Tis’ the season when business booms for the eCommerce industry. We’ve already successfully triumphed across Black Friday and Cyber Monday, now is the time when everyone runs to their favourite brands and retailers to snatch a deal during the Boxing Day and January sales.
Of course, as you probably already know, nothing is ever smooth sailing, especially during busy, hectic periods. Delays can be inevitable, especially with the postal strikes that have unsettled deliveries in the build-up to Christmas. Some things are unfortunately out of our control, but there’s no harm in trying to be as organised as possible to minimise the issues caused. Let’s talk about some things you can do.
Good inventory management
Now more than ever, it is essential to make sure you can keep up with the demands of the peak season by ensuring you have enough inventory available to avoid things like backorders. It’s best to avoid using manual methods of inventory management, especially during busy periods as there is too much room for natural human error to occur.
Cross reference everything with your previous sales data, as this can be extremely insightful and help improve the accuracy of your upcoming sales predictions. This will then improve your overall process throughout peak periods.
Always communicate with your customers
Communicate with your customers, and if you have one, communicate with your 3PL partner. Communication is crucial, as the downfall of many businesses is poor communication across all areas.
Good customer experience should be at the forefront of your business focus, as without customers your business will inevitably sink. Therefore, make it easy for your customers. Customers want to feel secure in knowing that if they have any issues or questions, this will be quickly and efficiently solved and answered. Make sure your customers are aware of things like dispatch time, delays, how to return items, cut off times for returns, etc.
Communicate with everyone involved in your eCommerce fulfilment chain, whether that’s your customers, your fulfilment centre or your delivery courier (especially with all the shipping delays this year).
Simple communication could save you a lot of issues and delays. If you are dealing with everything by yourself, then we fully understand that it can be hard to keep up with the demands of customer service, which is why we recommend outsourcing your customer service. There are companies specifically for outsourced customer service, but we recommend finding a 3PL who handles customer service as part of their services, so there is less room for external error and miscommunication.
Free Shipping
Let’s talk about consumer psychology for a minute and how this can be used to your advantage. If there’s one thing people love, it’s free things, and in this case, customers LOVE free shipping. What’s more, Amazon has set the standard with delivery times. Therefore, it’s business critical to make sure orders are leaving on time and in full every day.
Marketing
New year, new marketing. You and your marketing team are probably drowning in seasonal marketing campaigns, but it’s always worth planning ahead to ensure your marketing campaigns are aligned with seasonal changes. Good marketing is always essential, especially during peak periods, as it is one of your biggest tools when trying to reach current and new customers. You want to make the most out of busy periods by making customers aware of all your great offers.
Make the shopping experience easy, from start to finish
We live in a fast-paced world where patience can sometimes be lacking. While it’s good to receive a lot of traffic on your website, a surge in traffic can unfortunately slow it down and deter customers from ordering because things are taking too long to load. Customers want a quick, easy process after they’ve spent time browsing and adding things to their basket.
Make sure everything on your website is up and running as efficiently as possible to avoid having customers leave your site. With this in mind, you want to make sure customers can easily and quickly place their orders. Eliminate the need for customers to sign in or create an account, and have a range of payment options available.
Prepare for returns
The dreaded returned orders.
Customers hate returning them and business owners hate receiving them. Unfortunately, some things are inevitable. Although disappointing, orders are bound to be returned from time to time, and more so during busy periods. But remember, a returned order doesn’t mean you’ve permanently lost one of your customers. Your customer is more likely to order again if the returns process was easy and quick for them. So, make it easy and clear to understand.
Partnering with a UK fulfilment centre
As you know, there’s a lot of things that go into the entire order fulfilment process, from receiving orders, to picking and packing them, to shipping them. Not to mention, there’s also things like customer service, inventory management, and returns management to think about. It can be a lot to deal with by yourself.
Wouldn’t it be nice to take some of the weight off of your shoulders? That’s why it’s never a bad idea to outsource your eCommerce fulfilment with a 3PL partner.
At any given time, it’s essential that things are moving efficiently with minimal issues, but more so during the busy periods. Partnering with a 3PL means you have access to their expert knowledge and experience which can be a real game changer for you during peak eCommerce periods.
A UK fulfilment centre can take a massive load of weight and responsibility off your shoulders. Sure, you want to feel secure in knowing you’re in control of everything, but a 3PL really will make the whole process much smoother.
Let TSP take care of business
TSP offers award winning expert services, knowledge and experience to all of our customers. We handle all the behind-the-scenes work, so get in touch today and let’s work together to grow your business.
