eCommerce | How to meet your customers’ expectations
It is no new thing that eCommerce is here to stay. Nearly 150 million people shopped online for the first time during the pandemic, anticipating the predictions of online consumption in +5 years. If you still have a physical store, chances are that a big parcel of your sales come from the online!
US (see here), EU (see here)
One of the biggest challenges regarding the online selling is to provide the adequate customer experience. Customers’ expectations are to have at least the same level of experience they do when going to your physical store. This means the ability to choose sizes, color, delivery schedule (the shorter the better, cost free) is mandatory. And there is something that cannot even cross their minds: “what if the delivery is not of what I have ordered?”
Plus, customer experience does not end with the purchase. It continues way after that, with the delivery, the payment experience, the after sales service and the delivery policy. Consumers expect shopping to be convenient, effortless and enjoyable from start to end. Any setback along the customer journey can derail the experience in an instant.
The expectations regarding the shipping options
About 98% of consumers expect to be able to self-serve when it comes to shipping options, including making delivery appointments and addressing changes. Around one-third of shoppers are more likely to blame the e-tailers for a failed delivery.
Did you know that, according to Deloitte, 40% of online consumers won’t complete the checkout if the delivery costs are too high?
Furthermore, according to Convey, the number 1 reason why consumers shop on Amazon is regarding its fast and free shipping experience.
So, the question you should ask is: am I giving the experience that my online customers desire?
We can help on the warehouse side of the experience and that is what we are going to do, right now!
How to create an accurate and fast shipping process?
One of the key aspects of an accurate and fast shipping process is to provide a clean and frictionless experience for your operators. That can be achieved by:
- Knowing what to do: do you have a standardized shipping (picking and packing) process? When you have several orders to ship at the same time, usually with few items each, but the same item in more than one order, wave picking is your best option. Know more about that process, here.
- Having your picking locations with enough stock to fulfill the orders. Usually, when there is much stock, items are stored in both the picking and replenishment zones (know more about warehouse zoning, here). Before each wave picking, in order to assure every order line can be fulfilled, a replenishment analysis should occur. LogisticsWMS helps you with that.
- Being sure your operators know what to do and when. Each one of them! Did you know the productivity of an operator can improve up to 300% if it is clear what is expected from him/her during the shift? And this can be done easily, with the help of your WMS. With LogisticsWMS you can plan and allocate each task to the operator. Even better, have the system planning for you! Yes, it is possible to have your WMS learning with your operators’ performances and predict the workload of each one and decide who should do what and when, optimizing your overall operation!
- Having a digital picking system. It provides accuracy and efficiency to your process, since it is possible to validate in real time that your operator is where he/she is supposed to, has the right product and his/her route is optimized! In addition, you collect important data that can provide valuable insights for your business.
All of that taken care of, you may be sure you’ll have less picking and packing errors while delivering on time and meeting your customers’ expectations!
Happy customers + Happy stakeholders = Profitable Business
