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Understand Your Shipping Process

It’s important to pay close attention to all orders you ship out on a current basis. You can receive all the orders in the world, but if you don’t have the stock to support them, you risk losing the sale and the customer. Make a list of the current items when orders are placed. 

1. What are your top-selling products?
2. Where are the majority of your customers located?
3. Do you have products stocked and supplied in multiple fulfillment center locations?
4. What are your packaging needs?
5. Do you provide samples?
6. Do you include any marketing insert materials in your shipments?

Shipping: Through your fulfillment center you will have negotiated shipping rates for carriers such as; , , , and .  

Packaging: Your fulfillment center will be able to provide you with a wide range of packaging to meet the size and weight requirements of your products at the lowest cost possible. 

Busy Season Shipping Strategy

Now that you’re all stocked up on product and supplies, the next step is to figure out the customer-facing details including, what do you plan on charging for shipping?

The common options are; free shipping, flat rate shipping and exact cost shipping. 

Free Shipping: Shipping costs are the most-cited reason why customers abandon carts at check out, offering free shipping is a great way to use a compelling offer to improve conversion rates without relying on dollar value discounts. Understanding how offering free shipping to every customer will affect your margins is important– understand what it costs you to ship your heaviest items to your furthest destination. When providing free shipping, you’ll need to watch out for shipping cutoff dates. If you’re only springing for free standard shipping, you’ll need to make the expected arrival dates crystal clear so your customers can order in time for their holiday of choice.

Flat Rate Shipping: This is a great way to offset some of the shipping costs by avoiding sticker shock when people check out, a flat rate shipping policy might just be the perfect fit. When it comes to creating a flat rate shipping policy it’s important to set a price that will cover most of your shipping costs, but be ready to cover the cost for particularly expensive shipping options or items. This is great because your customers will always know the shipping fees ahead of time and you will still be able to recoup most of your shipping costs, making it the best of both worlds. 

Exact Cost Shipping: Exact cost shipping allows customers to see exactly what it will cost to ship their order and pay for it when they check out. Cart abandonment rates tend to rise around holidays and it’s mostly because of shipping costs. 

International Shipping: If you’re not shipping internationally right now due to complications and expense, you should rethink it. It can be easier than you think…Plus customers are more and more likely to shop outside of their borders, this can expand your audience as well. 

Stay tuned next week for part 2 of our 3 part ‘Fall Holiday Fulfillment Guide’. We will be looking at how to communicate shipping prices with customers and how to optimize your return policy.