The rise in Coronavirus transmission has resulted in an unprecedented number of people working from home. As an e-tailer, you’re caught in a bit of a bitter-sweet situation. On one hand, your order volume is exponentially growing. On the other, you are struggling to keep down your operation costs.
Irrespective of whether you are a logistics manager supervising order deliveries from home or an eCommerce operations manager connecting data from disparate systems to bring down the costs, automation is the key.
Here’s the list of reasons underscoring the importance of digitizing shipping costs management process:
- It’s time to micro-analyze your shipping spend
We live in unprecedented times. The economy’s downturn has every business slash their operating costs by at least 25%. Shipping costs are the second-highest expenditure for an eCommerce business.
The first step towards slicing a sizable chunk of shipping costs is to track.
Track every single shipping invoice. Break them down into categories of average, high and below-average shipping spend. Dive deeper and correlate the costs with order volume, package weight, and consignment destination. In short, look at every expense as an individual cost entity.
There is no way you have the time or resources to navigate through scores of shipping invoices. With a cloud-based shipping intelligence platform, simply link your shipping data and have the cost analysis spewed out in minutes. Use pre-built contextual reports and KPI-focussed analytics to refine your spending strategy.
2. You cannot afford to overpay on your shipping invoices
There are more than 50 errors collectively at a service level and invoice level on your shipping invoice. These errors range from unclaimed service failures, DIM weight discrepancies to incorrect surcharge application, invalid address correction charges.
If you are not auditing your invoices for errors, you are missing out on a significant cost-saving opportunity.
And manual audits just don’t cut it. What you need is an automated invoice audit software that powers through your invoices and identifies every single discrepancy.You will save at least 16% on your shipping costs. It is time to break free from spreadsheets and engage in automation.
3. You need a single source of truth for your shipping expenses
Shipping tariff rate agreements are complex and confusing.There are so many factors namely package weight, shipping volume, shipping zone that contribute towards the shipping charge of one item. Multiply that by 1000 packages and you have a million possibilities. It is critical to address the effectiveness of the agreement by validating them against the actual charge application. The only way to ensure that the right charge is applied is by verifying the underlying variables. It is impossible to manually undertake such a task.
With the help of API( application programming interface) integration, you could plug in your tariff rate and actual rate to a platform that can perform the validation for you. Moreover, you could collate shipping data from multiple carriers across different geographies on a single platform.
4. Stay ahead of delivery exceptions
On-time delivery is still relevant. Especially when your customers are cooped up at home all day. The best way to track your order fulfillment status is with a real-time shipment tracker. Trace the course of your order shipment activity. Proactively handle delivery exceptions such as delays, loss, and delivery attempts.
Most importantly empower your customer support team with real-time data to manage frantic “where is my order?” calls. Enable superior customer service with the knowledge of the real-time movement of your package at all times.
5. Your customer relationship must outlast the outbreak
Customer relationship is fundamental to scaling your eCommerce business. In order to retain your customers, you must build transparency into your order fulfillment process.
Letting your customers know of their order delivery status is critical.
77% of customers stated that a lack of communication or delivery exception due to coronavirus outbreak will negatively impact their brand’s perception. Engage with your customers better with personalized notes for every potential delivery issue. Anticipate delivery issues and communicate effectively to your buyers.
AuditShipment’s range of shipping cost management services will help you hack into efficiently managing your costs, order deliveries and customers during this pandemic. Our suite of automation tools is set up for businesses to streamline their shipping costs and establish shipping expense predictability during this crisis.
