As the retail industry continues to expand, businesses are forced to adapt to the dynamic preferences of countless amounts of customers. While this often ensures additional business for retailers, it can be challenging to keep up with; particularly in regards to online shopping and the order fulfillment processes behind these online orders. Major outliers in the industry, such as Amazon or Walmart, won’t struggle through the order fulfilment issues the same way that smaller online retailers will. Very few lesser established organizations will be able to offer shipping options such as Amazon’s Prime shipping. The issue today is that many customers prefer faster lead times over high-quality products. So how can your business manage to offer both high quality products and high-quality shipping services? Continue reading on for information on how to adapt to customer expectations as an online retailer.
Let’s begin by detailing an important aspect In order fulfillment, an end phase, known as Last Mile Delivery. This is when a purchased product moves from its fulfillment center or fulfillment hub to the final point of sale. As mentioned previously, for many companies without the same capabilities as Amazon, this phase is not as fleshed out. As such, it has become a critical problem for these companies and in many cases has led to a decrease in online sales.
Believe it or not, for a number of years, last mile delivery didn’t exist. In fact, online shoppers of old would place orders and not receive tracking information nearly as sophisticated as online shoppers do today. In most instances, online customers’ orders would arrive as quickly as a company could ship the product to them. There weren’t such wild expectations when it came to shipping. However, as more and more companies like Amazon continue to reign over the space, shipment expectations continue to rise.
Not only can shipping pose an issue to these smaller businesses today, but so can order volume. As the pandemic began, more and more shoppers felt exclusively comfortable with shopping from their homes. Meaning these businesses were to be responsible for shipping more products on average than what they’d be used to. Keeping up with this shipping can be difficult, but not impossible. One of the most effective methods for maintaining a stable last mile delivery is through inventory management systems and warehouse space spanning throughout the states. With these facilities and the right system, more and more delivery options become available for your customers. Providing rigid tracking for these orders becomes increasingly easier as well as a result of these systems.
Any retailer that believes their Last Mile Delivery operations are struggling should consider ways in which it can be improved for the sake of improving the customer experience. As many of these retailers have noticed, failure to improve this aspect of their businesses has often costed them their most regular customers. In fact, poorly optimized Last Mile Delivery often accounts for additional losses as well. Whether that be operating at a competitive disadvantage within a given niche, or pesky customers seeking litigation as a result of slower than advertised shipping times, no organization should have to face these issues. Improvements to Last Mile Delivery can be tricky, but with the information shared within the infographic featured alongside this post, integrating these strategies has never been easier. Infographic courtesy of WAREHOWZ.