As a retailer, choosing the option of e-commerce naturally comes with the baggage of delivering items to your customers and with the fast growth of e-commerce customers now require delivery systems that will meet their expectations and satisfaction. Delivery which used to take 5 days and even more has changed to the-next day and some retailers even do well to deliver on the same day which is raising the standard of delivery services. E-commerce business owners are burdened with offering good and reliable delivery service to their customers.
Bad delivery services are sure to take a toll on your business if not critically monitored and taken care of. These are things to consider when planning a delivery for your customer.
Delivery Time
Let us establish this; before a customer orders for a product it means they actually need it within a certain timeframe. Customers request for products like food and clothing at specific times. Imagine a hungry customer ordering for food from you and waiting for 4 hrs before receiving them or delivering some clothes a customer ordered a day after they were expecting them. E-commerce retailers are to ensure they meet the time demands of their clients to prevent losing customers. Customers can be very difficult. One might return a parcel to you because it came later than you both agreed on. Just be on time with deliveries. Personally I have been disappointed by a lot of retailers in relation to delivery time and my response is to permanently delete that retailer from my purchasing memory.
Handling items
Customers have complained time and time again of parcels being mishandled or tampered with on arrival. It might be your food dripping with oil, gadget broken or scratched, packages unwrapped or probably clothing stained with foreign items you might not know of. Whether it is your personal delivery courier or an outsourced one, customers items should be well taken care of. There is a circulating video of a delivery personnel tampering with food items belonging to a customer before actually delivering the food to them. Retailers might be shifting the blame to the delivery persons but the customers will have you to blame so give your customer the best delivery service.
Delivery price
Pricing delivery can be very worrisome especially if your customer is miles away from you. Delivery might even be more costly than the total price of your customer’s item which might discourage your customer from purchasing from you. Customers will usually request for delivery fees even before agreeing on buying the product. On the flip side, they will gladly jump at free delivery but the trick is, you have to be focused on heading off from making losses, yet putting into consideration the pocket of your customer when pricing delivery.
Delivering the right products
In delivering items, your customer has literally given you their selection power to pick the right items for them. Even though they have seen pictures of the items ordered, they can only be sure after they have received their items since they are not present during purchases to hold, smell, feel them and make the right choices. The feeling of ordering for an item and receiving something completely different can be disastrous for your business. The frustration of one customer can cost you your reputation and lots of monies. Be completely sure of the products you are delivering to a customer, if possible take pictures of the items and seek a confirmation before doing the delivery.
Be more innovative in your delivery systems. Find various innovative ways of delivering your products. If the delivery might take more days, communicate that to your customer. Never leave a customer hanging while waiting for their delivery and give them updates about the process and they will surely be glad you did. Considering the turn customers have now taken to sit at the comfort of their homes and receive items purchased, retailers have no choice but to improve on their delivery services.
