eCommerce is evolving and is the most preferred form of retail in local and international transactions. Various companies are investing in building an eCommerce platform, and the returns are more than rewarding.
With easy access to technology, the way people are shopping has changed drastically, making the eCommerce fulfillment process faster than ever. The delivery speed is one factor that determines whether a product will sell or not.
Many platforms are offering free delivery options today. Amazon and Flipkart provide 2-day free delivery options for customers. In the competitive eCommerce age, retailers must leverage the best service to run their business successfully.
What Is eCommerce Fulfillment?
eCommerce fulfillment is the process behind delivering an order to the customer after they order it online. It entails receiving and storing inventory, processing orders, picking and packing items, and transporting them to the customer’s shipping destination.
eCommerce fulfillment services are conducted by fulfillment or handled in-house by the eCommerce business.
At DEAR Systems, we provide you a top-notch eCommerce fulfillment experience to meet today’s customer expectations and help direct-to-consumer brands to gain more success online. Our network of fulfillment centers and technology make it possible for you.
Read more: Benefits of Order Control Software
Best Practices for eCommerce Fulfillment
Whether you want to start with eCommerce or are running a seasoned web store, the following three eCommerce fulfillment practices will significantly raise your chances of online success.
Accuracy
There is a greater importance of accuracy for your online customers right from when they enter the web store to shop until they receive the order. Nothing upsets a customer more than purchasing an item only to know it is unavailable or receiving a wrong order.
For B2B eCommerce retailers, a lack of inventory accuracy results in losing important trading partners vs a single consumer. It eventually causes the lost business to have a much deeper impact.
Whether you sell online to a business or a consumer, tales of frustrating eCommerce purchases and inaccurate fulfillment experiences spread like wildfire. Depending on the business size and age, it is difficult to recover from negative customer experiences.
Do not doubt the levels of your inventory at any given time. Unlike traditional walk-in stores that are continuously staffed and get closed in the evening, it takes a lot of human resources to vigilantly watch every single online purchase coming in at any given hour or day.
Instead of hiring more people, you require a dependable inventory management solution. Ensure that you have complete real-time visibility into your inventory and is synced properly to the web store.
On purchase of orders, ensure regular sync to update available inventory onto your website and within your warehouse. If the inventory solution is doing well, web store inventory accuracy errors are a thing of the past.
Mobile and barcoding optimize and streamlines the picking and packing process. It is the least time-consuming way to ensure the correct items are being picked for the right customer and shipment.
After picking the orders, the barcoding software populates packaging labels with the information before printing.
Free, Fast, and Flexible Shipping
As per the MetaPack report published in 2018, 61% of U.S. and 68% of Canadian online shoppers stated that free delivery is their top consideration before making any online purchase.
Plus, 82% of U.S. and 79% of Canadian shoppers reported that they purchased more items to take advantage of the “free delivery” option. So, if you are not offering free or free ‘for a minimum’ shipping, then it’s time to change.
Integrate your eCommerce inventory system with your preferred shipping carriers like USPS, UPS, FedEx, DSL, or a shipping solution like ShipStation to monitor shipping rates beneficial in lowering the shipping costs.
While talking about speedy eCommerce fulfillment, there are a few methods to offer free shipping:
- Determine where you can cut unnecessary costs to make up for the shipping costs.
- Set a “minimum purchase” amount to offset the costs.
- Create loyalty programs that offer free shipping to registered members for a low price or any other predetermined aspects.
Turn to your shipping partners as far as paid, expedited shipping options are concerned. Let your customers pay for faster delivery if they want to. All the web stores offer at least an option for expedited shipping, but the current trend provides a selection of options for the customer to determine a method most convenient to their needs as they love them.
Transparency and Responsiveness
Trust is vital to building loyal B2B and B2C eCommerce customer relationships. Shipping charges and return policies should be easy to find and simple to understand while a customer enters your web store.
Locating the customer service access, whether chat, email, or vial phone, must take only a couple of seconds. The automated order status tracking information delivered to the customer’s email address must be accurate and keep the customers up-to-date throughout the fulfillment cycle.
Inventory control optimization, company-wide visibility, and boosted fulfillment help you offer free or expedited shipping and simplified returns and promote accuracy. Plus, it’s also helpful in improving customer service response time and automating order status and tracking information. All these things are not just possible, but simple too.
Read more: The Truth About DEAR Inventory: Who It’s for and How it Helps Them
eCommerce Fulfillment with DEAR Systems
DEAR Systems helps you eliminate inventory guesswork, unnecessary data re-entry, and other menial, time-consuming tasks.
Our eCommerce fulfillment will not only give you insight and more control into the day-to-day activities, but our decision support tools will offer you a plethora of technology partner integrations and customizable features.
Thus, amplifying success and growth through eCommerce fulfillment is no longer a challenge.