Truly, most people do not think about shipping options when it comes to building an online store. However, shipping is important because it is a crucial step of the way that an online store operates. It is important that customers get their orders quickly. Practically, the quality of shipping services determines the satisfaction of the buyer. However, it is often a tricky question of what ecommerce shipping services to choose and which options to use as soon as every shipping service and every shipping option have their own pros and cons.
What Is eCommerce Shipping?
To put it simply, eCommerce shipping is the process that makes shipping an easier process. Also, while there are many competitors on the market, eCommerce ventures compete for the lowest-priced shipping service to have a bigger revenue margin. In addition, giant shopping platforms, such as Amazon and eBay that sell their items internationally, and help their customers to get their items quicker and for smaller prices. At this point, it gets crucial to have shipping services at hand. Usually, starting businesses begin with such shipping services as UPS and FedEx but they might help only if the number of purchases is not too high. When the load is rising and the number of purchases increases, there is a need to have in mind another cheaper shipping service.
Why Is Ecommerce Delivery Important?
Shipping for eCommerce is everything because it allows the customers to receive the packages they order. Without effective shipping, eCommerce websites would not be able to exist. Moreover, more than half of the customers think about quick delivery as a must for decent work of the online store. Most often, it is delivery methods that impress the customers in the way that they want to return. Therefore, there is a need to make sure that fast and reliable shipping is available to all your customers.
Ecommerce Shipping Options
Shipping options for eCommerce are various and famous for different features. For example, different shipping services might have different delivery options and therefore it’s better to prefer some over others. For example, you will want to choose the shipping services that offer working with trustworthy payment gateways and therefore are convenient and trusted by the customers.
Shipping Notifications
Shipping notifications are necessary to help your customers to track their packages and manage their expectations. Generally, you want to build trust in your customers, and this means being precise at the delivery time and being specific enough for the shipping schedule and process. Notifications are necessary to attract your customer and to announce that their item is near, and the timeline when it is going to be likely delivered.
Invoice and Payment Slip Generation
Invoices and payment slips are necessary to be counted during the shipping process. However, it is difficult to track them. Anyways, printed payment slips are proofs that the purchases have been made, and customers might benefit from using them when they need to exchange the product. At the same time, printing invoices and payments slips are time-consuming and better be automated. Therefore, it is better to use the shipping apps that already have the features to print payment slips automatically. With proper apps, you can email the invoices and payment slips to your customers, so they can use them for the exchange if they need them.
Shipping to Multiple Addresses
Sometimes, there is a need to ship to multiple addresses, which often happens to larger online stores. Often, it is a deal that needs to be solved during holidays. As soon as a lot of stores are not capable of handling partitioned orders with multiple addresses, having the possibility to send to multiple addresses is a competitive advantage for a business. Such a possibility is usually covered with a properly chosen shipping module that is able to provide sending to multiple addresses at once.
When using a multiple address shipping option, customers might select various addresses for certain items from a single order. Technically, this means that one checkout generates sending to a list of addresses. When it comes to online stores using the feature of multiple address shipping, it is often that a special plugin is used, and it is the right way to minimize the time and effort spent on setting up checkout and shipping.
For Free Shipping or Shipping Bulk Orders
Free shipping is a benefit that is hard to overestimate. The price of shipping is practically what keeps customers buying from you. So, if you can offer free shipping, it is a benefit of your store. However, when implementing free shipping as a feature, make sure your customers know about it, and specify the free shipping possibility right at the checkout page. You can also create and use various shipping options and bulk purchases so that your customers are motivated to buy more and to register their money spending.
Tracking Facility
When your customers buy something from you, it is crucial that they know the order might be tracked. This shows your trustworthiness as a brand. In turn, this builds an idea that paying for the product to you is safe, even when the product is paid in full in advance. There is also a plugging that helps to build awareness of customers with their chance to see their products on the way home. This makes tracking purchases one more important thing that builds the trustworthiness of the brand. In addition, you can show care to your customers by empowering them to follow their package right to their door.
Ecommerce Shipping Methods & Rates
Basically, shipping is what makes online business happen, so it is crucial to have decent shipping methods up and running. However, if you are not aware of the variety of options available, shipping and fulfillment might be tricky. For your reference, a short review of shipping methods is provided below.
Free Shipping
Free shipping is a nice way to increase conversion and reduce the cart abandonment rate. Truly, it is easier to complete the purchase when you know that the shipping is free anyway. With free shipping, businesses do their best to build loyalty with their customers, and it is often a good start to a long-term relationship.
However, there is a need to stay profitable while still offering free shipping. Below, there are several options that ensure free shipping is available and the business still brings profits:
- Product prices are increased a bit to incorporate the shipping cost
- Customers are incentivized to go the extra mile to get free shipping. For example, you can ask your customers to have the minimum purchase total sum to get the free shipping option or to register with the store, or maybe bring two friends.
Flat Rate Shipping
In general, the cost of shipping depends on the size of the order, including its dimensions and weight. At this point, the more the customer spends on the order, the higher the shipping cost is faced. Such an approach is not a good idea to incentivize purchases. Therefore, the flat rate is introduced so that the customers pay the same price for orders of a certain weight or size or certain category. So, when it comes to flat rate shipping, it is important that your costs are covered with some orders costing less when shipped compared to others.
Expedited Shipping
The expedited shipping option works great to get rid of the biggest disadvantage of online shopping that is getting the items later. Expedited shipping allows your customers to get their orders the same day or the next day, which might be crucial for making a purchase decision. Even if the option of expedited shipping costs more and cant be covered with other revenues, make sure to offer it for an additional price, so that the customers that need their order urgently, are able to get it the way they want.
Local Delivery
Local delivery is the option that allows you to prioritize the customers from your local area. It is easier to send the orders to your neighborhood right? Just consider shipping orders for a variety of zip codes or a nearby area for lower prices, and it is going to be the first step to build trust with your local buyers. You will definitely increase the loyalty to your brand if you support your local community.
Real-Time Carrier Rates
The real-time carrier rate is displayed during the checkout process and it shows the real price of the shipping. The customers might see the real value of shipping their order, no more no less. Oftentimes, it is the plugin from the carrier that calculates the shipping cost depending on the type of the products in order, their weight, dimensions, and the place for their delivery. Practically, with real-time carrier rates, it is easy for businesses to charge right the amount of the shipping costs.
eCommerce Shipping Costs
While thinking about attracting your customers, make sure the shipping costs are not going to rise too high. At this point, deliveries should not only be quick but also cost-effective. However, the shipping costs depend on too many factors, so consider several factors so that you are aware of the real shopping cost.
Generally, the shipping cost consists of such major factors as the dimensions and weight of the order, the destination of the order, the carrier, and the content of the order (for example, shipping costs for fragile orders, such as dishes or mugs might be higher because of additional packing). Either way, the factors included in the shipping cost include but are not limited to:
- Dimensions and weight: major carriers, such as UPS, FedEx, USPS calculate these measurements like dimensional weight or DIM
- Shipping zones: these are the geographical areas to deliver the order. Carries often use the shipping zone idea to calculate the shipping cost and therefore the price of the delivery.
Just for your consideration: using third-party logistics is a nice idea to reduce shipping costs. When online businesses outsource their shipping options to a third party, the business often gets more time to develop promotions or other activities. In addition, having a third-party logistics center allows to send internationally and reduces the time of delivery.
Ecommerce Shipping Solutions
Offering attractive shipping rates and time might be your competitive advantage, so consider the variety of options available to you when considering the shipping process. Today, there are many carriers available that deliver internationally and locally for a variety of prices.
USPS
USPS is one of the most frequently used shipping services. The reason is USPS is the cheapest shipping service that operates when ground shipping. USPS shipping costs are more than moderate and the service works in more than 180 countries.
FedEx
FedEx is a well-known shipping service that works worldwide. FedEx offers a variety of prices and a variety of plans to work with. In addition, FedEx offers special programs to different businesses, so that the companies that are launching don’t have to pay too much for the service. For starting businesses, FedEx offers a FedEx Small Business program that helps small businesses to start with affordable shipping solutions.
UPS
UPS is a shipping service that works around the world and offers the solution to small businesses too. UPS is an affordable service that helps companies to grow well, therefore it is a great choice to start with.
DHL
DHL is a shipping service provider that works around the globe too. The company gives the quotes to eCommerce businesses individually so that the companies that have the rate the businesses can work with.
Shopping Easy
Shopping easy is the shopping service provider that allows businesses to have easy eCommerce shipping solutions. Compared to the shipping service providers described above, Shopping Easy is going to be a better choice for small-sized and middle-sized companies that start their way into eCommerce. In addition, Shopping Easy offers relatively small prices and a user-friendly interface for companies to work with.
Conclusion
Truly, shipping is easy when automated. Manually, you will need to synchronize delivery and fulfillment, and it is quite a headache. At the same time, high-quality delivery services are the ones that provide positive experiences to the customers. All of this makes shipping services an important part of the business functionality and a critical part of the investment. Either way, quick shipping is a label of the high-quality service, and your customers are going to like that. However, whatever shipping solutions you want to choose, just wish for them, we at SOFTLOFT are happy to help you with any shipping service provider and any shipping idea. Just contact us to make your dream come true.
