E-commerce : The guide to perfect delivery

E-commerce delivery in a few figures

Delivery, a key stage in customer engagement and loyalty

If purchases are increasingly made online, delivery is more than ever key! For 67% of French consumers surveyed, quantity and delivery time are the most important criteria for buying online. In a world where the majority of sales are made online, ensuring and guaranteeing omnichannel delivery services that meet consumers' expectations is essential for brands.

The average failure rate of online sales was about 20%. This means that online sales are lost at the delivery stage. This can happen because of non-compliant delivery. Nearly 1 in 10 people abandon their shopping cart due to unclear shipping and return policies.

Over to the transparency policy, the services and delivery options weigh in the balance for the choice of e-merchant. 58% of the French abandoned their basket before purchasing because the delivery options did not suit them. (source: IFOP)

According to a study by Klarna, French buyers have three main reasons for not buying on the Internet. In the top 3, in the first place, high delivery costs represent the biggest break for the e-consumer, then the uncertain and non-communicated delivery times, and finally in the third position, the too complex order return system.

Product delivery, shipping management, and tracking are key steps in the sales process. A perfect delivery is the guarantee of a positive customer experience and can become a determining factor in the choice of one e-tailer over another.

What are the secrets of successful delivery? How to master all the delivery steps? What are the challenges of e-commerce delivery? How does Woop enrich/develop/improve/augment help you keep/track your delivery promise?

Five steps to mastering seamless delivery

1. Delivery solutions that adapt to consumers' lives

While distance selling is on the rise, consumers are becoming more demanding about how products are transported. This complexity also manifests itself in the types and promises of delivery that a retailer must be able to offer to remain competitive and meet the expectations of its customers:

• Deliveries by appointment, in 30 minutes, in 2 hours, the same day, on D+1...
• Ecological deliveries: thanks to fleets of 100% carbon-free vehicles (logistics bicycles, electric vehicles) to continue delivering in the city.
• Deliveries with additional services (white gloves, installation, material or packaging recovery, etc.),
• Deliveries according to the type of product (heavy, bulky, fresh/frozen, fragile, etc.)

A single carrier cannot meet all of these needs; it is necessary to be able to rely on a multitude of partners, each with its specificities.

Nota bene: among those who buy online, 53% say they take into account environmental, ethical, and responsible issues when making their purchase. Green consumption is therefore on the rise and e-commerce companies must take this into account by ensuring that their practices are sustainable and environmentally friendly. The market is in full transformation and ecological transition at the request of consumers.

2. Choosing a trusted carrier

E-commerce players need to adjust and develop their logistic strategies, especially by calling upon transport partners able to meet consumers' demands. Nevertheless, the choice of a transport partner is not trivial for both retailers and customers. Each delivery must be experienced by the consumer as a unique moment, so the customer experience must be seamless at every step of the shopping experience until the package is received.

For each delivery, the Woop platform manages the eligibility of carriers according to the area to be delivered, the type of product, or the expected service and selects the best one according to the choice criteria selected beforehand for the brand: price, quality of service and/or environmental impact.

An ecosystem of trusted carriers ensures broad coverage and a multitude of delivery options for the consumer, as well as peace of mind for all stakeholders.

3. Real-time tracking to keep the promise

During delivery, the customer experience must be seamless. After ordering online, nothing is more frustrating than being sent back to the carrier's website to track your delivery, the contact between the end customer and their favorite brand is broken.

The customer must be accompanied through the delivery process until the package is received. It is therefore important to inform the customer at every important step of the delivery process so that they have the best possible experience.

By customizing email notifications and tracking pages, brands don't lose traffic by sending consumers to carrier pages. Woop offers brands the ability to manage this step from start to finish.

In addition, tracking allows to indicate to customers where their package is and to warn them in case of delay. Of course, this approach implies knowing, in real-time, where the customers' orders are located.

Thanks to this personalization, the consumer has the feeling of being accompanied until the end of his purchase and that he can trust the chosen brand. This helps establish the brand's credibility over the long term and guarantees the consumer's peace of mind.

4. Post-purchase: a lever for growth and differentiation

In a post-purchase customer strategy, listening to the consumer is essential to ensure their satisfaction. By accompanying consumers throughout this post-purchase phase, the brand creates a relationship of trust, conducive to surveys concerning their experience with the brand. Also, generating a survey after each delivery allows for measuring the satisfaction of the consumers.

Finally, delivery is involved at all stages of the customer experience: upstream, when the brand is chosen, at the time of the order as a selling point, and the end when the customer receives the package. However, this experience does not stop once the package is delivered.

Indeed, returns are often a source of dissatisfaction for the customer. The main reasons for this are a high cost of return or an overly complex return process. More than half of French consumers say they systematically consult return policies at the time of ordering. Thus, even at the very end of the process, delivery impacts purchases and especially future purchases.

By facilitating package returns, customers become empowered. They have an automatically generated return label with their order, so the customer feels in control of their purchase from start to finish.

5. Data: the gold mine for performance

Data is essential to analyzing your performance. It is advisable to opt for an e-commerce delivery solution that can provide you with statistics on the deliverability of your packages, but also on the return and complaint rates.

The data collected and its new technologies will undoubtedly optimize parcel delivery. They are used to improve delivery routes and to help in the decision-making process when choosing the carrier who will deliver the parcels. The analysis of these data and KPIs provides brands with numerous opportunities to optimize their logistics management and improve customer satisfaction during the purchasing process.

Finally

With the increase in online orders, last-mile delivery is more important than ever. The challenge is to successfully orchestrate all delivery modes by optimizing flows and associated costs while ensuring fast, high-quality shipping. Thus, optimizing, streamlining, and simplifying delivery is a real asset to improving the last-mile delivery process. Woop accelerates your last-mile logistics.

Our Woop technology platform is available as a software-as-a-service and requires no on-site software installation.

For each delivery, the Woop platform automatically proposes different transport scenarios according to predefined criteria - price, quality of service, carbon impact - thus allowing you to choose the best offer at the best price, while favouring soft mobility as soon as possible.