Start right now
The holiday season will formally begin on Black Friday, but the bulk of holiday planning takes place in late summer for many e-commerce companies. When Labor Day rolls around, you’re going to want to be completely involved in the study process. You need to have a schedule before you can order your Q4 supplies and inventory and make necessary changes to your website. Many popular organizations begin analyzing the past holiday season as soon as they can to plan out the next holiday rush.
It’s already scorching outside, and the scent of sunscreen hasn’t disappeared from most people’s laundry, so it’s not advisable to miss preparation when it comes to holiday shipping and performance. Through planning ahead, businesses will guarantee that they are packed, staffed, and on their way to smooth delivery as the peak time of year is reached. Use our dimensional weight calculator to start shipping your product.
Operations are the foundation of your shipping function—and hence your whole eCommerce business. Optimizing the office configuration, procedures, inventory, printing/packing supplies, tools, and holiday season workers will all help reduce costs. Beyond that seamless delivery, processes mean that your orders are correct, that shipments are packaged quickly and attractively, and that they land in your customers’ hands-on time—all of which make for a better consumer experience. As an additional bonus, excellently operations will allow the workers to have a happier holiday!
Outlook your schedule
For too many choices open to customers, company owners have a decision to make when it comes to holiday delivery. Plan well in advance for the right parties to determine what your holiday timetable will be; decide your cut-off delivery times, shipping costs, and any shipping specials that you might choose to run. It is safer to let consumers know these early in the season so that there are no surprises during the performance. On the basis of a new survey by distribution service, Dropoff, about 77% of customers are preparing to do last-minute shopping. That’s a major 15 percent improvement from the 2017 season. Stop dissatisfaction by making transparent cuts and shipping schedules.
Check your shipping deal
Ask shipping firms if you have any concerns about the holiday season. It’s key to the bottom line. Companies waiting to hammer out the terms of the delivery deal would definitely end up paying the top dollar on their exports. By looking ahead and taking note of any gaps, businesses will compensate for shipping costs.
Transform the packaging method
When you have checked shipping rates and procedures with your supplier, find out how you can reduce your costs any further. Smaller packages always incur lower costs, so that right-sized product packaging can transform your shipping costs. Before we can have a holiday, we would love to review your packaging system. If it’s a cushioning option or a right-sizing kit that your organization wants, we will work together to get the best plan.
Prepare and adequately plan the inventory for the purchasing of holidays
When October arrives, you’ll need to start buying supplies like bottles, tape, stickers, and bubble wrap. Your inventory needs to be ordered, and your storage plan needs to be in place. Get acquainted with some new applications that you can integrate into your workflow—selling platforms, inventory tracking solutions, CRMs, and shipping software.
Understand what additional freight costs are included with the overhead.
You will inevitably face increased expenses during the holiday season. By ordering more inventory, more materials, and more demand, you’re going to have to brace financially. Like we have done before, there are a number of consumer expectations about shipping costs and expected delivery times. Instead of a one-size-fits-all solution or overwhelming your consumers with so many shipping solutions, you can provide two or three shipping options.
Offering free delivery with a cost-effective minimum order threshold is the most common path for companies to take. Consider options such as “free shipping for orders over $75.”
If you market goods that range widely in size and weight, domestic shipments typically do not fluctuate too much from shipment to shipment. For eg, “$5 shipping on any domestic order.”
 Consider tracking holiday deliveries
If you use our tracking emails or your marketplaces, the shipment tracking connection would normally carry your customer to the carrier website. And we all know who the website belongs to—the carrier has its badge, it’s branding, its ties, all of the tracking page. Why? Why? And they know that the client is going to visit it several times.
Don’t take your clients away from your company to the carrier website anymore. Instead, you direct them to a page with not only a map showing where their package is now, but one with your logo, your website, and your social media accounts. It also has a policy on your return and service connections! The branded monitoring page is a way to make your business—no matter how big—look bigger and better.
Offer More This Holiday Season The Perfect Shipping Plan
Preparing for a holiday rush includes planning, extensive analysis, and additional work during the year. From setting the timetable for the procurement of materials and merchandise to ramping up the warehouse staff, holiday planning requires a lot of work. A successful holiday shipping plan would help you to handle the busiest time of year successfully and boost sales.
1-Make shipping a sales option
We’re in a new gold rush as e-commerce vendors. Although you can make it rich, the latest rivalry can reach the market every day. Online retailers invest enormous time in identifying and retaining buyers. But if they don’t buy, these efforts are lost. A lot of businesses are missing the main aspect of the consumer’s journey—delivery. However, the distribution of packages should not be taken lightly. Shipping is the last point of interaction the consumer has with your brand.
2-Give shipping free of charge
Shipping has a huge influence on shoppers. Customer shipping needs to turn in further orders. Customers search around over the holidays to get the latest deals. Offering goods with the lowest price is not necessarily enough to draw buyers. If your goods are inexpensive but delivery costs inflate the cost so much, you run the risk of losing your cart.
What do consumers actually want in a huge debate about fast and free?
It is clear that free shipping is favored. But it’s pricey, though. Unless you send USPS First Class Mail for small shipments, free shipping will harm your profit margins.
3-Provide accelerated distribution
The holiday season confirms retail patterns as well as modifying them. The cart features that most consumers want are still available, but customers still want additional options. For example, free shipping is a normal option that most consumers prefer. However, fast shipping is particularly critical during holidays. During holidays, consumers tend to favor luxury shipping options to gift delivery. Purchasing presents for other individuals makes consumers more immediate.
4-Deliver an outstanding unboxing experience with perfect packaging.
The packaging is no longer about ‘packaging’ for a product—part it’s of the consumer experience. Although many firms perceive personalized packaging to be an unnecessary expense and look for ways to reduce it, smart companies see it as an area for branding and cultivating loyal customers.
The packaging is the first actual point of communication between the goods and the consumer. Brand packaging conveys a lot and is the secret to the brand’s first positive experience.
5-Start gaining clients with fast returns on vacation
Returns can not be used as a means to improve the market, as returns are not the ideal outcome for a buyer or a broker. Yet understanding that a business promises fast returns is a big selling point for many customers. Give more hassle-free returns to draw buyers from the rivals. This is especially relevant during the holiday season. Buying for another can be tricky, and the buyers want to make sure that the buyer is satisfied with the present, even though it needs an exchange.
6- Create a plan for the distribution and fulfillment operation.
If you know what steps the shipment and distribution process entails?
If the answer is no, now is the time to find out; if the answer is yes because you haven’t written it down, now is the time to do so as well. Getting the procedure out of your mind and onto paper will help alert any staff mates or last-minute family “volunteers” who might be assisting you with order fulfillment during busy times. It’s also a smart idea to review the shipping policy to ensure that it’s still applicable for peak season, as circumstances may have changed.
Pay careful attention to the next few orders you ship to find out what the procedure is, or check in with your staff as they handle the delivery. Have a list of each move and keep track of how long it takes (approximate times are fine).
7-Buy and print shipping labels in bulk to save time.
To help you save time on and order you fulfill, Shopify allows you to purchase and print several shipping labels at the same time, reducing the amount of time you waste completing orders. When you shop with Shopify, you’ll also have access to negotiated delivery prices for USPS, DHL, UPS in the United States, Canada Post in Canada, and Sendle in Australia.
To begin, simply navigate to your Orders page and pick the orders you want to fulfill.
When you choose “Create shipping labels,” you’ll see a complete list of shipping costs and information on all of the orders you’ve chosen.
8-Set up local distribution or pick-up for nearby consumers.
When customer behavior changes, so do the method by which you deliver your goods to them. Local delivery and local pick-up options allow you to communicate with the local market, placing more power in your hands rather than a third-party carrier’s.
Shopify Local Delivery is simple to set up. To ease distribution, you can then use the Shopify Local Delivery app to create and exchange optimized delivery routes. When it is time to deliver, delivery personnel and drivers can use the software on iOS or Android to get instructions, send alerts, and get delivery status updates.
Will you need a solution?
Associated Packaging’s Dim Weight Solutions will transform the packaging and shipping behaviors of corporations. We will be happy to find a solution that is right for your business.
