Order Consolidation To Reduce Your Shipping Costs

The practice of shipping several individual orders together is known as consolidated shipping. You can use this process to save shipping costs and time. Shipments that have to go to the same destination are grouped and shipped together.

Instead of packaging and labeling each of the parcels, you can pack all of them together. Information on the outer box will provide the necessary shipping information to your shipper. Your buyer will know about the order consolidation with the help of an Advanced Shipping Notice (ASN) that you will send. Once your package arrives at the destination country, it will be up to the local couriers to ensure the delivery of each parcel to its respective customer.

E-commerce retailers who have to ship large quantities of products to different regions of the world can benefit from consolidated shipping. This shipping method offers benefits such as reduced shipping costs, reduced use of packing resources, reduced risk of product damage, and better customer experience.

Now, we are going to talk about the benefits of consolidated shipping.

1. Reduced shipping costs

With consolidated shipping, you are going to need less shipping material and fewer boxes to pack your orders. That will help you reduce the dimensional and actual weight of the entire shipment. That would mean a considerable reduction in shipping costs.

2. Reduced risk of damage

Consolidated shipments are less likely to slide around during transit. It means that you are not going to have to consider very cautious handling measures to ensure the safety of those shipments. The shipments that do not slide around obviously remain safe from damage.

3. Excellent consumer experience

Consolidated shipments allow retailers and suppliers to optimize supply chain procedures to increase efficiencies. It means that customers are likely to get their orders quickly and safely.

4. Sustainability

You are going to need less packaging materials such as boxes, foam peanuts, and tape while combining several parcels to form a consolidated shipment. It means that there will be a reduced amount of waste produced at every step of unpacking. It is the perfect solution in a world where it has become a challenge to maintain sustainability. Also, a single truck will be able to carry more shipments that consist of consolidated orders. Resultantly, fewer shipping trucks will transport your orders, which means reduced carbon emission.

5. Improved quality control

While consolidating your shipments, you will be able to detect problems with your orders or products before you hand them over to your shippers. It will be a significant benefit in terms of quality control.

 

Managing Customer Expectations With E-Commerce Deliveries

One of the biggest challenges for any e-commerce business is to convince a customer to proceed to the checkout. This customer-retailer relationship initiates when retailers succeed in meeting the expectations of their customers. A significant part of this process depends on the product shipping and delivery. In this article, we are going to talk about how you can meet your customer expectations with e-commerce deliveries.

Offer more than one shipping option

You can manage customer delivery expectations by offering several shipping options such as same-day shipping, next-day shipping, two-day shipping, and standard shipping. The availability of these options gives your customers more control over the delivery speed and overall price of the product.

Free shipping

You can offer free shipping for an order exceeding a specific price limit. Your customers are not going to expect a faster product delivery while utilizing a free shipping option. They will not mind waiting for a day or two for the delivery of their order. This option can be expensive, but you can mitigate this profit margin loss by building a part of the shipping cost into the price of the product.

Delivery Incentives

You can manage customer to deliver expectations by using time and price delivery incentives. You can encourage your customers to place an order within a specific time duration, and in return, you can offer them a faster delivery or waive on the shipping costs.

Showing delivery dates

Displaying delivery timelines and prices at checkout can make it convenient for the customers to pick the most appropriate shipping option. This way, they will be able to know what they need to expect before making the purchase.

Share tracking information

Another very effective way to manage customer delivery expectations is to share tracking information by entitling your customers for automated messages until they are to acknowledge the package delivery.

Ship from multiple locations

Partnering with wholesalers and warehouses at strategic locations can help you make sure that your orders don’t have to travel as far to reach your customers. This way, you can not only reduce the shipping costs but also ensure faster delivery of orders.

Communicate with your customers

Delivery issues can happen at any time, and they can be a cause of frustration for your buyers. That’s where it becomes necessary to communicate with the buyers to let them know about the situation. Explain everything clearly, but make sure that you are not adding more to their frustration.

Streamline shipping process

There will be fewer delays if you have streamlined your shipping process. Procedures that you are going to have to work on include the implementation of a mechanism to share data with your shipping partners, improvement of order processing systems, and setting up an effective customer support system.