Exploring Consumer Demand For Quick Delivery
A Need For Speed: Instant gratification is not exactly a new phenomenon. Impulse shopping is a mainstay among consumers, and it accounts for a decent percentage of all buying in brick-and-mortar stores. The challenge for retailers is to never minimize its impact, whether you sell from a physical location accessible to customers, or operate exclusively online, joining hundreds of thousands of e-commerce merchants.
Supply chain issues reared their ugly heads following the start of the global Covid-19 pandemic, but they did not resolve themselves quickly. In fact. Four years after the initial business and personal trauma related to shutdowns and global disruptions, there are still elements needing ironing out. Brick-and-mortar stores are not receiving timely deliveries, due in part to inventory shortages and to backlogs and glitches at international ports.
For e-commerce sellers, this is a double whammy. Acquiring inventory takes longer, even if your delivery to consumers is handled by a third party or shipped direct from distributors. And if you manage your own shipping duties, you’ve noticed the dramatic increase in costs spread among all entities (USPS, UPS, FedEx, and more). At the same time, shipping services continue to stretch out delivery dates. It’s a genuine problem.
Your business model is based on the rapid turnaround time consumers expect. So what do you do?
Analysts have a few pieces of advice, though no quick fixes. Consider these options:
Compare shipping costs based on the known limitations or benefits that suit the type of inventory you send. Each service varies in rates based on their specific mode of transportation and other factors that may make UPS favorable to FedEx, etc.
If you find that most of your deliveries are similar in size and weight, and your volume is somewhat high, think about asking for a bulk discount or a reduced rate. You may belong to (or should join) a merchant association which has already pre-negotiated discounts.
Carefully plan packaging prior to shipment, using the package or box with the smallest dimensions possible (without rendering the product vulnerable to breakage or other shipping misfunctions).
Carrier-provided packaging is always less costly. Consider getting your hands on plenty of it in advance in order to cut down prep time.
This is never a popular option, but it’s one to mull over. Try factoring the significant cost increases into the price of your product. Customers who use shipping services for personal reasons understand very well how much rates have skyrocketed in recent years. If you want to connect with a semblance of honesty, lead off each web page with a full disclosure of how important it is for them to receive quality, undamaged goods, in a reasonable time frame.
Keeping in mind that automation tools designed specifically for e-commerce merchants can be enormously helpful, depending on your average volume, they are worth a shot. Many are woven into your hosting platform package. Also promising is route optimization software, which delves into finely tuned analyses of delivery routes, making customization a breeze.
Finally, the emergence of AS (Anticipatory Shipping) has been a lifesaver for mid- to higher-volume merchants taking advantage of tools that evaluate and project consumer purchases. These will streamline choices of delivery agents. techDetector explains this masterfully.