Adopting good logistics practices is essential to provide an excellent customer experience so let’s now see some tips to optimize this area of your e-commerce.
Ensuring product delivery with good logistics practices is one of the crucial points to ensure customer satisfaction of e-commerce.
After all, an expectation is created after finishing the payment: “did I buy the right size?”, “Will my product arrive?”, “Will it be delivered on time?”.
All this anxiety has a reason: the purchase happens at a distance, and the product is not received immediately, as in a physical store. Consumer mistrust with online stores still exists, so he needs to have the product on hand to make sure he has made the right choice.
Therefore, adopting good logistics practices is essential to provide an excellent customer experience, which does not end at the end of the payment – it goes until the delivery of the product. So let’s see some tips to optimize this area of your e-commerce:
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1. Improve internal processes
In most cases of late delivery of products, customers hear the same explanation: “We had a problem with the carrier.” We know that this really happens, but failures are not always in the partner.
The internal processes of the company can also cause problems in the logistics of e-commerce. Failures or delay in the separation of the products sold, the packaging of the products, the issuance of documents, the communication between the teams – all this could hinder delivery.
Therefore, it also needs to adopt good logistics practices internally, so that all sectors can talk to each other and can quickly get information on logistics. A business organization is essential to ensure agility and efficiency in the delivery of products.
2. Use an integrated management system
One of the solutions to improve the internal processes that influence logistics is to use an integrated management system, also called ERP.
For logistics, the most important is that it integrates the management of stock and the inputs and outputs of products. However, a good management system can also focus on orders, financial control, shipments, and deliveries – among other processes your company needs to monitor – in the same software.
This will reduce process failures, facilitate access to information, and automate actions that bring agility and efficiency to the entire team involved.
3. Forecasting demand
The stock is also part of e-commerce logistics. Therefore, forecasting the demand for your products is also one of the good logistics practices, as it helps to organize the purchase, reception, storage, organization, and shipping of products.
There is nothing more annoying to the customer than buying a product and then being warned that the product is missing from the stock. However, when you know the market behavior better, you can know which products have more or less stock.
With this information, you will be able to know the frequency and the right quantities of purchase in addition to being able to organize the stock efficiently, to guarantee more security and agility in the exit of the products.
4. Hire Trusted Carriers
There is no harm in wanting to negotiate logistics costs to make more profit in your operations. However, be careful when choosing your partners to avoid harming an area that is critical to customer satisfaction.
So, analyze the carriers thoroughly. Do they have a structure that can handle the volume of orders? How do they organize to meet deadlines? Do they have a good reputation in the market? Try to answer these questions and not just look at the price.
Also, it is worthwhile to diversify the suppliers, between Post offices and private carriers. This allows you to negotiate better conditions and have a partner for each type of need (for example, deliveries to large urban centers or inland towns).
5. Give shipping options to customers
In addition to analyzing the price and reputation of carriers, you must also understand which are the best options for your customer. After all, it is he who buys in your online store and needs to treated well.
One of the main mistakes of e-commerce is to offer a few shipping options. However, for an online purchase, this is a deciding factor, which can generate many abandoned carts.
So the more options you get, the more chance you have of meeting the customer’s needs. Is he not willing to pay more to receive before? Alternatively, maybe he is not in a hurry and can opt for more option in mind.
Therefore, they offer different price and deadline alternatives for him to choose from. Also, after the purchase, keep the customer informed about the delivery, with a tracking code and notifications at every stage of the logistics.
6. Simplify reverse logistics
Returning products is a common practice in e-commerce. As we said at the beginning of the article, the purchase happens at a distance, and it is common for the customer to choose the wrong color or regret the purchase, or even if the product arrives with some defect.
In these cases, many shops make the consumer go through a real pilgrimage to give up the purchase – which, within seven days, is an online buyer’s right. The problem is that this also harms the customer experience, which just wanted to return or exchange a product, and may end up never coming back.
So simplify reverse logistics and do not make the customer work in that process. For this, it is essential to have a carrier that helps reduce bureaucracy and with software that easily records the return of products.
Finally, if you want to ensure an excellent customer experience from the beginning to the end of the buying process, you should pay particular attention to good logistics practices for your e-commerce.
Although unforeseen happen, with the tips we show in this article, you have more guarantees that your customer will receive the product within the timeframe and without any breakdown.
To offer a good experience with your online store, you should also know your customers well, understand their preferences and capture consumer trends. So now learn how to monitor e-commerce visits and be more efficient with your strategies.