How Top Brands Are Streamlining Their Shipping Processes

    Failing to meet your customers’ expectations is a death-knell to your business. Shipping processes are often the area where most companies fail to “deliver” on their promises. Slow shipping times, delays, or damaged goods will ensure that your customers never return for repeat business. Reviewing comments on sellers on any platform shows that shipping times are possibly the most critical feature of any post-sales process.

    Top online retailers understand the critical nature of delivering for their clients on time. Read through these 5 tips used by retail giants to dominate their market. Apply them to your own business to streamline your shipping process and improve your customer satisfaction.

    1.    Improve Warehouse Communications

    Do you run a centralized warehouse? Or are you using drop shipping for your business? Regardless of your methods, your communications between your point of sale and stockiest should take place instantaneously.

    Automating your system to provide you with a logistics report for every item shipped is essential for efficient management of your warehouse or drop shipper. Integrate management tools like HipChat and Slack to improve your communications and ensure parcels are sent out on time.

    1.    Streamline Documentation Processes

    Simplify your internal shipping processes for exceptional delivery performance. Analyze your paperwork processes and cut out any unnecessary notifications or duplicate work that’s holding back your logistics.

    1.    Technology for Effective Logistics

    Implement scanning devices such as barcodes and RFID chips to your warehousing and logistics. These tools allow you to locate your parcels and products at any stage of their life-cycle, from storage to final delivery.

    These techniques help you manage stock levels as well, for maximum efficiency, incorporate an automatic order system to replenish stock levels when they’re running low. Reduce human error and improve logistics management by integrating a management system like Blik into your processes.

    1.    Selecting a Shipping Service

    Create a list of approved couriers and freight agencies that deal with local and international deliveries. Search online for client testimonials and choose the top 5 companies with outstanding reputations. Include pricing for freight destination and weight, then arrange a trial run to see which service delivers on your expectations. Critical factors to consider before making your final choice on a shipping service are;

    •    The delivery service type (international or local.)
    •    Delivery time (how quickly it reaches the destination.)
    •    Professional appearance of couriers.
    •    Reliability of delivery (security policies and tracking.)
    •    Costs and ease of doing business (the less complicated their processes, the better.)

    Visit a shipping supply website to arrange customized mailers and document storage that features your branding. Custom shipping supplies distinguish your parcels to shipping agents and help agents easily identify packages during the logistics process.

    1.    Benefit from an Electronic Data Interchange

    Replace the paperwork in your shipping process with an EDI. This solution allows you manage every aspect of your shipping process from a laptop while saving you money. Setting up an EDI is a significant expense, but the savings in the long term offset the initial costs.

    Dramatically improve your shipping times and strengthen warehouse and logistics productivity while minimizing errors with an EDI. An EDI is straightforward to scale and grows with your business as you expand. Your EDI keeps you and your customers informed of every step of the shipping process, improving communications by linking their order status to their email account or cellphone.

    1.    Create Contacts for a Global Shipping Network

    International shipping can be a tricky process to manage. It’s vital to establish contacts in foreign countries to ensure that you have a point of contact you can trust. Having boots on the ground in any location saves you time and money on your logistics, and ensures your customer always receives their parcel.

    Your freight forwarder or shipping agent will prepare for customs clearance in advance, avoiding the hassles associated with shipping high-value goods. An international courier agent is indispensable in this regard and could mean the difference between your customer receiving their products, or your company receiving a bad review.

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