Starting your own small e-commerce shipping business in 2024 and these last few years is easier than ever. You do not need anything more than the Internet, a good business idea and someone to build your website. Things will be completely free if you know how to build one yourself. If you do not, you always have the option to use website building services such as WordPress. Since starting such a business is so easy, there will be more competition. To come out on top of that competition, you will have to utilize the right strategies.
However, if you have no previous experience in the world of e-commerce and shipping, you probably have no idea which strategy you should utilize. You should not worry about that too much because it is normal. After reading through this article/guide, you will have a much better understanding of what you should do to run your newly founded business.
There are several different smart e-commerce shipping strategies that can be found online, but to reduce the need for research, I am making this article to help smaller and inexperienced businesses. Just make sure you read through this entire article to truly grasp how the strategies work.
Contents
1. Optimize the customer experience
Source: CIO.com
One of the simplest things you could do to increase profits and to improve the efficiency of your entire company is optimizing their experience for the customer. Realistically, this is not something that is difficult to do. With a little bit of research, a few questionnaires, and a bit of knowledge, optimizing the customer experience is quite easy.
Unfortunately, a lot of business owners do not seem to understand the fact that this is one of the important strategies a company must utilize. This does not specifically apply to just e-commerce businesses. No, this kind of optimization should be implemented everywhere.
So, if you want to stay ahead of the curve, ahead of the competition, the first thing you have to do is ensure that the experience of your customers is as best as possible.
How do you achieve that? Well, like I already said, it is not that difficult. A poll or a questionnaire can help you understand what your audience likes and dislikes. You can find out which features you need to implement or remove from your website. You can also improve small details on your side that will significantly impact the experience of a client.
This is one of the reasons why it is essential to ensure that the performance of your website is always at its peak. Fast image loading times, snappy animations, and all the other optimizations or additions that contribute to a smooth and quick experience.
2. Shipping
Source: ReferralCandy
E-commerce businesses have two main purposes. Its first purpose is to offer clients easier access to certain products through just one website.
To put it simply, the person can hop on to an e-commerce store and purchase what they required instead of having to resort to different brand websites. Everything is in one place. But, once the person presses that add to the shopping cart and the purchase button, comes the second purpose of an e-commerce company. The shipping.
So, if it is important to optimize the experience of the first purpose (sorting through the site) then it makes sense for the shipping to be a good experience too, right?
However, finding in providing a good shipping service is not as easy as it sounds according to luchtkussengigant.nl. Even large companies such as Amazon sometimes have trouble with their shipping services or the companies that they work for.
If the shipping process of your company fails in any way, the client will be dissatisfied either way. So, if you lose a point here, you will lose your client entirely.
Now that you understand how important the shipping segment is for e-commerce companies, you probably want to know the most important factors of the service.
The thing that most people care about is how fast their product can get to their front door. I think the same way and I assume that you do too. You press that purchase button and you need to get that product as quickly as you can. That is why Amazon offers same-day delivery for a larger fee. In other words, transit time is what you will need to worry about the most.
Another factor you have to consider is how the products are being treated. People will be ordering all kinds of different products on your site and some of them will definitely be fragile. Fragile items need to be packaged differently and handled differently. You cannot put a glass item in the same packaging as a wooden one. The glass is fragile and will break.
3. Your packaging is your marketing
Source: dropified
This is directly connected to my previous point. It is not just about how your employees will handle the packaging. The packaging design and material used is also very important. The better the quality of the packaging material, the better the protection for the products. This will ultimately lead to a satisfied client.
All of this is a successful marketing strategy. By investing in your packaging design and material, you are advertising your company’s level of quality and respect towards the customers.
Obviously, for better advertising, you should come up with a good design that will be a good first impression.
4. Try free shipping
Source: Money Crashers
If you have gone through all these strategies I mentioned above in all the trouble to optimize customer’s experience but you still do not see a lot of improvements in your revenue, you should consider free shipping as a strategy. Believe it or not, but this is very effective most of the time. Even today’s largest e-commerce stores such as Amazon, eBay, or AliExpress still offer free shipping as a marketing strategy.
People love to spend money on a product but hate paying for expensive shipping.
I hope that after reading through this guide, you will be able to properly strategize and lead your small business to success.
