In an era plagued with supply chain issues, order fulfillment strategies are as important as ever.
From advertising to product information to confirmation email, direct-to-consumer brands are used to controlling the entire purchase process. But once the order has been confirmed, delivery and possibly even the picking and packing (for brands making use of dropshipping) is handled by a third party.
For brands that work hard to cultivate their relationships with their customers and make the customer journey as seamless as possible, this can induce anxiety.
While the term is often thrown around, it’s important to break down what a fulfillment strategy is.
An order fulfillment strategy is the methods, processes, and technologies that a company uses to deliver products and services to their customers.
While the number may vary, professionals agree there are several stages or steps to achieve a successful order fulfillment strategy:
Marketing metrics often overlook the high rate of e-commerce product returns, which is extremely costly to retailers. As global e-commerce continues to grow, the amount of returns is expected to cost retailers more than a trillion dollars a year.
There are several ways that to make sure your order fulfillment strategies go smoothly.
Here are three fulfillment strategies for providing reliable, efficient, and even revenue-generating tracking and delivery:
Last mile delivery is critical for wholesale success. Learn about fulfillment options like vending kiosks that can boost customer satisfaction.
Brands are adding more delivery partners because they need more capacity and international reach to serve a global customer base, but this comes with additional complexities. They must determine how new carriers will integrate systems and pass essential data back and forth.
For example, if a customer ordered a pair of Nikes, it’s unlikely they’re going to call UPS when their order is nowhere to be found; after all, their relationship thus far has been with the brand.
Being able to close the loop with customers and have the fulfillment information they seek on-hand is a requirement to continue meeting their customer service expectations.
Brands can get ahead of this by leveraging consistent access to shipping data from last-mile partners for proactive customer service. Leading retailers will tell consumers that their packages are delayed, instead of forcing them to hit refresh on the tracking page every hour. It’s on brands to set expectations for delivery and reset them when circumstances change.
Retailers also can get notifications from delivery partners when a package is lost or damaged so they can proactively create a customer service ticket and reach out to customers before they have to dial the customer service line in frustration.
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For example, UPS might pass on a package from a major brand to the US Postal Service because they are the only shipping option in a rural area.
While this enables the initial delivery partner to complete this delivery for their brand partner, it makes it that much more difficult to get accurate and timely data back to the brand. Having a tight grasp of who is delivering the package and what the estimated delivery date is can help brands preserve trust with their customers.
With new digital technologies intersecting and combining, the postal industry – and the organizations they work with – cannot afford to wait to begin their initiatives.
Other important elements of order fulfillment strategies are shipping and delivery confirmation and tracking emails simply because customers pay attention to them.
The numbers say it all: Confirmation emails are opened around 60% of the time, while the average retail email sent via Mailchimp has an 18.39% open rate.
When used to their fullest extent, confirmation emails can serve as an opportunity to encourage another purchase or provide educational information that deepens the consumer relationship. This must be approached in a tasteful way so that customers are receptive. It must be a soft sell (if it aims to sell at all) to be welcomed by this captive audience.
And the communication shouldn’t stop after the package has been delivered. Brands can reengage the customer again after the package has been delivered to ask how happy they were with the delivery. This can provide good insight into who your best delivery partners are.
D2C brands have to be that much more diligent about who they choose to partner with because reputation is everything when competitors are just a click away.
This holiday season is likely to see another spike in online shopping and many retailers have been getting shoppers ready with early Black Friday deals to avoid a rush they can’t handle. Last-mile order fulfillment will be essential to both get orders to customers on time and to build long-lasting relationships that boost customer lifetime value.
