You’ve heard before and you are about to hear it again: logistics matter. They matter for all businesses. In fact, logistics are what makes the world go around, particularly as it relates to ecommerce, order fulfillment and the shipping management system that you have in place to facilitate such logistics.
Operating your own online store or marketplace requires dedication, devotion and a full-time effort, if you are to ever really see the successes that you want. And in par with this, you’ll assuredly benefit from having logistics in place along the way.
What type of logistics can you add to your existing business model? There are a few that come immediately to mind. For starters, your bottom line can be better managed – and reduced – when you integrate commercial rates that allow you to offer lower shipping prices; which have been shown to increase conversions.
Secondarily, logistics play a strong role in how you fulfill orders, the accuracy of your shipping model, multi-carrier integration, automation of customer updates, carrier rate comparisons, updates and tracking, and a healthier bottom line. We’ll review each one separately to help you better understand how the logistics of a shipping management system improves your bottom line.
Order Import, Sorting and Editing
Being able to import all orders – from all your ecommerce stores – into one synergistic shipping management system will save you hours of hair-pulling and confusion. Since many people run more than one ecommerce store, you can imagine why logistics are imperative here. Such systems will let you import, sort, edit and process all orders from all of your stores in real time.
Improving Shipping Accuracy
Reducing shipping accuracy will save you time, money and frustration. A good shipping management system actually scans your orders to help you prevent shipping errors. A simple thing like your weights being off can result in a package being returned or with added fees being tacked on; something that is preventable with the right system in place.
Carrier Integration and Shipping Labels
Being able to selectively choose which carrier you use and what rate you’ll pay puts you in the driver’s seat for success. A quality shipping management system with multi-carrier support gives you choices. It lets you link your shipper accounts and generate digital postage and shipping labels from the convenience of one solitary interface.
Automating Customer Updates and Tracking
You could easily spend hours updating customers and your shopping cart. But this is not necessary if you have the proper shipping management system in place. Instead, it will automate the updating of customers and your shopping cart or marketplace with ship status and tracking number.
Reducing Bottom Line; Increase Profits
The goal of using a shipping management system is to decrease your bottom line and improve your profit margin. With automated tasks and updates, multi-store and multi-carrier support, and simple tools that prevent errors, improve accuracy and decrease the necessary man-hours required for fulfillment, it’s easy to see why and how logistics improves your entire ecommerce picture from day one.