You’re probably already familiar with an eCommerce business plan by now. From setting it up to the launch, from carving out your own niche in the marketplace to what services you want to include; you definitely have thought it through. That being said, as an eCommerce business owner, a very key aspect of your business is eCommerce shipping!
Ecommerce Shipping
For products to reach your customers efficiently and in a timely manner, you need to pick the right delivery partners. Not only is it about delivering products on time, but it is also about the courier charges that you will need to work out. In this post, we will tell you how you can find a balance between shipping and the charges incurred while delivering your products to the customers.
Ecommerce Shipping Strategy- Why Do You Need it?
A strategy is needed so that you don’t overspend on shipping the products. Understanding where the majority of your target customers hail from gives you a clearer picture of which kind of courier partners you need to tie up with.
By all means, you want to reduce your RTOs, spend less time on delivery and guarantee a good customer experience. But to do this, you need to first strategize and get an ECommerce shipping solution for your business, that will not only prove to be profitable to you but also helps build your trust with customers. Without further ado, let’s look at a few steps that can help you build an effective eCommerce strategy.
Creating an eCommerce shipping strategy
- Build a team: Have dedicated teams to run different operations across the company. Marketing, Finance, Fulfilment, Customer service are some of the must-haves in your sector.
- Define your goals: Have long term and short term goals noted down. Be specific about what you want to achieve, what is realistically attainable and what needs to be part of the time-bound goal.
- Shipping solutions: As an eCommerce shipping company, what are the kind of services you want to offer to your customers. Will you be catering to Bulk orders processing, email/SMS tracking, managing inventory, looking into undelivered orders, processing refunds and so on and so forth.
While these may be able to give you a clear idea of what you should get cracking with, there is still something that you will need to look into; i.e. courier partners and courier charges in India.
Courier service providers and their charges
As per your research about the type of target audience, you will cater to and the places that you will be needed to deliver to, you have probably picked out the right courier service providers. It is advisable to have multiple courier service providers, for the simple reason that you get to choose which courier partner is better for which customer and also compare rates while doing so.
In India, you have various interstate courier services that do end-to-end delivery of products, spread across the country, catering to tier II and tier III cities as well. Some of these courier service providers are:
- DHL
- EcomExpress
- Gati
- Xpressbees
- DTDC
- Delhivery
- Dash101 Logistics
These are among the reputed shipping and logistics companies in India. In fact with Dash101 Logistics, you can also integrate your eCommerce store, manage your orders and shipping, all under one Dashboard. With Dash101, you have the option of choosing from 8 courier partners that deliver across 27,000+ pin codes in India.
It is a great way to introduce eCommerce shipping to your business because they are more than just a shipping partner. It’s more of a business partner like an association with Dash101 where all your shipping solutions are catered to, with ease. You also want to simplify the shipping process for your business so here are a few ways by which you can.
Ways to Improve your eCommerce shipping process
- Offer the best bulk shipping rates
- Maintain transparency
- Stay updated with technology
- Management of the warehouse should be top-notch
- Stay clear when it comes to paperwork
These were just a few of the suggestions that you must work on if you want to run a successful eCommerce business. With the pandemic still around, you will all the more need to find cost-effective shipping solutions for your business, in order to cater to your customers during these tough times. It is also advisable to make use of technology to get information like real-time tracking, estimated cost via shipping calculators, update on order status etc. to make operations smoother for both you and your customers.