Technology has reshaped the way that many industries operate, making them more efficient and productive than ever before. The added application of logistics, fed by such technological breakthroughs, has literally changed the way that we do business. This moniker also applies to the ecommerce industry.
A booming industry, expert reports are predicting that e-retailers will sell more than $50 billion this online holiday season, a more than 15% increase from 2013. As more shoppers flock to the digital experience – with over 50% of those polled stating that they use a digital medium to make a shopping decision – how you manage the fulfillment of orders at your online store will play a large role in the amount of sales that you tender.
Thankfully, there are software solutions that are designed to ease and streamline this process. They handle the heavy lifting so that you can place more of your focus on growing your business, instead of focusing on the monotonous and time consuming tasks of order fulfillment. Find out how such solutions could work for your business as we cover four integral aspects.
Newer Ecommerce Shipping Software Saves Time
Before there was shipping software, ecommerce stores had to manage the operation in-house. This meant spending hours culling orders, updating customers, copying and pasting information and generating packing lists, shipping labels and so forth. Newer software automates much of this, enabling store owners to even buy shipping labels online (read a related article on the perks of when you buy shipping labels online) as they need them, and generate digital postage right from their office printer.
Discounted Shipping Rates Reduce Cost, Increase Profits
An overwhelming majority of studies concur that shoppers want discounted or free shipping. In fact, over 80% of shoppers polled in recent surveys said that shipping cost was a very large factor in them doing business with an online store. Newer ecommerce shipping software solutions give e-retailers an advantage by connecting them to rock-bottom rates on expedited USPS Priority Mail shipping rates.
Faster Fulfillment with a One-System Process
Fulfillment can be backbreaking if not properly assessed. When examining your options in this regard, look to buy shipping labels that are universal, advises Michael Lazar, Growth Hacker for TrueShip, maker of a popular shipping software solution called ReadyShipper. This, Lazar infers, can reduce your fulfillment time because these shipping labels contain the packing list (perforated) and a 4”x6” or 4”x8” peel-off shipping label. It cuts down the fulfillment time by nearly 50%, he says.
Making Your Store More Attractive to Shoppers
How attractive is your online store? Are your products clearly organized? Do you advertise cheap shipping rates on your home page? Do you tell customers the shipping cost for products early on?
These are all important factors in garnering sales. What’s more is that by assuring customers of speedy and discounted shipping, you can also encourage more sales. The best part: shipping software helps you accomplish all of this while reducing the time that’s being spent on tedious endeavors. Seems like a no-brainer for serious ecommerce shopkeepers.
