Holidays are great opportunities to boost sales and revenues - lots of orders have flooded your store, which is definitely a good thing. However, because of the lockdowns, it’s advised that you prepare some work to avoid shipping delays for your beloved customers.
In this article, we will show you some tips to ensure shoppers will receive orders in time. Check it below!
Tip 1: Notice Deadlines Of Every Shipping Carrier
No matter how popular you are in your niche, it’s essential to ship products to customers in their expected time range. Holiday sales mean that shipping carriers have to deal with increased package orders, not to mention the slowdown caused by the COVID pandemic in each country. Therefore, you’d better take notice of carrier deadlines, keep yourself updated on every change, and send goods before deadlines several days.
Here is an example of shipping deadlines on New Year’s Day 2021:
Tip: In case you miss some particular deadlines, just be honest and announce any potential delays to your customers.
Tip 2: Streamline The Fulfillment And Shipping Process
After having reviewed the holiday shipping deadlines of each carrier, it’s time for you to put the order fulfillment in the order of importance. This activity will be useful a lot in getting products to customers faster while not missing any deadline.
To get started, add tags to all of the orders showing the shipping providers and deadlines. After that, utilize the order list to filter by deadlines. The last step is choosing multiple orders and fulfilling them.
You can also prioritize your orders based on the delivery method (such as local, standard, or expedited) or order date (from newest to oldest).
Tip 3: Provide Local Delivery And Pickup
Many customers don’t start their shopping until the last minute, or they just want to add “small things” before the shipping deadlines for two or three days. Some shop owners will use expedited shipping; but due to its costliness, this is not really an optimal and perfect solution.
In this situation, you had better offer local delivery and local pickup for your customers. Both of them first came as short-term methods for merchants at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, but gradually showcased their effectiveness in boosting sales and improving the shopping experience for customers. Besides, customers can also support local businesses more easily with lower shipping fees. Such a win-win for both sides, isn’t it?
