The holiday season is a fun time of year when your sales can soar. If you find it difficult to manage a large volume of sales, though, it could also be a bad moment for you.
As you are aware, the sale is not complete in an online store until the buyer receives the shipment. And timely shipping is one of the most important phases in a successful sales process. Because a shipment delay could cost you a customer and numerous potential purchases, you should carefully control this procedure.
We discussed the effects of cargo delays on your business as well as the causes of shipment delays during the holiday season in order to educate you about eCommerce shipping and help you manage the shipping process of multiple orders.
What Impact Do Cargo Delays Have on Your Business?
As we will show below, cargo delays may at first seem unimportant, but if they happen regularly, they can hurt your company.
- A drop in customer loyalty
Most of your transactions are probably repeat customers, thus shipment delays run the danger of lowering your client retention rate. When your customers are unhappy with the goods and services you offer (including delivery), they are much less inclined to make another purchase from your Shopify store. Thus, you should actively consider shipment delays and devise methods to avoid them.
- Add unfavorable testimonials
Before making a purchase from you, customers read store reviews to see whether they can trust your brand. In order to get these reviews, you must ensure client pleasure and build a strong brand reputation with favorable testimonials.
However, if your clients receive their items later than anticipated, they can be miffed and post a bad review on your Shopify site. It would damage the reputation you have worked so hard to establish for your brand. Your efforts shouldn’t be compromised by shipping delays.
- Lead to product exchanges
Customers may choose to shop elsewhere if the shipment process takes longer than anticipated and they urgently need the merchandise. They might return the item as a result because they are no longer in need of it. eCommerce refunds cost you money, and a high return rate can be detrimental to your company.
What Are the Costs of Shipping Delays to Your Company?
Did you know that 69% of customers won’t want to make another purchase from an online retailer if their shipment is not delivered on the day that was predicted?
This is a substantial amount, and given that most of your revenue comes from client retention, it might cause a sizable drop in revenue. You would need to bring on a lot of new consumers in this situation, but it is far more expensive to keep new clients than it is to keep existing ones (5 to 25 times more expensive).
Plus, before retaining new customers, first you need to acquire them and it could be very expensive because of the cost of sales, advertising, and marketing. You can calculate the customer acquisition cost with the formula below:
Any delivery delay will increase the overall cost of acquiring new consumers because you must replace any lost existing clients.
What Causes Shipping Delays During the Holiday Season?
We discussed the detrimental consequences of freight delays on your Shopify business and why you should prevent them in the sections above. Understanding the causes of shipment delays is essential to preventing them. If there is an issue, you can identify it after this step and resolve it. Let’s look at the typical & holiday delivery delay causes:
Common Causes of Shipping Delays Specific To Holiday Season
The holidays are the ideal time to increase sales. Customers, however, also want their packages to arrive on time during this time.
Due to this, there are a few things to think about while pushing yourself to the limit, such as double-checking your shipping and fulfillment procedures. The following are some justifications for visiting them over the holiday season:
High Need
Holidays are the times of the year when shoppers are most in demand and eCommerce sales are at their best.
You can take advantage of the season to boost your sales, but you must also have a reliable shipping system in place to deliver all of your merchandise on schedule.
Probability of Shipping Process Complexity
There is a chance of issues with the transportation process because there are too many cargoes to deliver due to the increased demand throughout the holiday season.
For instance, there can be a manpower or cargo track shortage. Alternatively, if there are too many orders, some parcels can get mixed up and go lost.
Working with reputable shipping companies that your clients trust will help you to minimize these risks.
How Can Shipping Delays Be Prevented?
One of the key areas you should concentrate on to expand your Shopify business is the satisfaction of your consumers. Additionally, a big factor in a customer’s contentment is getting their things on time.
Because of this, even though their service is more expensive, you should only engage with the most reputable shipping firms. You can include the cost in the product price if you are providing free shipping.
Global shipping delays over retailers’ holidays
Once you’ve reduced the chance of a delay using the appropriate shipping provider, you should look into the following other aspects to prevent shipping delays over the holiday season:
Prepare for Delays
In order to maintain your client’s trust, you should fulfill your promises to them. Because of this, you should alert clients to any potential shipping delays by extending the estimated arrival window over the holiday. By alerting your customers about the prospect of a delay, you avoid disappointing them.
Streamline the Shipping Process
A shipping process that is automated could go much more quickly than one that is manual. We may claim that it is almost a need for you if you receive too many orders. This implies that it is a fantastic technique to lessen delivery delays.
Based on the ordering timings, automated software calculates the rank of the products for shipping.
Utilize various carriers
Since there are more things to transport during the holiday season than at other times, working with just one international shipping business may not be sufficient. Working with numerous foreign shipping providers may make sense in order to deliver your packages on schedule because of this.
Another option might be to collaborate with neighborhood delivery services. For instance, if you are receiving an excessive number of orders from a particular region, you might cooperate with a local shipping business there.
Get Your Warehouse Ready
You should evaluate your supply chain before the holiday season and make any necessary improvements. As part of this procedure, set up your warehouse for the holiday season orders you’ll be taking.
The most important aspect of this is that the products should be simple to ship. You can therefore arrange your products so that the most well-liked ones are sold first, followed by the others.
Shipping delay email templates
You’ll feel more at ease if delays happen if you already have an order-delayed email prepared. Instead of worrying about how you’ll break the news to your consumer, you can do so with assurance while still informing them of the situation. Transparency of this kind promotes loyalty and trust. People might not be pleased that their shipment arrived later than expected, but they will value your openness and responsiveness.
Tips for Handling Shipping Delays Simply in Case It Does
Even if you take all the necessary safeguards, your orders can still be delayed. Here are some recommendations for how you should respond when your customers’ orders are delayed:
Keep close contact with your customers
It is best to let your consumers know about the problem and provide an explanation if orders are delayed. To let them know when to expect the package, you might phone them or write a thorough note.
Customers might therefore appreciate your effort to call them and understand your business cares about their needs even if their deliveries are delayed. Consequently, you can raise the likelihood that they will ship from your Shopify business once again.
Present the option of free shipping
If you pay for shipping, they can anticipate same- or next-day delivery when you send them your goods. However, you might lower your clients’ expectations by providing free shipments for special occasions.
Offer discounts and gift cards
If your clients’ orders take longer than expected, you can provide them gift cards, special offers, discounts, etc. As a result, you may decrease their degree of dissatisfaction and increase the likelihood that they would shop at your Shopify store again. Additionally, it may be a strategy for persuading them to refrain from posting a negative review that would turn off potential buyers.
Final Reflections
Due to the fact that eCommerce sales increase around the holidays, you may need to send several times as many orders as usual.
Keeping this procedure under control and sending your packages on schedule is essential to keeping your clients happy. If not, customers might stop visiting your Shopify store in the future.
Since returning customers spend more money and make more frequent purchases than new ones, client retention is the key to expanding your business. Thus, one of the worst outcomes is losing your current clientele.
Avoiding eCommerce shipping delays will help you retain your present consumers. We provided the best guidance above on how to handle the shipping procedure in order to assist you with it. In order to keep them by giving them the finest purchasing experience possible!
To keep track of your inventory and products, and to avoid delay, your Shopify mobile app will be in real-time sync with your Shopify store. As the creator of your Shopify app, Appmaker can take active steps to make this happen.
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