How to Optimize the E-Commerce Shipping Process

It's no secret that the online market is highly competitive and oversaturated. Competing for customers is an everyday struggle for every e-commerce business. However, good promotions, product quality and other factors aren't the only areas where e-commerce businesses compete.

As a matter of fact, there's an entirely different competition going on with the product delivery and shipping processes. One of the major factors of meeting consumer needs is delivering products to them in a fast and reliable way. E-commerce businesses strive toward ensuring a seamless delivery and some even go as far as promising same day deliveries and free shipping.

Providing exceptional customer service may be quite a burden on e-commerce businesses. Promising same day delivery requires efficient planning while free shipping can hurt your bottom line if you're not careful about it. In other words, the entire shipping process must be seamless if e-commerce stores want to make good on their promises. With that in mind, here are a few ways to optimize the e-commerce shipping process.

Improve your logistics

Having a logistics strategy is vital for shipping goods to customers, especially if you ship products overseas. Many e-commerce businesses tend to expand to a global market in order to improve profitability and grow their business further. However, logistics is equally important even if you're not trading internationally.

Therefore, if your logistics strategy is outdated, it's time to reconsider your approach. Logistics involves everything from transportation, storage and management of products. With that in mind, you have to assess your current logistics plan and determine if there's a need for improvement. For example, are you using the latest technology to manage your products throughout the entire supply chain?

Also, do you have a freight forwarding solution for overseas trade? What's more, are there enough warehouses and vehicles at your disposal to store and transport the goods seamlessly? These are just a couple of questions you must ask yourself when assessing your logistics strategy. It will help you determine what requires immediate improvements.

Improve the fulfillment rate

As mentioned before, one of the main factors in meeting consumer needs is fast and seamless delivery of products to the end-users. If you promise seamless deliveries, consumers will expect from you to make good on your promise. If you don't, you're going to start losing customers to competitors really fast. One of the things consumers don't tolerate at all is an e-commerce store's inability to meet consumer expectations.

With that in mind, you should focus on improving your fulfillment rate as soon as possible. As an example, you can consider adding a reliable GPS vehicle tracking system. This solution is designed to assist drivers with the delivery of products. For instance, you can help them choose the most reliable routes or help them avoid traffic jams.

In addition, you can help them find locations they haven't visited before. This kind of solution is especially beneficial when you have same day deliveries to fulfill. If you manage to ensure customer satisfaction by meeting their expectations, you'll be able to ensure customer loyalty, which is very important in today's competitive environment.

Leverage technology

Nowadays, technology has evolved enough to provide e-commerce businesses with various solutions when it comes to improving the shipment process. Today, you can choose from a wide variety of technological solutions that will aid you in your shipment process. A good example of this is warehouse automation. Automation can help improve efficiency, speed and productivity in warehouse management.

What's more, it can greatly reduce costs throughout the process. Benefits of warehouse automation, such as data capture, labeling, storage, item retrieval and so on can vastly improve your shipment process. Furthermore, automation can assist with inventory management, picking process and even back-office processes. However, as beneficial as warehouse automation may be, it doesn't provide a one-size-fits-all solution. Therefore, when considering automation for your e-commerce shipping process, make sure it will actually benefit you in some way.

Improve the checkout process

Your shipment process depends on the checkout process on your website. The options you offer to your customers at the checkout page, such as payment options, shipment options, delivery dates and so on will influence how you ship products to customers, in the first place. You must make your checkout process seamless so that customers can opt for the features that are the most convenient for them.

Therefore, clearly define your policies and options on the checkout pages so that customers can clearly understand what's involved. Don't overextend your capabilities by offering something you cannot deliver. By improving your checkout process, you'll be able to improve your shipping process as well. For example, make sure your offers and futures are priced the right way so that your shipping process doesn't hurt your bottom line.

Shipment is a vital process in e-commerce business operations. If you're unable to deliver goods to customers in a seamless way, it won't matter how well-designed your offers are or how much quality your products have. In the end, it comes down to customer experience from the moment you engage them to the moment you deliver goods to them.