There’s no doubt that the Covid-19 outbreak has had a dramatic impact on the global economy, which may have predicted was already set for a recession at some point in 2020.
Business confidence has certainly plummeted in developed economies like the UK where an estimated one-in-five directors have said that the recent outbreak poses a significant threat to the future of their companies.
However, a further 40% saw the virus as posing only a moderate threat in the short and medium-term, and these entities may well be continuing to operate as normal and invest in their operational growth.
From an ecommerce perspective, a key strategic element of this will involve selecting the right courier service for your business. So, here are some tips to help you achieve this objective:
The Cost to Value Perspective
The aim of every commercial business is to generate a profit, and this must remain a particularly single-minded focus during times of socio-economic crisis.
However, this can occasionally cause business-owners to indiscriminately slash operational and non-strategic costs, in a way that optimises short-term profitability but compromises their firm’s reputation and the value proposition for customers.
So, although the costs of outsourcing responsibility for shipping can accumulate quickly as your venture scales, you need to measure these against the value provided for your business and the quality of service delivered to customers.
There are several ways to achieve this, such as by constantly checking individual courier reviews and liaising with your own customers to explore their own shipping experience. By adopting this type of approach, you can justify any additional costs by relating directly to hiked price points or turnover.
The Speed and Accessibility of Delivery
Let’s face facts; the time that it takes for customers to receive their items from a courier is key, both to the reputation of your business and its ability to build a loyal customer base.
However, this doesn’t mean that you need to focus solely on guaranteeing same or next-day delivery, with the key thing being to create a diversity of options for customers and communicate accurate delivery dates and timeframes.
This is borne out by the numbers, with 71% of customers apparently stating a period of between two and five days as being the optimal maximum timeframe for delivery.
So, the key is to understand the demands of your customers and identify the best couriers to meet these needs, particularly in terms of speed and the volume of packages that they can fulfil on an ongoing basis.
Tracking Parcels and Providing Proof of Delivery
Ultimately, the single most important consideration for any ecommerce business is that their parcels are delivered to their end destination.
This may sound obvious, but to achieve this objective you may want to consider liaising with established couriers that offer advanced services such as real-time parcel tracking and proof of delivery measures.
The former is now commonplace amongst most couriers, although you should strive to prioritise service providers that offer real-time tracking and are capable of sharing this with you and your customers.
When it comes to proof of delivery, this isn’t something that all couriers offer as standard, so you’ll need to be wary when making an informed and final decision.
This is definitely a crucial factor, as it helps to verify the speed and success rate of deliveries and enables you to challenge any claims pertaining to late or missing parcels.