ECommerce has become popular, especially in the last few years, and it has now become essential that businesses embrace it to approach more customers. Having an ecommerce delivery strategy is vital for companies as it assists them in keeping their loyal customers.
Having an ecommerce delivery strategy is crucial as it impacts how a business grows online. We will look at some of the steps you can take when developing your ecommerce delivery strategy.
1. Choose teammates
You may not realise it, but the people that are part of your team play an essential role in the success of your delivery strategy. Therefore, you must choose them wisely. Firstly, look at your marketing team as they will communicate your shipping to customers. They will also develop promotions, such as reduced or free delivery, which your business can use to increase traffic to your website or the purchase value. Your marketing team should know how often you can run promotions while you maintain profit margins and which of your products have a high abandonment cart rate.
Secondly, consider the people responsible for web design and development as this team will need to ensure that they show the correct delivery options to customers and the options are shown at the right time. You should ask your web design team about the offers or options that appeal most to customers, the primary driver for your customer’s cost and how quickly they can design and implement the landing page if required.
Since fulfilment is a crucial aspect of ecommerce delivery, it is essential that the team responsible for this can handle the tasks required. The role of the fulfilment team will begin when they pick, pack, and ship products accurately, and they must perform their tasks on time every time. Ensuring that they conduct their tasks accurately is vital regardless of which option customers choose, and they must be able to handle fulfilment proficiently. It can also be said that the fulfilment team is the most important in the ecommerce delivery strategy. Therefore, you must educate the entire team on the various ecommerce delivery options and check that agreements are in place with the service providers who will provide the options you offer.
Lastly, the customer service team is also crucial as their approach to shipping will affect customers at every stage of the consumer life cycle. The customer service team needs to understand how the different ecommerce delivery options you offer work, what happens when customers have a terrible experience, and how they are to handle the company response when this occurs. It is imperative that they can answer questions that customers may have appropriately.
2. Establish objectives
Once you have the teams, you will need for ecommerce delivery that will be involved in developing your strategy. Take the time to ientify what you would like to achieve with your ecommerce delivery strategy. Some things you may want to pay attention to include increasing conversions, average order value, expanding your market and decreasing costs.
When increasing conversions, you should offer the kinds of delivery rates and options that you know customers expect. The delivery rates and options that your business provides significantly impact your conversion rate. Therefore, you should test different delivery rates and promotions to determine the one that increases conversions.
To expand your target audience or market, you should look at shipping to new areas or people who previously didn’t have access to the products. You could alternate delivery options such as local delivery or in-store pick-up or offer international shipping as this allows you to extend your reach. Work with your marketing team to promote the options you have to reach new customers and measure and track success.
One of the ways to ensure that you increase your average order value is through offering promotions to people who buy your products more. The promotions you can offer include flat rate shipping when customers purchase specific high-profit items or offering free expedited shipping for a certain price point.
3. Have ecommerce delivery options
One of the ways to ensure that you have a successful delivery strategy is by offering multiple checkout options to your customers. Most of the ecommerce delivery businesses integrate as many payment methods to reduce the chances of customers abandoning the carts as they require payment options that make the shopping experience as convenient as possible. However, we cannot emphasise the importance of offering customers varying delivery options as this is an additional perk that customers require. Having variety enables customers to select their preferred delivery period and ensures that their packages arrive promptly based on their availability.
4. Leverage automation
Automation assists businesses in ensuring that they maintain transparency across different levels when consumers place their orders. Using API integration, your business will be able to track each step of the ecommerce delivery process in real-time, ensuring that you identify and solve any obstacles or shortcomings in the delivery system. Automation also ensures that you address the frequent issues and that you streamline the sales funnel, ensuring that there is 100% order fulfilment.
Using marketing automation tools assists your online business with capturing and transforming their user data into actionable intelligence. This helps the company be visible to customers and ensures that they can send the right messages to the right audience. For example, the business can use website popups to increase sales. It is one of the best marketing tactics that your business can use to show promotions and discounts instead of potential customers navigating everywhere to look for sales. Understanding how using automation can assist in offering a better experience to your customers is crucial when trying to streamline the sales process.