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As the age of technology continues to roll on, the popularity of online shopping and online retail continues to rise. It’s hard to deny the fact that these capabilities have improved the way people shop. Especially as more and more individuals are concerned with COVID-19 guidelines, ensuring the safety of their customers is of utmost importance to businesses. Through online shopping, customers are offered some unique capabilities that are otherwise inaccessible while shopping in store. Most online marketplaces offer customers a chance to research and compare the products they’re interested in based on qualities that they value. Clearly this method is working for retailers, as online shopping contributed to nearly $3.5 trillion dollars spent globally in 2019.
One company within the industry that continues to dominate at every level is Amazon. Throughout their time within the industry, they’ve been able to break every mold in regards to online shopping and e-commerce. Now offering over 12 million different products to choose from, it’s more than likely that one of their nearly 200 million users per month will find something to purchase. While this is obviously the best-case scenario for Amazon, smaller online retailers are met with some unrealistic expectations from their customers as a result of this dominance. Expectations like accelerated shipping or free shipping have become standard but are not always able to be offered by other online retailers.
With nearly 90% of online shoppers claiming that their experiences with Amazon make them expect faster shipping speeds from other online retailers, these smaller online retailers are often put to the test. Despite wanting to get their products out to their customers as quickly as possible, sometimes it’s just not within the capabilities of these businesses. For those retailers struggling to keep their shipping speeds up to par, prioritizing other improvements to the customer experience is the best use of their resources. For example, a branded tracking page that allows customers to keep up to date with their orders on your website is a start. More advanced changes that can be made are all on the website side of things. Users accounts that are beneficial to users is one example of this. Saved location and payment information, product recommendations that are actually accurate, or even coupons exclusive to users are a great start to improving the experience.
One way that these smaller e-tailers can get a leg up on each other, however, is through careful consideration of shipping costs. While customers are adamant about receiving this orders at fast rates, they absolutely hate having a cost associated with these shipping times. In fact, these customers would prefer to wait a few extra days for their orders assuming there weren’t any shipping costs they’d have to pay. For smaller online retailers, this can be a focal point of improving their customer experience. One of the easiest ways of reducing shipment costs is through the employment of an automated storage and retrieval system for their products and warehousing and transportation solutions. These systems help businesses create the least expensive and most efficient shipping process for their customers.
For more information on how these systems can positively impact your organization’s lead times, take a moment to review the infographic featured alongside this post.
Author bio: John Hinchey is VP of Sales for Westfalia Technologies, Inc., a leading provider of logistics solutions for plants, warehouses and distribution centers. He has more than 20 years of experience in manufacturing and warehouse automation.