6 Ways to Prevent Ecommerce Shipping Mistakes This Holiday Season
According to the National Retail Federation, the 2019 holiday sales from November and December are expected to increase at a minimum of 4.5 percent.
Approximately 50 percent of the total e-commerce sales take place during the New Year, that’s why you must devise your holiday marketing strategy to get the best results.
So, if you want to try to pace up your sales in the holidays, there are mistakes that you need to avoid if you want to establish your brand identity.
In this post, we are going to discuss the six ways on how you can prevent e-commerce mistakes during the holiday season:
1. Miscommunicating carrier cutoffs
In a study that was conducted on the shipping preferences of consumers, it is revealed that 75 percent are willing to pay more to expedite the shipping. Moreso if what they bought is a gift for somebody.
Meaning, as the holiday rush is nearing, people are willing to pay more just so that the gifts for their family and friends are delivered on time. What you need to do is to communicate the estimated delivery time to your customers.
Highlighting how an express service will deliver their purchases on time is crucial. So, if they ordered around December 20th, your customer needs to be informed that the cheapest delivery options will not probably ship their orders on time.
2. Validate shipping addresses
After your order is packed and is out for delivery, it is possible that the delivery man is unlikely going to find the address and will return the product. This usually happens because the product ended up being delivered to an unverified address.
For instance, an incorrect zip code not only throws off the shipping but can place the package in a state of limbo. So, the wrong address could lead to bigger problems in the long run.
It always helps that you validate the shipping address before the order is placed. This will help you avoid shipment-related problems in your e-commerce fulfillment process later on.
3. Maintain enough resources
Let’s say that you only have 20 employees who will pick, pack, pile, and label approximately 200 orders per day. If your orders go up to 400, it can be difficult for you to fulfill the shipping process in time.
As a result, you will not be able to handle the surge of orders, which results in a loss of sales and revenue in the long run.
To avoid this kind of situation, you have to think wise and play smart. Whenever there is a surge in sales during the holidays, you can call temporary workers and make them work in shifts. That will help you easily fulfill all the orders in a timely manner.
4. Don’t delay your shipments
Do not delay your shipments. Ideally, you want all orders to be fulfilled and shipped immediately after you have received them.
Waiting until the last minute can cause a major backlog which will make both your customers and couriers frustrated. This is one small business strategy that you cannot afford to ignore.
5. Announce shipping deadlines
A lot of customers expect to receive their order in about four days or less. However, during the holiday season, customers understand that the shipping might take longer than they expected.
That’s why you must ensure that everyone on your site knows precisely when is your deadline in shipping. You can feature in your homepage the order-by-date in big, bold letters. You can also show them in your product, checkout pages, everywhere.
6. Prepare for a surge in holiday traffic
Surges are great as long as you come prepared. But if you are not, this could potentially lead to problems in your performance and might cost you to lose sales. After all, all of us have been in that situation.
A holiday sale leads to a surge of traffic on your site. This can result in your website loading slowly or crashing. Not to mention that your payment processor may unexpectedly fail.
That’s why you need to pick a web host that has “failover” capabilities. Meaning, it is possible for your website to switch to a backup site if there are any problems with the host. This ensures that your website will not crash or would go offline.
Over to You
So there you have it. Now that you are more aware of the most common mistakes a lot of marketers make during the holiday season, you must unlearn these missteps to generate better profits and sales.
Also, no matter what method or carrier you use when delivering your products, it is vital to pick the right carrier for the shipping process. Another important thing is to check the quality of your products many times so that you will not deliver bad-quality products that would harm your reputation.
So, work hard, but at the end of the day, try to play smart!