How to Ensure an Efficient Ecommerce Shipping & Delivery Solution

The key to ensuring your business has an effective ecommerce shipping solution is to fully understand what modern-day customers expect. Delivery for online purchases has significantly developed over recent years, and as the ecommerce market has grown, customers’ expectations around the service & price they receive have drastically changed.

Long gone are the days of staying in all day hoping that your parcel will arrive. This archaic process has quickly become a thing of the past, and businesses need to keep up with the latest trends in order to avoid falling behind from their competitors.

Here are just a few of the delivery factors that can encourage users to confirm their order, rather than look elsewhere for their products.

Next Day/Same Day Delivery – Next day, or even same day delivery, is now something that consumers assume ecommerce businesses offer. Customers want to be able to see a product they want online and have it in their hands the very next day. Most organisations charge their customers a fee for next day delivery but be aware that Amazon Prime and other large retailers provide this with no extra charges.

Free Delivery – Free delivery is something that is incredibly important to customers. It’s becoming more and more common across ecommerce businesses in all industries and is often what customers expect to receive. However, it’s important to note that shipping is never free – someone has to pay, and it’s up to you to decide how you make this work. There are a wide range of options available to make free shipping work:

• The business pays the full price of shipping out of their margins.
• Customers are required to spend a minimum amount in order to qualify for free delivery. However, although you may be increasing your average order size, you’re still paying for the delivery out of your business’ margins.
• You increase the prices of products to cover the costs of shipping.

Free Returns – When it comes to your returns procedure, the key is to make it easy and convenient for the customer, so try to offer a range of options to allow them to choose the method best suited to them. For example, give them the option of either a free pick-up from a home or business address, as well as dropping off parcels at a local brick-and-mortar location. This makes the returns process convenient for customers rather than a hassle.

Delivery Slots with Accurate Updates – Providing up-to-the-minute updates throughout the delivery process will help keep consumers informed about the status of their product. For instance, letting them know when their product has been despatched, and the time at which the parcel is planned to be delivered. Updates are generally sent through either email or SMS.

A considerable proportion of consumers choose to shop online because they believe it’s cheaper than purchasing from stores, and they’re usually right. Businesses should therefore be rewarding customers for shopping with them, rather than hitting them with a hidden delivery fee towards the end of the purchase process. Hiding the delivery cost until the very end of the buying timeline is a sneaky strategy that many companies use, but in fact results in poor customer loyalty, low conversion rates and high basket abandonment rates. Transparency is valued by customers, so it’s best you’re honest with them and avoid trying to deceive them.

Another mistake many ecommerce businesses make is offering a restricted range of delivery options. Customers have busy lifestyles, and if a retailer doesn’t offer a shipping solution that suits them, they’re likely to buy from an online competitor, so try to offer as many options as you can, such as next day delivery, specified delivery slots with accurate updates and so on.

Allowing a specialist third-party logistics provider, such as Allegro Logistics, to take care of your delivery process can be significantly beneficial for online organisations. Your stock is stored in a large and secure fulfilment warehouse, and the 3PL is instantly forwarded the details of a purchase so that they can pick, pack and ship the order on your behalf. As fulfilment warehouses ship such large quantities for numerous vendors, they usually receive cheaper shipping rates, and as they are integrated with the major shipping logistics companies, they can offer a diverse range of shipping options. Ecommerce businesses who outsource their delivery procedure won’t have to worry at all about the delivery process, they can instead spend time focusing on improving other aspects of the business.

Here at Allegro Logistics, we specialise in taking care of the delivery process for online organisations from all industries, we have years of experience in the industry and offer an unrivalled service for all logistics needs. Contact a member of our friendly team today to find out more.