6 Leading eCommerce Delivery Best Practices

eCommerce delivery plays a significant role in the success of a business. Therefore, to ensure that the company is successful, the business should be aware of the best practices to ensure customers have the best shopping experience.

eCommerce delivery management is crucial for customers to have the best experience with your business. The experience begins when the customer visits your online store until they receive the products. Therefore, you must have transparent and solid delivery practices in place to meet that goal. It can be challenging to understand how to do that as there are so many aspects involved. Below are some of the delivery practices that you can consider adopting.

 

1. Have the Right Delivery Team

The first aspect that leads to the success of ecommerce delivery is the people involved in the process. That is why it is essential to consider the people involved in the following teams:

  • Marketing: The members involved in marketing will be responsible for the communication of delivery promotions and procedures to customers. They need to have all the information required to answer customer questions relating to promotions and products, such as which products are the best sellers and the products most abandoned in carts.
  • Web Design: The web design works closely with the marketing team, and their role is to ensure that the delivery options are available on the website and that customers can see them at the right time. They will also gain insight regarding which web pages visitors spend the most time and where customers abandon their carts.
  • Fulfilment: There needs to be a team that ensures that orders are efficiently picked, packed, labelled, and shipped. Orders should always be accurate and on time. The team that ensures the fulfilment of orders will also be responsible for handling orders.
  • Customer Service: There must be a team that will communicate directly with customers. The team needs to understand the different delivery options and how they operate, the company’s policies regarding customers who have had a bad experience, and their promotions.

2. Show Delivery Policy and Delivery Options

Customers abandon their carts all the time, even after discovering the products they are looking for. Therefore, businesses should do all that they possibly can to ensure that they avoid this from occurring. The key to preventing abandoned carts is by offering more convenience to customers. Firstly, the business should make customers aware of their delivery policies by highlighting their best delivery strategies. They should also include their delivery options to avoid cart abandonment. Flexibility is also crucial, so the business must offer customers many delivery options based on the amount and the area where products need to be delivered. The company also need to update their delivery policies constantly.

 

3. Offer Free Delivery

Free delivery is something that businesses need to consider as it can offer more revenue for them. Free delivery is also something that customers cannot resist, and it will significantly reduce the chances of customers abandoning their carts. For businesses to be able to offer free delivery successfully, they need to understand their profit margins. The free delivery option might translate to additional income. However, there are also delivery expenses that your business will have to cover. Therefore, it is advised that companies offer conditional free delivery, such as when customers spend a specific amount on your products. This method will also be able to increase the average order value.

 

4. Show Delivery Costs

If businesses cannot afford to offer customers free delivery, the next best option is to be transparent about delivery costs. Customers dislike knowing about delivery costs at the end of their transaction, which will lead to them abandoning their carts. Therefore, to avoid blindsiding them with delivery fees, you must have a flat-rate delivery system that will provide customers with the delivery fee upfront or allow them to insert their postal code before they checkout so that they have access to their delivery costs earlier in the transaction.

 

5. Prioritize Packaging 

When it comes to traditional shopping, companies might overlook packaging. However, when it comes to online shopping, the packaging of products is regarded to be a crucial aspect of the delivery strategy. Packaging can also be an excellent marketing tool as it ensures that customers have a personalized experience. Personalizing packages can be difficult, especially for smaller businesses, but it does not mean that packages should merely be dropped in boxes and be sent out for deliveries. Companies should deliver products in appropriate-sized boxes, and they should be suitably wrapped if they are fragile. Ensuring that products are packaged in suitable packages is key to ensuring that less items break.

 

6. Send out Delivery Notifications

Customers want to feel included in the delivery process, and this can be done by offering them the status of their delivery. Customers want proactive communication for every fulfilment and delivery stage through texts or emails. Therefore, businesses should have a communication system that notifies customers about the whereabouts of their products at each step of the way. Constant communication to the customer also ensures that they have a positive experience with your business. In times when deliveries take longer than anticipated, it can reduce customers’ anxiety levels.

 

 

Conclusion

Delivery can be challenging for ecommerce businesses as there are many obstacles that they will face. The practices offered above will assist in ensuring that customers have a better shopping experience which will also improve your online sales.

 

 

 

See the 6 Common eCommerce Delivery Challenges & Their Resolutions.