Ship your products the right way. Implement shipping methods that boost your business. A signature aspect of ecommerce is the need for shipping. Unlike brick-and-mortar businesses, it is impossible to run an ecommerce-based company without good shipping practices. Shipping and order fulfillment have many complicated considerations that must be taken into account in order to ensure a smooth experience for your customer, and encourage them to return to your business. In general, but particularly as the holiday season approaches, you want to ensure that your business can handle shipping orders of any size, that you can deliver efficiently, and that the right orders will arrive where they need to go. Tools for Reliability From a customer’s standpoint, the most anxiety about ecommerce comes from any risk that they might not be able to get their product when they need it. It will be in their mind that when using a brick-and-mortar business, they can control when they have the product. The best way to combat this mind frame is to make your shipping service as reliable as possible. The first key to this is transparency. Let your customers know as much information about their package as possible. Take advantage of tracking capabilities, and send your clients an e-mail alert when their product has shipped. For large or expensive items, consider insurance options to give yourself and your customers an extra layer of security. When you send your packages off, be sure to follow all necessary shipping guidelines so that your shipment is not held up. Keep in mind that international shipments have special rules and considerations, and take those into account. You also want to avoid any possibilities that a package will become lost. Use signature confirmation, particularly for big-ticket items. Additionally, try to time your packages’ arrival to align with business hours so that someone is there to receive them. As you develop your business’s shipping system, consider how you can make every step more streamlined and accessible for your customer. Cost Effective Tips Shipping can get expensive quickly if you do not plan correctly. As you consider how shipping fits into your business, do not let shipping costs overwhelm your profit margin. Depending on your product, it may be to your benefit to implement a flat rate (creating some ease in the transaction process itself). However, if you have a product or a range of destinations that tend to produce high or variable shipping costs, your best option is to use real time carrier rates. It can also sometimes be cheaper to use a combination of regional carriers, rather than a national service. Whatever methods you implement, do not overlook shipping costs as you move forward with your business decisions. The Ultimate Solution: Shipping integration The best way to accommodate all of the complications of shipping is by integrating a shipping service with your ecommerce platform. An ecommerce shipping integration allows you to fuse your shipping methods to your business, connecting CRM, ERP, and other systems of operations planning. This ensures that you can implement efficient shipping solutions easily and seamlessly with your business. UPS, USPS, DHL, and FedEx all have shipping integration solutions that can be integrated smoothly with any Clarity ecommerce platform. Clarity Can Help To build an ecommerce platform with shipping integration that is right for you, or if you need assistance with implementing shipping methods, contact us for a free quote today!