Optimize your customer’s eCommerce experience from point of order to delivery

Many companies have recently been forced to take their operations online. This means that competition in eCommerce is at an all-time high, but so are online sales. But selling online is not as easy as putting your products on a website. You can have the best products in your industry, but if your customer journey and logistical fulfilment don’t delight your customers, you will have too little return customers to sustain your business.

Your website is not just an extension of your business. It is a paradigm shift, a new business inside your business. It is also a great opportunity to further grow your business. Online business done right can boost your company’s performance. If you set yourself up to delight customers and create a good online reputation, your business will grow. The fact that setting up a website using tools like Shopify, WordPress or Wix has become so quick and easy makes eCommerce seem simple.

When extending your brick-and-mortar business into an online shop, the business dynamics and logistics change. Your staff requirements are different and your customer service needs to change too. Moreover the way you fulfil an online order is completely different to the way you handle sales in a shop – simply handing over a product to someone who physically picked it up from the shelf and brought it to your till requires very different logistics to someone buying a product from your website and getting it delivered to their home or business.

Selling online requires a smart fulfilment process; delivery logistics as well as stock calculations are of utmost importance in order to avoid disappointing customers. Often this requires big operational changes that stress internal logistics and break existing systems and procedures.

So what can you do to make sure that your eCommerce website fulfils customer expectations and delivers business growth?

1. Make your eCommerce website responsive and stay up to date with tech developments
   The first step is to make sure your website loads fast and is easy to access on most devices. Many people buy from their phones, so you’ll lose a lot of business if your website doesn’t offer a good experience on smartphones.
2. Provide top notch website customer service
   Research by Paul Farris of Marketing Metrics shows that “A repeat customer has a 60 to 70% chance of converting.”. This means that people who have already purchased from you are more likely to buy from you again. But this can only happen if you offer an optimal customer journey and smooth delivery/order fulfilment. Statistics like this give you insight into the scaling potential of eCommerce. It’s important for staff to answer online enquiries and understand your online customer’s expectations. Online buyers want to receive the product they ordered as soon as possible, without incurring extra costs. This is why your website needs reliable delivery calculations, on point delivery time estimates and a professional, trackable delivery service.
3. Integrating your website with your online shop
   eCommerce sites present a stock challenge, especially when you also have a brick and mortar outlet. If someone orders online whilst a product is in someone’s cart in the shop, you might end up selling something you don’t have in stock. This is why it’s important to use a system that calculates stock buffers and also integrates with your P.O.S system in every outlet. If customers order online and then don’t get their product because it ran out, they will buy from a competitor, and take their loyalty elsewhere.
4. Outsource your delivery lock stock and barrel
   Many companies don’t have the internal logistics and fleet in place to fulfil deliveries efficiently. In times like these, especially in a small place like Malta, where reputation travels fast, you don’t have the luxury to learning from your mistakes. This is why a lot of companies are choosing to outsource their delivery lock stock and barrel. Some even go as far as hiring warehousing services so they don’t need to handle anything apart from the website support.

Today, outsourcing is the best way to enter the market quickly and effectively. At Miles Express we offer a comprehensive online shop logistics/delivery service.

Using our tailored advanced API technology, we connect all your points of sale and website seamlessly with our system, guiding you on how to improve your customer journey along the way.

Once this is up and running, every order that comes through the website is our responsibility. Our 30 years of experience in distribution and logistics, mean that your delivery is in the safest hands and you can rest assured your customers will be delighted.

Would you like to understand how we can help you tackle your eCommerce logistics?   Book a call-back here or Call (+356) 2124 0877

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