By managing listings automatically, you can remove or update products identified as out of stock, avoiding disgruntled customers by clearly indicating that a product is not currently available. Some software even offers the ability to make recommendations for a similar product or allow the shopper to sign up for a notification when the product is back in stock.

Predicting Supply and Demand

Automation software can also analyze sales patterns to anticipate predictable demand or adjust for seasonal spikes in sales. When this software is deployed, issues with overselling can be reduced or eliminated when inventory is automatically replenished. As demand declines or a newer product gains popularity, stock levels will continue to be adjusted. The ultimate benefit of automation is that this oversight allows sales and stock levels to be maintained at optimal levels, ensuring that products are available for customers when they’re ready to order.

Facilitating Delivery

Real-time delivery tracking can bring immediate attention to unexpected issues, giving you time to take corrective action before it affects the customer. If there are delays in shipping orders or other unresolved issues, you can proactively communicate with the customer to offer a solution. Regardless of the outcome, most customers appreciate open communication and effort to resolve delivery issues.

Automation can also be used to group orders together and select the most appropriate fulfillment company. The ideal company can vary depending on the channel, where the order was placed, the location of the products and customer, and the type and/or value of the product.

Retailers can set rules for automation so that decisions are made on how orders are fulfilled. This removes the risk of human error and replaces expensive manual processes with seamless automation that gets products from storage facilities to customers quickly.

Tracking Orders

If you have placed an important order online, you recognize the value of shipping notifications during the delivery phase. Consumers expect to have an estimated delivery date before completing a purchase, and those tracking expectations extend to the final delivery. By automating notifications, you can send emails and text messages directly to your customers throughout the order-delivery life cycle, helping to ensure a seamless delivery experience and saving time for your support team to focus on more critical tasks.

Some businesses take order tracking a step further by providing customer orders with a unique, branded tracking experience. This approach can provide essential tracking information in an easy and accessible format. Companies that incorporate branded elements such as logos, design or colors can provide a more consistent experience for the customer. This also communicates to customers that your brand prioritizes order tracking and fulfillment.

Improving Returns

Return processes can be time-consuming and costly, and bad experiences can drive away customers, sometimes permanently. As ecommerce sales skyrocketed in recent years, many retailers opted to extend their return policies to offset issues caused by the pandemic. This led to longer wait times for processed returns and lower customer satisfaction.

Instead of adjusting policies and timelines, improve your return process with automation. This approach can save time and labor while improving the customer experience. Seamless returns experiences can help businesses throughout the multichannel ecommerce journey to create loyal customers and redefine returns as a growth driver.

Collecting Customer Feedback

Customer service can’t improve without understanding your customers’ experience. Take the guesswork out of providing better post-purchase experiences for your customers. Gathering feedback from customers is crucial for companies to recognize successful practices and areas for improvement. Businesses selling through their websites can use delivery feedback to influence shipping decisions that optimize the experience, while businesses selling on social media can use it to make better delivery choices.

LateShipment.com and Linnworks

Linnworks has partnered with LateShipment.com to provide a host of benefits to help businesses like yours win more customers with positive post-purchase experiences. From staying on top of delivery issues to custom shipping notifications, branded tracking pages and more, our partnership with LateShipment.com helps brands build credibility and stronger customer relationships.

Providing a World-Class Customer Experience

Providing a world-class customer experience is one of the most important aspects of any business. A positive and consistent experience builds customer loyalty and drives success. In fact, according to Zendesk, 75% of customers are willing to spend more on a brand that provides a good customer experience. By contrast, service failures, even when seemingly miniscule, can have a drastic impact on your bottom line.

Your customers have made their expectations clear. Meeting them where they are and offering a convenient experience is key to customer satisfaction, but it’s not the only piece of the puzzle. Once they place an order, it’s up to you to provide a seamless experience and offer highly valued features throughout the customer journey.

As sales increase and operations scale, all ecommerce businesses must keep up with the pace of change. Maintaining high customer satisfaction can sometimes seem nearly impossible. However, by implementing well-designed automation strategies and partnerships, as seen with Linnworks and LateShipment.com, retailers can reduce the burden of manual processes while prioritizing the customer experience. To learn more about Linnworks and automated inventory management, request a demo now.

This article is a guest contribution from Linnworks

The post How Automation Transforms the Post-Purchase Customer Experience appeared first on Lateshipment.com.

5 Ways AI Can Transform the Retail Industry: Examples and Benefits

Sashank Ravindranath — Mon, 25 Apr 2022 11:54:25 +0000

The retail industry has been undergoing a digital transformation for years. It has improved in speed, efficiency, and accuracy, thanks, in large part, to improved data and predictive analytics technologies that allow firms to make data-driven business decisions. None of these insights would be possible without the internet of things (IoT) and, more importantly, artificial intelligence (AI).

Retailers now have access to high-level data and information, which they can utilize to improve operations and open up new business opportunities. In fact, AI in retail is expected to create $40 billion in additional income over the next three years. Many industries use the term artificial intelligence, yet many people don’t fully get what it means.

Artificial intelligence and machine learning refer to the technology that can collect, process, and analyze large volumes of data to predict, forecast, inform, and support retailers in making reliable, data-driven business decisions. These technologies can even work on their own, transforming raw data from IoT and other sources into actionable insights with the help of advanced analytics.

AI Applications in Retail

AI has a significant impact on the retail industry, accelerating and automating a handful of functionalities. Below, we’ll discuss a list of AI applications in retail to give you a headstart:

Provides valuable data to keep track of Inventory

In the retail industry, artificial intelligence is improving demand forecasts.

AI business intelligence systems foresee industry movements and make proactive changes to a company’s marketing, merchandising, and business strategies by mining insights from the marketplace, customer, and competition data. This has ramifications for supply chain planning, pricing, and promotional planning.

Creating interactive chat programs in the retail business is a fantastic way to employ AI technologies while improving customer service and engagement. These bots use AI and machine learning to engage with customers, answer common questions, and direct them to useful answers and outcomes. As a result, these bots collect crucial client data and then label the data that can be used to inform future business decisions.

Maintaining appropriate stocks is a major concern for retailers. By connecting more aspects of their business and using AI to help with inventory management, retailers may get a holistic view of their stores, customers, and merchandise.

Helps you understand customer behavior

The more you understand customer behavior and trends, the more you’ll be able to meet demand and provide the best products possible.

AI might help retailers improve demand forecasting, pricing, and product positioning. As a result, customers have access to the right products at the right time and in the right place.

Predictive analytics can help you order the right amount of inventory, ensuring that shops don’t have too much or too little on hand. AI may be able to track data from online channels, enabling better e-commerce activities.

New kinds of AI can help you understand customer intent and personalize the shopper’s journey accordingly at the retail edge. One instance is marking some areas in stores using heat mapping. Cameras and computer vision combine to indicate which items are picked up, returned, and where the customer goes after leaving the shelf.

Empowers you to offer stellar customer support

Whether it’s a little boutique or a worldwide behemoth, businesses strive to deliver quick, customized, and delightful shopping experiences.

Customers should be able to locate what they’re searching for easily, obtain assistance when needed, and check out swiftly. These operations are streamlined by AI to help generate more fulfilling client experiences.

Customers are being recognized by mobile and digital portals, which are personalizing the e-commerce experience to reflect their current environment, previous purchases, and buying activity.

Artificial intelligence (AI) systems are continually evolving a user’s digital experience to develop hyper-relevant displays for each interaction. Customer engagement may be measured using digital signage with computer vision, and real-time advertising tailored to the audience can be served. AI gives additional opportunities to tailor experiences, from the retail edge to the cloud.

Manages fluctuating pricing

AI applications in retail outlets might aid in the pricing of items by showing the anticipated results of various pricing schemes.

Systems collect information on other items, promotional efforts, sales numbers, and other data in order to carry out this task.

Business owners can showcase the greatest deals to attract new clients and increase revenue. eBay and Kroger both use Artificial Intelligence to optimize their pricing and remain flexible in their capacity to modify rates and promotions based on the data they collect.

The price of a product is forecasted based on demand, seasonal trends, attributes, the release date of new versions of the same item, and other factors. Its most obvious application is in the travel business, but it might also be utilized in retail.

Consider an app or service that allows your consumers to see how the price of a product will change in advance. This is doable and simple to accomplish using Artificial Intelligence.

Improve shopping experience

During the buying process, Artificial Intelligence (AI) may also help in the detection and segmentation of your customers’ emotions. Walmart has already employed face recognition technology for this reason.

Each checkout line is equipped with cameras, and if a customer becomes agitated, a business employee will talk with him or her. Mood tracking will surely contribute to the formation of stronger client relationships. Business owners may utilize behavioral economics to build a customized strategy for each consumer using Artificial Intelligence technologies.

Wrapping up

AI’s role in the retail industry is increasing exponentially all the time.

Applications in retail are not only bound to a software end but several other fields such as Internet-of-things and robotics also play an important role in the development of such systems so this process includes most of the major engineering disciplines and because of such facts, any company that fails to focus on such developments might struggle to stay contemporary or compete internationally.

Such innovation not only increases the overall working skills but also eliminates the requirement for traditional or antiquated systems with intelligent automation, such as inventory management.

AI is simply changing the way stores function for the better. You can put your shop in a better position to make better decisions, increase sales, and eventually improve customer retention by implementing AI. So, there’s no better time than now to start incorporating AI into your daily operations.

As you consider how to include AI into your retail organization, keep in mind the several advantages listed above. You may be well on your way to attaining a whole new level of business growth in the months and years ahead with the correct AI technologies.

This article is a contribution by Melanie Johnson.

Melanie Johnson is an AI and computer vision enthusiast with a wealth of experience in technical writing. Passionate about innovation and AI-powered solutions. Loves sharing expert insights and educating individuals on tech.

The post 5 Ways AI Can Transform the Retail Industry: Examples and Benefits appeared first on Lateshipment.com.

Returns Experience Management for Shopify Users

Sashank Ravindranath — Fri, 27 Aug 2021 14:55:30 +0000

Are you an online retailer who runs their business on Shopify and wants to provide their customers with a streamlined returns experience?

Then you’ve come to the right place. In this blog, we’ll cover…

The existing gap with returns in eCommerce retail
The need for a returns management solution to close the gap
FAQs from retailers when it comes to returns, etc

With this blog, be sure to get to know the ins and outs of returns management and how to optimize it for customer satisfaction.

One might wonder.

Why do I need to focus on my returns strategy in the first place, when return shipping isn’t a profit-yielding business strategy?.

Here’s why you should.

92% of the shoppers will buy again if the returns process is frictionless and user-friendly.

The Bottom line — returns should be as easy as shopping itself in your store.

However, is it not as easy as it looks due to the existing gaps in the way eCommerce stores handle returns.

But that doesn’t mean you avoid returns entirely as product returns are inevitable in eCommerce, particularly when you leverage free returns to acquire customers, and even the best businesses out there struggle to build a frictionless and profitable returns strategy.

Therefore, preparing your Shopify store to provide a seamless returns experience is key to your store’s success as it holds incredible power to improve your retention and repeat purchase rates.

Let’s see how Shopify users can manage and redefine their returns as a driver of growth.

Leveraging A Returns Experience Management Solution to Handle Shopify Returns

We’ve probably said it before, Investing in a returns experience management solution can help you fulfill the promise of a hassle-free Shopify returns experience by equipping you with a great returns strategy.

But first. what really makes up a great returns strategy?

Here’s a comprehensive checklist on the topic that you can gain access to by submitting a simple form.

How Lateshipment.Com’s Returns Experience Management Solution Is Built for Shopify and Makes Returns Easy and Profitable

LateShipment.com’s Returns Experience Management is a powerful, self-service returns platform that holds incredible power to boost your bottom line and create loyal customers for life

Apart from holding all the features of a complete returns management solution, Returns Experience Management hands you the reins to do more in the form of:

A customizable, on-demand returns portal makes the return experience fast and easy for your customers with close to zero interactions with your support agents
A purpose-built returns dashboard for merchants, support users, and warehouse operators to drive quick return request resolution and drastically reduce your team’s time tending to returns and thereby reduce support ticket volume.
A tracking page for returns that provides transparency around return status and eliminates customer anxiety about the whereabouts of their package.

One another way to optimize your returns management strategy is to understand your customer’s expectations when it comes to returns and take steps to meet or rather exceed them.

Here are some Frequently Asked Questions by merchants with respect to managing returns.

Common FAQs Merchants Have on Returns

Q: How do I handle eCommerce returns?

A: The best way to handle returns is to make returns easier for your customer. Informing your return policies beforehand, pre-printing return labels, offering multiple and flexible return methods, etc can all help you in making it as easy as shopping in your store.

Q: Are returns bad for my business?

A: Returns are a necessary evil and a cost-center only when you look at them that way. However, when returns are handled well, they become a retention and revenue opportunity.

Q: How do I reduce the impact of frequent returns and refund rates on my profits?

A: The best way to reduce return costs and refund rates is to do more than just returns. Incentivize customers to opt for exchanges or store credit to ensure revenue retention.

Q: My support team is often burdened with returns requests. Even more so after customers have initiated returns. Is there something I can do about that?

A: By making returns self-serve, i.e, easy returns initiation, exchanges, and more can help in reducing returns-related customer issues. Proactive and automated customer communications including real-time tracking of returns during the entire returns lifecycle will further reduce the load on support teams.

Q: How do I streamline my eCommerce business’ returns process?

A: The best way to streamline your eCommerce returns process and make your customers’ returns journey seamless is to invest in an automated returns management system that helps you with everything from initiating easy returns and printing labels to status tracking and a host of support-friendly features

Q: I’ve tried different Shopify returns apps, how is a returns management system for Shopify any different?

A: Returns applications on Shopify mostly help you with just initiating returns and creating labels. However, a returns experience management platform such as LateShipment.com comes up with all the features of the returns management system with the added benefits of

24/7 chat, email, and phone support to help you with any requirements
Stringent security of your data
Individualized onboarding and training
Dedicated customer success manager, etc.

Optimize Your Shopify Returns Process

Shopify helps you provide a great buying experience by optimizing your eCommerce website.

But returns are unique. That’s why an automated returns solution is at the need of the hour.

Manage your returns process to optimize the experience you provide. This holds incredible power to boost your bottom line and create loyal customers for life.

With the help of a returns experience management solution, redefine Shopify returns to a growth driver for your business not just in terms of customer loyalty and revenue retention but taking analytics and making improvements to reduce eCommerce return rates.

Get started with Returns Experience Management for Shopify.

The post Returns Experience Management for Shopify Users appeared first on Lateshipment.com.

How to Leverage Automation for Holiday Season Sales

Ian — Wed, 18 Aug 2021 07:46:16 +0000

The holiday sales season is often the most important for retailers. Researchers predict holiday ecommerce retail sales to make up 18.9% of total holiday sales this year, up from the year before. In 2020, retail ecommerce made up 17.5% of total holiday sales.

If retailers do not want to miss out on these sales, they must be in the selling channels where customers are spending their time.

It has never been more important for retailers and brands to be wherever the customer is, on their terms. Linnworks calls this Total Commerce.

Total Commerce means going to the customer rather than having the customer come to you. It means staying current on what channels customers are making their purchasing decisions. It’s difficult to constantly manage and keep up with these multiple sales channels. This is where automation comes in, putting Total Commerce control at the center of your business this holiday season.

The Power of Automating Inventory Management for Peak Season

One of the challenges high-growth retailers face is managing logistics through ever-expanding complex channels. Retailers must manage the orders, inventory, and shipping in multiple selling channels. The risk of human error greatly increases the more selling channels a business has when managing commerce manually.

Automation takes care of the management of these areas. Automation is especially important when you have high order volumes during the holiday season. For example, automation helps to solve one of the biggest problems retailers face: inventory management.

Successful inventory management is key to navigating the high-demand holiday season. Inventory management prevents stock-outs.

Stock-outs occur when retailers oversell their inventory. This can lead to a negative customer experience, lost revenue, and a permanently damaged reputation. Stock-outs are most likely to occur during sales surges, which is a common occurrence during the holiday season. This is where automation can be an invaluable asset to manage the stock levels of your inventory across all selling channels.

Get Your Products to Customers Easier and Faster With Shipping Management Automation

A shipping management system helps retailers decide what fulfillment method to use, and designate carrier services based on filtered criteria such as location or product information.

A system also allows you to manage the delivery experience of all of your orders, including being able to identify any delivery issues well before they happen. When you have this kind of insight, it helps you build long-lasting relationships with your customers by providing a positive delivery experience.

Moreover, a good shipping management system integrates well with third-party logistics companies to provide an immersive overall experience. 3PLs can handle the distribution, warehousing, and fulfillment of products.

3PLs can be extremely valuable to retailers because these companies have multiple fulfillment centers that are close to your customers, therefore decreasing the amount of time it takes to ship your products to your customers. Being closer to customers provides a huge advantage for retailers because it allows retailers to get their products to customers faster. 3PLs also save you money because you do not need to buy or rent warehouse space.

Manage Multiple Sales Channels in One Place with Automation

Automation helps retailers implement a successful sales channels strategy. Marketplaces are one type of sales channel and include well-known names like Walmart, eBay, and Amazon in an ever-growing area.

According to Linnworks, 90% of customers start their search for a product on a marketplace. In a consumer market where the winning retailers are wherever their customers are, wherever may seem like everywhere.

Each new marketplace is a possible selling channel to consider for a retailer. Marketplaces can be great for sales and also for more customers to find out about your brand. Automation helps you sell on all possible channels where your customers are spending their time, like marketplaces.

Accomplishing Total Commerce, being where your customers are, on their terms, is difficult to manage without automation. It has never been more important for retailers to be wherever their customers are, such as marketplaces.

Leverage the Power of Automation for the Holiday Sales Surge

Automation helps with your commerce operations while also helping you create a seamless, convenient customer experience.

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

This article is a guest contribution from Linnworks

The post How to Leverage Automation for Holiday Season Sales appeared first on Lateshipment.com.

Damaged Packages: How to Handle Them

Sashank Ravindranath — Fri, 04 Jun 2021 13:34:25 +0000

Why Do Packages Get Damaged in the First Place?

The packages you dearly send to your customers can get damaged for various reasons such as

Mishandling at the sorting facility – sorting your fragile package under other heavier packages
Wrong packaging – Haphazard packaging using cheap packing material for cutting costs
Damaged in-transit – Bad weather or road conditions too can weaken your packaging and damage the contents within.

What Happens When Your Customer Receives Packages That Are Damaged?

Here’s a short but not so sweet description of what would happen if such an event occurs:

Even if the order reaches on time with all its contents, when the customer finds it damaged there are still chances of them getting frustrated
It doesn’t matter if the carrier has caused the damage, the customer holds YOU responsible for damaged packages and decides not to shop with you
To make matters worse, they also tend to take the issue to social media and tarnish your reputation, demotivating others from shopping with you as well.

Is that distress I see in your face? There’s no need to worry…

Before you start to panic over what can be done, we’ll just spoil the ending for you.

Yes, just like late deliveries, lost packages, or even package theft – issues that arise from damaged packages can also be resolved and you can turn your frustrated customer into a happy one that shops with you again.

Stay tuned to learn how you can effectively handle damaged packages, so that you recover your lost dollars and your customers are no longer frustrated – that’s two birds with one stone.

How to Handle Damaged Packages

By making use of the right packaging material and technique you can reduce damage to an extent but despite all that, a package gets damaged and your customer informs you of it – What’s next?

First things first – Acknowledge your mistake even if you had nothing to do with it. The last thing your customer wants is you staying mum over the issue or a blame game between you and the carrier. Therefore, take this as an opportunity to communicate with your customer at the earliest and apologize. This makes sure that their frustration is mitigated to an extent.
Secondly – Ensure a fast resolution. Assure the customer that the issue will be resolved based on their requirement ASAP. This further elevates their satisfaction levels.
Last but not least – Make sure they receive a compensation offer to make it worth their while. This is kind of a bonus, pro-tip. But works to your advantage when it comes to changing your customer from a frustrated one to a happy one.

Also, you need to watch out for fraudulent claims made by certain customers over damaged packages. They might have damaged it themselves or simply fake damage for personal gain.

In such cases, you can follow the footsteps of other retailers who require proof of damage or cross-verify with the shipping carrier for a seamless issue resolution.

While acknowledging and providing a resolution works to your advantage to an extent, there are still certain hurdles you need to watch out for while handling damaged packages.

Handling damaged packages is an expensive process

Faux or not, either way, handling damaged package queries are expensive.

If the customer’s frustration doesn’t seem to reduce and they stop shopping with you – you have to spend on customer acquisition costs
If you’re looking to reduce their frustration, you’ve to spend on refunds, product returns, sending out replacements, providing special offers, etc.

Don’t you worry! There are time-tested ways for you to recover the costs you spent on damaged packages. For example, The shipping carrier indeed provides an option for you to claim refunds for damaged packages as compensation under their service guarantee.

How to File a Claim for Damaged Packages with the Shipping Carrier

Here are a few things you need to keep in mind if you’re going to file a claim for damaged packages:

If the contents of the package cost less than $100, you can complete the entire form online and request a refund without documentation.
In the event of the package costing anywhere above $100, proper documentation is necessary for the claim to get processed.
Documentation can include pickup records, photos of the damaged contents, and proof of value documentation.
The tracking number that was initially allocated to the package is vital to the process and has to be provided.

After a scheduled inspection, your claim will be processed and you can track its progress.

While these are the common things you should be aware of, here are more specific conditions that adhere to particular shipping carriers.

FedEx damaged packages claim – must be reported within 21 calendar days and all supporting documentation filed within 9 months of the delivery date.
UPS damaged packages claim – file within 5 months online, within 9 months through customer service, and within 45 days if it is an uncollected C.O.D
USPS damaged packages claim – file within 60 days for all services except Priority Mail Express, First class, and Surface Mail
DHL damaged packages claim – file within 30 days

If you think filing refund claims for damaged packages is as straightforward as it looks, caution! It isn’t.

Filing refund claims for damaged packages by yourself is a huge hassle

Apart from running your hectic business, manually submitting claims with shipping carriers by yourself is a huge hassle for more reasons than one:

So, what is the easy way out?

LateShipment.com’s Parcel Audit and Shipping Refunds solution effortlessly audits your invoices and helps save up to 20% on your shipping costs. The best part is that it takes less than 2 minutes to set up and seamlessly integrates with your existing workflow.

Our parcel audit and refunds solution:

Not only submits claims on your behalf but also constantly follows up till issue resolution.
Make sure that all claims are submitted within the timeframe of the carrier(s).
Not just damaged shipments, but also helps you recover refunds for 50+ service failures like late deliveries.
And best of all this, you don’t have to pay anything out of your pockets. We only charge 50% of the refunds you’ve received, that too only when it is successfully recovered.

Damaged Packages? Here's How to Make Them Right

Sure, refunds are great for your business.

But what about mitigating the pain of a loyal customer who has an important package such as an anniversary gift damaged in their hands?

That’s when our other feature Delivery Experience Management (DEM) platform can help. DEM is particularly helpful if you are a bulk shipper who uses multiple carriers and would prefer an efficient automated workflow.

DEM helps you track your parcels in real-time and lets you stay aware of packages that are damaged at the loading or sorting facility (when it is about to be sent out for delivery).

By letting you know well in advance if your packages are damaged, it gives you an edge when you get in touch with the carrier to resolve the issue or send a quick replacement in case of a time-sensitive delivery.

While damages are inevitable, handling them appropriately can really be the deciding factor between your customers being agitated and calm. It also ensures that your customers go to the extent of becoming advocates for your brand based on your commitment to handle issues.

Try LateShipment.com today and take your first step towards handling damaged packages or write to us at sales@lateshipment.com if you have any questions.

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Everything You Need to Know about the Changes Made to Canada Post, UPS, FedEx and Purolator’s Money-back Guarantee

Sashank Ravindranath — Fri, 09 Apr 2021 12:44:03 +0000

This article has been updated as of 23rd August, 2021.

It’s been a year since the COVID-19 pandemic debuted and created panic across the globe, dramatically changing the way we live our lives.

The eCommerce retail industry felt the brunt of the pandemic’s impact, just like every other industry out there.

While many retailers had to shut shop temporarily, others scrambled to deal with the humongous surge in demand. As a result, eCommerce retail – especially the supply chain and post-purchase aspect went under the scanner.

And as if this weren’t overwhelming enough, businesses also faced challenges from shipping carriers through peak surcharges and a suspension on money-back guarantees which have almost emptied SMB owners’ purses in the form of shipping bills.

While peak surcharges are still levied on packages that are being shipped to certain remote locations, major shipping carriers such as FedEx, UPS, and Purolator reinstating their money-back guarantee for select service types is certainly some good news for eCommerce business owners.

What is the Money-back Guarantee Policy?

The Money-Back Guarantee (MBG) is a clause that is part of a shipping contract that stipulates that major shipping carriers such as FedEx, UPS, Purolator, etc promise to offer you a full refund on shipping charges if parcel delivery is delayed by even 60 seconds except in exceptional circumstances (natural disasters, weather delays, etc). Apart from the Money-Back Guarantee, shipping carriers offer refunds for 50+ service failures & billing errors including late, lost, and damaged deliveries, surcharge errors, etc.

And as you may be aware, due to disruptions in the global supply chain caused by COVID-19, all major shipping carriers around the world had suspended their Service Guarantee, also known as Money-Back Guarantee across all service types.

What are the Recent Changes Made to the Money-back Guarantees?

While continuous efforts are being made to restore normalcy in operations – carriers including UPS, FedEx, and Purolator have REINSTATED their Money-Back Guarantee for some service types, effective April 5, 2021.

The latest carrier to resume On-time Delivery Guarantees is Canada Post for parcels shipped within Canada. The delivery guarantees will take effect starting August 23, 2021.

This translates to more savings on your shipping bills, given that over 20% of all shipments faced delivery issues in 2020.

But first, you must stay in the loop of the select services that are now eligible for the money-back guarantee. And that’s why we’ve compiled them for you.

Want this list right in your device?

We’ve also presented the same as a downloadable document below for you to access the links and read more about money-back guarantee being reinstated from the carriers themselves.

How LateShipment.Com Can Help You

At LateShipment.com we are committed to ensuring that every dollar in refund claims is returned to you.

Throughout the pandemic, LateShipment.com has been monitoring and filing claims for 50+ service failures on your behalf. With the reinstatement of select Money-Back Guarantee claims, we will be able to recover even more claims (that’s even more shipping cost savings!)

Our automated parcel audit and refunds solution effortlessly audits your invoices and helps save up to 20% on your shipping costs. The best part is that it takes less than 2 minutes to set up and seamlessly integrates with your existing workflow.

That’s not all! Here are some more benefits of using LateShipment.com

50+ carriers supported – With customers in over 40 countries, we successfully claim refunds from carriers worldwide.
Highly-trained algorithms – Our exclusive technology is built in-house with algorithms trained from tracking over 100M parcels.
Human-backed automation – Our automated claims system is human-backed to ensure that you never miss any refunds.
Maximum refunds recovery – Apart from common service failures, our systems are built to recover refunds for 50+ carrier errors.
No upfront cost – Zero out-of-pocket costs for your business. Pay only a part of the refunds claimed.
Refund claims for previous shipments – We don’t wait for you to ship out packages. Our systems can backtrack up to 45 days and claim refunds even for past shipments.

Feel like you’re missing out? Worry not, it is never too late to start claiming refunds!

Try LateShipment.com today now and save up to 20% on your shipping costs while providing memorable delivery experiences for your customers (It just takes 2 minutes).

Still doubtful? You can get in touch with us by scheduling a call with our expert or writing to us at sales@lateshipment.com

The post Everything You Need to Know about the Changes Made to Canada Post, UPS, FedEx and Purolator’s Money-back Guarantee appeared first on Lateshipment.com.

eCommerce Success: Pros and Cons of Cloud Computing in Logistics & Shipping for Emerging Businesses

Ian — Fri, 08 Jan 2021 05:07:42 +0000

You might have come across many technical terms being hyped by tech-enthusiasts, but ‘cloud computing’ rightfully deserves the attention it has been getting over the last few years.

Cloud computing is revolutionizing technology that has created a buzz in many business areas due to its ease of accessibility and flexibility.

According to the recent cloud computing statistics, the global public cloud market will exceed estimated expectations worth $330 billion as the year 2020 wraps up.

After looking at such exponential figures, there is no doubt that companies worldwide have outgrown the outdated technologies and expanded their investments towards cloud computing.

Undoubtedly, the advanced technology has been successfully integrated into the logistics and shipment industry as well.

Today, cloud-based logistics software is considered much more efficient to fulfill commercial needs and provide value-added services to customers.

Let’s find out what pros and cons the revolutionary technology has for the logistics and shipping companies.

Advantages of Cloud computing in the Logistics Industry

The following are some of the best benefits one can reap by integrating cloud computing in the logistics industry.

1. More accessibility to real-time pricing updates

Various elements can directly affect pricing when it comes to transportation and warehousing.

External factors like market conditions, customer demands, sales fluctuations, weather changes, and other such volatilities have the power to make or break your margins.

Not every person can have real-time access to such fluctuations and call the next big trend change that could affect the pricing. Cloud computing does precisely that for you. It provides more accessibility to real-time pricing updates.

Like for instance, you receive immediate notice that freight rates have changed, but if you are out of the station, you can still communicate the necessary changes needed to be made to accommodate the sudden change of rates in your favor.

2. Helps your business expand to accommodate customer demand

A smooth supply chain is essential for a company’s operational efficiency.

Given the customer-centricity and the significance the supply chain provides to it, a streamlined supply chain can do a lot more to match customer demands. It can give your business a boost across all the associated supply chain channels without costing the business a fortune.

Organizations require flexibility and integration to survive the competition in the market. And cloud computing can be the right answer.

Cloud computing is a game-changer for businesses to expand and meet customer demands by deploying new agility services.

– Data from Accenture

3. Easy collaboration at every step of the supply chain

Logistics has been transformed ever since technology has been integrated every step of the way.

Where the supply chain has become more complex and dependent on every step, a smooth and streamlined collaboration has become vital for sustaining your business operations.

Because the supply chain quickly multiplies the cost down the value stream, even the slightest change that can help you save through access to real-time pricing information is a significant win for the company.

Therefore, cloud-based logistics is the key to breaking down communication and pricing issues in the supply chain. It will help create a more predictable supply chain by connecting the process through the cloud.

4. Better data mobility among various departments involved

Logistics and shipment require real-time access to data from various departments.

Deploying cloud computing allows better data mobility through the organization’s various departments to streamline the supply chain and make better decisions. This not only saves time and resources but instead directs the use of resources towards other innovations.

Cloud computing allows speedy data deployments of departments like management, maintenance, IT, and other upgrades that are involved in the supply chain. It affects efficiency and productivity through tangible means as it takes open and seamless integration of all the other departments involved to work together.

5. Create better transit models for efficient shipping

If your supply chain requires coordination from several suppliers spread on a larger scale, then it should be seamlessly aligned and synchronized. And cloud computing can help you do just that with regards to your logistics.

Cloud-based logistics solutions easily provide real-time monitoring access to create better transit models for efficient shipping.

The real-time data is not only remotely accessible, but it is available for the entire team regardless of time or location.

Even if you want in-transit models spanning on a global scale, cloud-based logistics solutions can be integrated to efficiently cover, optimize, and manage such formidable and complex trails.

It is easier to deploy and less-costly to initiate.

6. Supply chain transparency for better operations

Cloud solutions allow you to connect with multiple dimensions of your organization.

You can connect with internal and external departments, your partners, and even the services that you have outsourced.

As you integrate cloud in the supply chain and connect all of your inter-departmental partners, it provides real-time transparency at every supply chain level.

It allows you to keep your supply chain inbound functions, outbound operations, and logistics data process under control and your customers satisfied.

The visibility at every step makes it easier and quicker to deploy the means that can carry forward the process, ultimately making it more streamlined.

7. Access to inventory and warehouse capacity figures

Inventory is the starting point and probably the full-circle endpoint of a supply chain. That is why on-hand inventory is the most direct way through which you can easily control the risk factors and optimize your costs.

Cloud allows you to instantly access your on-hand inventory figures and information to maximize your ability to respond to the on-going fluctuations.

The consistent inventory data flow through the cloud allows you access to specific details like profit margins and highest seller figures etc.

Such valuable information can impact your sales significantly and allow you to make better orders to fulfill customer demands.

Disadvantages of Cloud computing

Where cloud computing can be a shining gold armor for logistics and supply chain management, organizations should understand that there are just as many unique risks involved with cloud adoption.

1. Requires a lot more efficient access management

Cloud computing in logistics can lead to inefficient access management in two ways.

One happens through an inefficient credential policy where there is no need for strong passwords to protect the data.

There are no frequent updates in the system to counter any territorial breaches.

The other one happens when risk is known as shadow IT or a rogue IT system that makes use of systems, devices, software applications, and services without a clearly defined IT approval.

2. Countering unauthorized use

It requires countering of unauthorized usage, whether the breach has been made through intentional or unintentional means.

However, the main reason behind the breach is the irresponsibility of the employees who might be using untested and unauthorized means to access the cloud servers that harm the entire logistics and supply chain system.

3. Limited structural control

Due to the risk involved, the companies are advised to protect their systems to every extent possible.

This minimizes the structural control but also closes the access to endpoints that can be exploited.

Limiting potential attack surfaces can be detrimental to the overall supply chain structural integrity, but there is no other way to ground the operations safely.

4. Multiple clouds and interface issues

If the cloud system is accessed through an application program interface or API, it can automate almost every transaction your organization has ever made and expose it to the world.

Such issues stem from several factors involved in the overall system.

Configuration and deployment of multiple clouds require the assurance that they are compatible with each other.

Negligence towards and lack of investment made in this regard enables more APIs that can then become potential entry points for hackers.

5. Dealing with numerous stakeholders

As a logistics company, you would be having multiple suppliers, clients, and stakeholders in general.

Therefore, logistics companies must know the main stakeholders in freight distribution and how different actions can impact their corporate relations with them.

The sharing of your resources and cloud system data among your stakeholders, tenants, and customers is risky.

Resources are vulnerable to leakage, and anybody with ill intentions can get easy access if they want to use such information against you.

Wrapping It Up!

All in all, there is no doubt that cloud-based solutions are here to stay when it comes to logistics, shipment, and supply chain companies.

These companies can easily achieve better operations, execution of tasks, collaboration within the business circle, and overall high functionality through cloud computing.

Therefore, in the upcoming future, we will see many logistics companies moving towards and adopting such cloud practices and generally advancing in the digital realm of performing company operations.

Cloud computing may not be regarded as groundbreaking anymore due to its high adaptability in every business format.

Still, it is breaking barriers when it comes to making seamless supply chain management processes for companies adopting it.

This article is a guest contribution by Samantha Kailee

Samantha Kaylee is currently working as a Planning Manager at Crowd Writer, an excellent platform that offers services like write my assignment UK. She has gained significant experience in logistics due to her previous job in a renowned shipping company. You can check out her blog for recommendations and expertise.

The post eCommerce Success: Pros and Cons of Cloud Computing in Logistics & Shipping for Emerging Businesses appeared first on Lateshipment.com.

How and Why of Shipping Audit for FedEx, UPS, and DHL

Rohan Rinaldo Felix — Thu, 21 Feb 2019 06:17:00 +0000

Does your business use a shipping carrier like FedEx, UPS, or DHL to deliver products to customers? If your answer is “yes,” have you ever thought about whether you’re getting the deal you deserve?

You’re Actually Losing Money!

Most shipping carriers guarantee refunds if deliveries are delayed because of errors on their part. Some, like UPS and FedEx, promise refunds even if the delay is only a minute.

But carriers make it hard, very hard to get those refunds.

How, you ask?

They make their claim forms hard to fill out, and they provide a limited window of time within which claims must be filed.

“I can handle that,” you say?

Well, then consider this.

Do you only ship a few packages every once in a while or do you ship regularly to your customers?

If you answered, like most people, that you ship regularly to your customers, you may be having a problem on your hands.

You’re probably missing out on a bunch of refund money because you’re not auditing your shipments and carrier invoices.

Let that sink in.

You are letting someone else keep YOUR MONEY because you aren’t keeping track of where they mess up. And boy do shipping carriers mess up!

How Shipping Carriers Mess Up (You Face the Consequences)

Between July and December of 2018, Fedex and UPS, two leading carriers, experienced significant delays while delivering shipments. Based on our delay report, the states worst affected by delays by these carriers were New Jersey, Texas, California, New York, and Illinois. The worst affected cities were Jersey City, East Syracuse, Mesquite, Hutchins, and Memphis.

The performance of these carriers was deficient throughout the review period and particularly during the holiday period (November and December). FedEx and UPS had a combined delay percentage of 7.57% in November and 5.86% in December.

UPS performed marginally better than FedEx during the period with an overall delay percentage of 4.9% as against 5.1% by FedEx.

But here’s the catch. These percentages don’t tell the complete story. There’s more to small parcel delays.

A customer who has experienced a delay in receiving their shipment is less likely to buy from you again. You end up losing them, forever. A one-time refund from your carrier cannot compensate for this.

A lost customer is the ultimate tragedy for your business because you can no longer count on any repeat business or positive reviews from them. You end up losing out in a big way. Your brand’s value is eroded.

So, what must you do?

Audit Your Shipping Carrier

You need to have a system in place to audit your shipping carrier and get refunded every time they mess up. The usual way of making this happen is by using the services of a shipping auditor. This person checks the invoices sent to the business by the shipping carrier and audits them for inconsistencies. The shipping auditor has the task of optimizing the shipping process for the organization and cutting down on costs wherever possible.

Some large organizations make use of an entire team to make this process happen. Still others outsource the job to external agencies. A few make use of automated software solutions to perform their shipping audits.

The question still remains. What must YOU do?

This is what you must do. You need to sign up for an automated service that does all the heavy lifting for you.

What kind of lifting, you ask?

This service should be able to

track your packages from source to destination.
identify shipping errors when they occur and automatically generate refund claims.
save your business up to 20% on shipping costs.
provide real-time insights on the status of your package.
certify your business for last-mile best practices.
integrate with and provide data on the performance of multiple carriers.

You need to sign up for a free LateShipment.com account.

This probably looks like self-promotion, and it is. But not without reason.

Our service will audit your shipping invoices to identify over 50 service failures and submit refund claims to your carrier on your behalf. Businesses that use our services save up to 20% on every shipment.

That’s not all! Use our services and get access to advanced analytics tools that will help you audit every shipment in real-time and fix delivery errors even before they happen. With your account, you can rest easy in the confidence that you will be able to handle delays before they affect your customers. Signing up takes 2 minutes, and you have nothing to lose!

Take a peek into our dashboard.

This is our Shipment Report, designed to give you overall shipment data in one place. The shipments that leave your warehouse are categorized by date, service type, and shipping costs. You can also see how many claims have been filed and their cumulative value.

If you’re wondering how to evaluate your shipping carrier, then the Carrier Performance report is what you should look at. It gives you an in-depth report on carrier performance over the last six months. It also includes a graph that shows the package delay rate divided by hours and days delayed.

Our Monthly Shipping Spend report is for when you need to know the value of either individual or bulk shipments in a specific window of time. It gives you a detailed monthly and yearly break up of shipment value.

There are plenty more insights we can offer your business.

Why You Should Use an Automated Solution to Audit Your Carrier

Manually tracking and auditing shipments is a process that has been performed for long. So why reinvent the wheel and go in for an automated service? Here’s why.

Manually tracking/auditing multiple shipments at the same time is difficult work. On a large scale, it requires an in-house or external team of shipping auditors. Both can be expensive.

Also, delays aren’t the only possible failure. There are over 50 ways in which shipping carriers can let you down. For example, your products could be damaged in transit or even not be shipped at all! Your team of auditors will have to audit for all these possibilities, which can lead to them being overwhelmed.

After all the effort, there’s still the aspect of human error to consider.

An automated service like ours is designed from the ground up to audit shipments and invoices and claim refunds. It has handled the tracking of over 75 million shipments and has successfully claimed refunds worth millions of dollars.

Once you start using a service like LateShipment.com, how are things going to improve for you?

The Very Real Benefits of Auditing Shipments

Here’s how using our service will add value to your organization:

The refunds will start flowing in.
Your shipping carrier(s) will be forced to improve their service.
You will be able to proactively handle shipping-related issues before your customers know of them.
You will be able to ensure customer satisfaction.
Our insights will provide you a broader picture and let you negotiate better rates with your shipping carrier(s).

At the end of the day, it all boils down to one word: Accountability. Shipping carriers have been getting away with way too much for way too long. The 3 billion dollars in unclaimed refunds that they pocket each year is money that should have been in the hands of businesses like yours. When you submit claims for refunds, you force your carrier to take a good, hard look at the quality of their service.

When a carrier receives a large volume of refund claims, they are forced to improve the service they provide. Which is a win for businesses like yours! At the end of the day, all we want from shipping carriers is that they walk the talk.

At the end of the day, all we want from shipping carriers is that they walk the talk.

Useful Links

Here are some links to help you learn more about the refund policies of major carriers and get you started with applying for refunds.

If you found this post useful, check out these as well:

The post How and Why of Shipping Audit for FedEx, UPS, and DHL appeared first on Lateshipment.com.

Why should your retail business automate shipping invoice audit process?

Revathi Karthik — Thu, 26 Apr 2018 13:30:23 +0000

Shipping cost constitutes anywhere between 5 to 15% of the total expenditure for Retailers. Adding to their tightening margins is the steady 4% year on year increase in FedEx and UPS shipping rates. The complete monopoly of these shipping carriers in the small parcel shipping market leave retailers with no other option but to let shipping costs eat into their profits. Not anymore! Shipping carriers can be easily held accountable with an in-depth shipping invoice audit. Although most retailers invest in in-house shipping audit, it is not as efficient or impactful as their automated counterpart.

The most compelling reason to switch to an automated audit process is that manual process could be time sinking as well as labor intensive. Moreover, the cumbersome process of auditing your invoice takes your focus away from building a successful business. Listed here are the definitive advantages of using automated parcel shipping invoice audit over manual in-house process.

As noted in the illustration, the first step towards logistics digitalization is automating the auditing process of FedEx and UPS shipping invoices. LateShipment.com is a service that helps you audit upto 50+ service failures committed regularly by your shipping carriers and save instantly upto 20% of your shipping costs. Our realtime tracker also empowers your business to predict delivery exceptions and help you make data driven logistic decision.

Are you willing to take a calculated leap and step out of your in-house process? Sign up now to automate your shipping invoice audit process.

The post Why should your retail business automate shipping invoice audit process? appeared first on Lateshipment.com.

How is AI set to transform logistics?

Bianca Barath — Thu, 11 Jan 2018 11:43:50 +0000

Plaguing issues that worry logistics companies are diminishing margins, fuel wastage, idle time, turnaround time and speed of deliveries in the supply chain. And Artificial Intelligence can help with these problems. And that is why logistics companies are looking at AI for a fundamental transformation to handle movement of goods. AI is used in tandem with other technologies like Robotics & Automation, 3D Printing, Big Data for best results.

Tech giants like Apple, Amazon, Facebook, Google invest a lot of time and money on AI that can be used with real world issues. And one of those is to do with supply chain management of how goods are sent from one point to another. The future of AI in logistics is about driverless cars and deliveries. Drone deliveries are being tested as we read this. Uber has been continually testing its potential with deliveries. The Internet of Things or IoT, the most happening study subject of AI, is most likely to assume to major part of logistics in the future. It offers the possibility to interface just about anything to the Internet and can enable information driven co-ordinations.

We are looking at augmented AI with machine-human interaction and collaboration. Augmented reality offers the “smart glasses”, especially in order picking. These are smart glasses that enable intelligent, hands-free operations. Robots can replace human intervention in warehouses. They are lighter, more flexible, easier to program, and more affordable. As of now, several cutting edge technology majors are using “collaborative robots” that work side-by-side with human employees. These robots are of great help in supporting repetitive and physically demanding tasks in logistics.

Self-driving vehicles have made great inroads in logistics. We also have autonomous forklifts and other self-piloted equipment that greatly optimize warehouse operations. Very soon, we are looking at a future where self-driving vehicles in logistics will be to overcome regulatory and security challenges to deploy autonomous vehicles on public roads.

Amazon made news with its drone delivery service recently. Drones are unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) that can do last mile deliveries to end customers. Though it looks like a great prospect, drones will still require a bit more time before mainstream adoption as of now. But research in the arena looks promising. Drone deliveries could avoid traffic delays that occur on road.

3D Printing is another area that is being studied. There are several products that can, instead of being manufactured in large mass-production facilities and shipped around the globe, be sent to warehouses as product designs. These designs can be digitized and transmitted to small factories closer to the customers. And these smaller factories could manufacture with the help of 3D printing technologies.