The world of eCommerce is growing by leaps and bounds every day. Consumers around the globe have several reasons to buy online. Shopping from the comfort of a couch without visiting a physical store while enjoying the benefits of purchasing from the brick-and-mortar store brings convenience and eases the shopping process. We all would love to shop during holidays and special days, even before online stores existed.

Earlier, we used to shop from physical stores during these days. Today, customers have switched to online stores for shopping to avail themselves of special deals and free holiday delivery. With the pandemic still looming around us, the holiday season is a great way to make the most out of it. During the last pandemic holiday season in 2020, eCommerce stores made big sales and, it continues to go with the trend during this season. 

However, notwithstanding the predictions, there is always a concern for eCommerce sellers due to delayed shipping. Order delivery gets affected by several unforeseen factors such as traffic, weather, natural calamities. That said, eCommerce business owners should develop a compelling holiday fulfilment strategy to improve their order fulfilment process.   

How to enhance your holiday delivery by improving order fulfilment and shipping strategy?  

Your fulfilment strategies also influence the shipping speed. How fast you implement order processing after customer checkout is one of the important things under consideration, particularly when you aim for holiday delivery during ecommerce christmas shopping. You should speed up the delivery process starting from the fulfilment process while developing a holiday shipping strategy. When you begin the order fulfilment process soon as the customer leaves the payment page, you can make deliveries fast.

Make sure that no significant time loses between payment processing and pickup. It helps your shipping partner start the transit process early to ensure that customers get their products on time. As an online store owner, you stock up inventory for meeting the last-minute holiday shopping by your customers. At this juncture, when you are all set and expecting to hit the whopping sales of the year, we have listed out a few methods to keep your sales improved by attracting more customers through proper holiday delivery strategies. 

1. Streamline fulfilment process and accuracy  

It is imperative to avoid situations that stir up trouble and result in customer dissatisfaction. The eCommerce sellers should immediately implement processing, picking, packaging and fulfilling and shipping without errors when receiving customer orders. Keeping an eye on the fulfilment time alongside streamlining these activities help save time in all situations and especially when customers shop online during holidays.

Around one-third of consumers shop for gifts just ten days before Christmas day. As an eCommerce merchant, you can partner with a fulfilment centre and outsource some of your holiday delivery to hasten the shipping process and handle the orders from last-minute gift buyers. It also minimises errors and keeps everything in place during the last-minute crush arising from a surge in customer orders.  

2. On-demand warehousing  

If you expect a lot of rush during the holiday week and suspect if you can meet all orders in time, seek the help of an on-demand warehousing service. The eCommerce sellers use on-demand warehousing for storing inventory and processing fulfilment through the utilisation of the temporary space from warehouses that possess an excess capacity for prompt holiday delivery. It is ideal for meeting the increase in customer orders during the holiday season.

Small businesses and start-ups find on-demand warehousing effective because it is better to rent a warehouse space than to build a new one when you have to meet the sudden surge for a short period only. With the help of on-demand warehousing, eCommerce owners can use the space when the need arises. Further, it reduces the burden of the sudden increase in order fulfilment requirements and helps make deliveries reach faster and reduce transit times.   

3. Reduce shipping rates  

Make use of the discounted rates through negotiation with the courier delivery service or choose to work with multiple courier companies to make shipping costs affordable for your customers. If possible, even you can offer free shipping as well. Shipping charges impact the buying decisions of over 95 per cent of your customers.

Nine times out of ten customers are likely to buy from shops that offer free shipping. During the holiday season, buyers look for special deals for products and free christmas shipping. Further, your customers would purchase more if they are given the opportunity to avail of free shipping if they buy up to a certain amount. If you do not want to end up with customer churn due to shopping cart abandonment, consider offering customers free shipping during holiday seasons.  

4. Communicate Shipping Deadlines  

Your customers need to know the time required for shipping their orders, the choice of shipping methods and the deadlines on orders for christmas guaranteed delivery. So, if you have worked it out clearly, inform your customers well in advance before the deadline approaches. You can notify your customers about the deadlines for christmas shipping alongside the graphics you have created for promotions on the home page for a holiday sale.

For instance, ‘Order by December 20 and get guaranteed Christmas delivery’ as a pop-up message or with the promotional banners that your customers notice the alert without fail. Your customers would appreciate it and, there will be hardly any emails and queries, which is a good thing to avoid during the rush hour. Meeting customer expectations on holiday delivery enhances their contentment, helping you gain repeat customers.   

Ship Your Goods Through Ianis Cargo  

Address all your concerns in shipping while moving your eCommerce order deliveries through Ianis Cargo. We assure you the safest and reliable ways for pickup and delivery of products from e-fulfilment centres and hubs as soon as customers make payments. We support integrated automation and shipping solutions that eCommerce owners can connect their stores with ours using our shipping APIs. Besides, we allow real-time tracking of products shipped starting from pick up to delivery point. Your customers can monitor the shipment status on all deliveries including, holiday delivery during transit, by offering complete end-to-end visibility!