If you own an eCommerce site, you may not realize that the single most important thing is the shipping process. Customers are never satisfied with shipping costs, even if they receive free shipping. They complain about the cost, the time frame, the packaging and the shipping labels. However, if you make sure that you use the highest quality shipping practices you will have a higher rate of customer satisfaction, as well as a higher rate of repeat customers. In order to make this happen, there are a few things that you should take into consideration when putting your shipping process into effect.
What You Should Know About e-Commerce Shipping
1. Straight-Forward Shipping Costs: One thing that can be a complete deal breaker with customers is not having a clear picture of what the shipping costs are. Many eCommerce sites require you to login in order to know what it will cost to ship their order. If this is the case, the customer will likely turn to another site to place their order. To help keep your customers satisfied, consider having a chart that outlines the shipping costs. You can post a disclaimer that states shipping costs vary depending on the region they are shipped to or to make your customers even happier, add a section that can calculate the exact shipping costs. The last thing you want to do is make your customer jump through hoops just to find out the total amount that they will be spending.
2. Shipping Options: There are some customers that are laid back and always go with the ground shipping option. However, there are other customers that want their product right away and will not settle for anything less. This is why having different shipping options is greatly beneficial. Ground shipping, two-day shipping and overnight shipping are options that will make your customers more satisfied with the service that they receive. Another thing that you could do is offer free shipping for orders over a certain amount of money. Not only will your customers be happy with the free option, but they will be more willing to purchase a few more items to save on the shipping costs.
3. Secure Packaging: There is nothing worse than getting a package in the mail that has been damaged or partially opened. Not only can this cause the items purchased to be damaged, but it leaves customers uneasy and unhappy. They may think that unauthorized people had access to their package and possibly even saw some of their personal information. Secure packaging can completely eliminate this issue. Make sure that the packaging is closed correctly and completely secured with packaging tape. Use packing peanuts, bubble wrap or another form of protection for all items, not just fragile items. Also, do not enclose any personal or sensitive information within the package. Taking the few extra steps will make your customers very happy.
4. Accurate Labeling: Package carriers have a lot of work to do each day. They are going to numerous locations and delivery packages to hundreds of recipients each day. There is bound to be some sort of mix up at least once in awhile. Having the recipients shipping information clearly marked on the label will help eliminate, or at the very least decrease, the possibility of this happening. The shipping label should have the recipients name, address, city, state and zip. It should also contain all of your business information. However, you have to make sure that the information is 100% accurate.
5. Tracking Number: One way that you could really set your company apart from others in the shipping department is automatically supplying tracking numbers for all packages. The tracking number will allow the customer to know exactly when the packages are coming and will make sure that it is going to the correct location. Send the tracking number in an email along with an order confirmation. Your customers will be extremely satisfied.
Keeping customers satisfied is the most important thing about running any business, but especially an eCommerce site. There are a lot of competitors no matter what products you are going with so having a high quality shipping process will give your site the edge. Use this information to provide satisfactory shipping to your customers that will keep them coming back.
