There are lots of subtle aspects to the organization of successful delivery, so it’s very important to handle it with all seriousness and responsibility. Beginner online stores often start off by organizing it the wrong way, and as a result, their clients get disappointed and never come back to make another order. We’ve all been here, am I right?
So let’s figure out how to properly manage your online store’s successful delivery service to help your business flourish.
Deliver your products on time
What is better – to ensure delivery success by delivering your products as soon as possible or delivering them on time? Of course, if you manage to make your deliveries sooner, there’s always a chance you’ll make your clients happier. But you also have to remember that faster means costlier. So to optimize your shipping expenses, don’t try to make it faster – make it timely.
The most important thing you have to remember when you manage product shipping is you are obligated to keep promises you made to your clients. You just must, end of story.
Basic rules of timely delivery:
- Make promises only when you are sure you can keep them. If there’s even a slight chance of failing to deliver your products on time, specify an available delivery time before the completion of purchase;
- Do exactly what you’ve promised. Sometimes delivery a day too early may be a problem for clients. They may be away from home or just busy;
- Inform your clients about any issues before they become aware of them. The sooner you warn your client about any delays, the lesser will be the losses both on your and their side.
Delegate your delivery
Especially when you are only starting a business, don’t manage the entire logistics system by yourself. There are companies that specialize in handling successful deliveries better, cheaper, and with more efficiency than you.
Quite probably, you’ll have to use the services of outsourcing companies, and that’s ok. Delegating and simplifying are great strategies. This way, you’ll be able to delegate your product delivery to a third-party company while focusing on what’s the most important, i.e. making your online store and its client base grow.
Basic criteria to analyze delivery efficiency:
Service criteria:
- Timeliness: 95% allowed accuracy for on-the-minute deliveries and 98% allowed accuracy for day-into-date deliveries;
- Completeness: meeting all clients’ requirements for the quantity, amount, and type of products;
- Infallibility: products are delivered undamaged, at the correct address, and with accurate supporting documentation;
- The absence of any delivery complaints on the clients’ part.
Financial criteria:
- The average cost of shipping per item/per order;
- Packaging & preparation costs;
- Transportation tariffs;
- Storage costs;
- Unloading & destination delivery costs;
- The share of delivery costs added to the products’ prime costs;
- Cargo load factor: level of transport cargo load during shipping, the expediency of transport choice for this particular kind of delivery.
Make delivery as convenient as possible for your clients
Let’s see what things you should definitely take into account to organize your online store delivery service successfully:
- Your website displays detailed information on delivery terms and return policy;
- Your website displays information on delivery prices for all available kinds of shipping and destinations;
- Clients can contact your staff members via online chat on your website;
- Your website has an autocomplete feature for address field forms to make ordering faster and easier;
- You offer your clients to choose delivery time;
- You notify your clients when the ordered products are shipped/arrived at a destination;
- You offer your clients the option of cash-on-delivery consignment;
- You offer your clients to receive their ordered products in person (by cooperating with self-pickup points; your website provides a map with pickup points locations and addresses);
- You offer your clients an option of courier delivery at least within your city limits;
- You offer your clients an option of shipping company delivery;
- You have staff members responsible for product delivery.
Ensuring Delivery Success
Don’t forget that bringing clients to your website is only a part of success. Converting them into regular happy clients is not less important. And product delivery success is one of the essential components of your business, which will help you keep your clients happy and your conversion rates high. Ensuring delivery successful is crucial for customer satisfaction and repeat business.
Provide your clients with detailed information about your online store’s delivery terms, organize your deliveries expertly, and make sure your products achieve delivery success on time. This is the only way you can both save money and satisfy your clients’ needs.
The Simtech Development experts successfully integrated various order fulfillment systems like Freight Shipping, Innotrac, and QuietLogistics. We customized shipment services such as Aramex, MyParcel, Globaltranz, Easyship, JNE, and Fedex in CS-Cart and Multi-Vendor stores. We expanded the default shipment functionalities by adding appropriate features like label printing for packing slips or automatic updating of order tracking statuses. Our expertise allows elaborating a solution to help you in making your customers happy with delivery!