If you are planning to start an online store or already you have started, shipping is one of the most important key of your online business. For it you must have your eCommerce shipping strategy and shipping policies, rates, area, carrier for hassle free order delivery.

The common mistakes that many startup company make is neglecting their shipping policy. Once you find shipping partner, you will be ignore the other related factors like rates, area of shipping. No matter, whether your online store has the best design, offer a wide range of products, but if you are unable to offer deliver order on time, you might be losing your potential customers. Before losing your customers, you need to have a proper shipping strategy.

Why You Need Shipping Strategy for Your Online Ecommerce Store?

Do you know that High shipping cost is one of the reason to loose customers? To decrease this number, you need proper plan the shipping policies and best rates.

Many times you would have noticed that a visitor lands into your website, choose a product, and add it to its shopping cart. However, he leaves the cart in the checkout. Why? Because of the high shipping charges that have compensated with the discount that you were offering. While defining your shopping strategy, you need it to your customer without your business getting broke. Let’s check out some of the basic shipping strategies that you need to include for your eCommerce store.

Set Your Shipping Rates By Weight
Because your shipping partner charges you for item’s weight and not cost. Obviously, you are going to charge our customers shipping as per the shipping partner. To find your shipping rates, first check the applied weight of your product. TRUXCARGO lets you know about the applied weight of your order. You can also calculate the applied weight of your product by referring to this blog.

Get Combination Of Shipping Rates
If you are unable to offer free or flat shipping for your products, you can easily choose a combination of shipping rates for different products or according to the total amount at checkout. For example, you can offer free shipping on products with high profit margin. Or you can set tabs for shipping charges like if the total amount is upto Rs. 1500, charge Rs. 100 as shipping cost. Above that, you can offer free shipping. Analyze your products and profit margins and set tabs accordingly.

Make Transparent Shipping Policies
Mention your shipping policies clearly on your website. This will be  clear doubts of your customer but also enhances your brand reputation. Offer the shipping rate tabs, carrier services, shipping areas etc.

Are you owning an online store or selling up as one of the multi-seller marketplaces? What is the major challenge that you face on an everyday basis? What is the one segment that can greatly increase your operational efficiency? However, the industry evolves immensely well for the last five years but delivers products timely and remains as one of the main challenges.

The customer is the king and you must keep them happy since this is the best key towards success for any business. This is specifically true for the extremely competitive e-commerce market. Instead of having one of the best products and most competitive pricing website may easily turn to lose customers if the product delivery is not accurate as per the customer’s requirement. You may assist the best shopping experience to your customers over your web store however once the product leaves your warehouse the things turn no longer within your control. Your goodwill is totally dependent upon the services of the eCommerce logistics companies that you have partnered with.

Selecting up the right shipping partner is quite crucial for any business. It may be the single most important factor to decide the success or failure of your business. If you select an unreliable shipping partner, your customers acquire a bad experience and may move to your competitors. Make sure that you don’t go for too high priced shipping services so that it may not eat away all your profit margins. So, it is very important that every business owner selects a logistic solution for eCommerce after carefully analysing it over certain facts. Ensure that you ask the following questions before you finalise your shipping partner.

Do they assist you with end to end delivery?

Make sure that you check out the end to end delivery channels of your shipping provider. A reliable partner must be the one that can ensure efficient, effective and transportation of goods on time across the length and breadth of the country. Specifically, the courier organisations tie-up with local partners to manage delivery to the remotest areas. Moving goods immediately and safely turn to be of prime significance. Check the first mile, within transit, and last-mile delivery of your partner before you finalise the eCommerce logistics companies for your business.

Do the company offer you Insurance?

Over the average 7-10% of orders get lost within transit and if the item is not insured then the merchant has to bear the cost of the lost product. Within some other cases, deliveries get misplaced and the delivery may take weeks or even months. This basically happens due to an error in labelling, wrong or missing PIN code, infrastructural issues, or some other factors that are beyond the control of the courier agency. It becomes out imperative with the scope that includes every seller to check the insurance policy of their eCommerce delivery service. Never shake hands with any organisation that does not understand its insurance policies, how your shipments get covered, how to dispute, how to file a claim, and how to calculate the value of your parcel to insure it.

Are they Cost-effective?

To get a competitive rate through your shipping partner depends on your order value and the relationship with the company provider. Also, you require paying a good amount in the form of an upfront security deposit. So, inspite of going with so many tie-ups occurs to be always better to select a few reliable partners for shipping and build a good relationship with them.

Are they capable and suitable for your business model and industry?

The shipping requirements of multiple industry verticals may be different from each other as chalk and cheese. For instance, if you wish to run a cake and flower shop, you require intra city quick deliveries. Wherein, an online electronics goods shop requires nationwide delivery coverage. So, depending upon the eCommerce logistics case study of your business needs the best shipping partner who holds specialisation in your industry category.

Do you get a broad coverage?

Not every courier based organisation assists in Pan-India delivery coverage. If you go with a shipping agency that acquires a limited coverage you may lose various customers who are beyond the serviceable area. The alternative turns out to tie up with various agencies that may lead to hefty upfront security payments. You may cut on the costs while reaching out to logistics partners who offer deliveries within the areas where you may get maximum customer density.

The value for time has been on a constant rise since time unknown! Today, we want everything to happen as per schedule. Who likes delay? The same goes for businesses dealing with logistics. Whether it is sending or delivering goods, we want it on time. Air freight service is the perfect solution for the need of the hour. In fact, air freight has become an integral part of any business’s supply and transport chain.

While we have already discussed the benefits of air freight services before, we must understand that reaping the full benefits is only possible when you use trusted air freight services.

We all know that air freight service providers or air freight forwarders are the agents who act on behalf of businesses (importers and exporters) to ensure secure, efficient and cost-effective transport of goods and cargo.

You can choose from the multiple options when you type “air freight services” on google. You will also find many air freight forwarders listed on the e-marketplace. But hey! Don’t just base your decisions on deals and discounts. You should always choose a trusted air freight forwarder for your logistics.

So, why is it essential for businesses and companies to choose only trusted air freight service providers? Let’s quickly look at some important benefits of using trusted air freight services.

The logistics sector of India greatly depends on the Road transport services for freight transportation, which are further classified into two modes- LTL and FTL. Many people don’t have clarity about LTL (Less-than-truckload) vs FTL (Full Truckload),  due to which they end up availing inappropriate trucking services or road transportation services at the time of freight shipment. In this post, we have discussed everything about these two trucking solutions and can ensure that after reading this piece of content, you’ll be able to avail the right service as per your needs.

What is Freight Shipping Means?

Freight shipping is the procedure of transferring goods and commodities via land, air or sea. Commonly preferred modes of road transport services include Full Truckload (FTL), Less than truckload (LTL), and intermodal.

Though the term “shipping” was earlier used when goods are to be transported by ship but now with the advancement in the logistics industry, this term means good transportation by train, truck, plane, or ship. These days the worldwide freight shipping is possible through Ocean Freight, Air Freight, Road Transport Services, and Train Freight.

What is LTL Shipping Means?

Less than truckload (LTL) freight shipping is appropriate for transporting the small-sized freight or when cargo doesn’t need the whole trailer. This road transport shipping method is wise to choose when consignment weighs between 150 and 15,000 pounds.
In the case of LTL freight shipping services, the transporter pays for the area of a typical truck trailer their cargo occupies, while the unoccupied space is used by the shipments of other shippers.

The warehousing and distribution along with storage ways have got completely modified in today’s digital age. As most businesses are operating through warehouses, digital developments must transform the style of storage and warehousing. Why it’s so important? Firstly, it’s vital for increasing the process efficiency and secondly, for cutting down the requirement for unnecessary resources. At some point, almost all businesses selling products, store their stock in a warehouse where many manual activities take place that can result in delays and inefficiency. In order to improve the manual warehouse and distribution processes that happen inside a warehouse, many technological advancements have been made in the warehouse procedures. 

In today’s post, we have mentioned some of the advantages that warehousing and distribution companies have got with the introduction of digital tools & technologies in this domain. 

Day in and day out, your warehouse is receiving products, cataloging inventory, stocking shelves, fulfilling orders, and shipping goods to customers. There’s never a dull moment! And the key to success is having a well-trained team. Read on to learn the dos and don’ts of training warehouse employees.

Training Goals

As a trainer, your goal is to make sure your new employees are completing their work to the company’s expectations. You also want to make sure they work efficiently, but always focus on safety first. So how do you accomplish this?

Training Warehouse Employee Dos

• Do assess their skillset
  Assessing a new employee’s skillset will help you determine their greatest strengths and weakness. By learning about their experience, you’ll be able to offer meaningful feedback to improve their performance. You can also use an employee’s experience to your advantage by issuing them tasks that are a good fit for their skills.
• Do teach order tracking first
  By introducing order tracking at the outset of your training, warehouse employees will better understand how each of their tasks is interconnected with the warehouse supply chain. They will be able to see the big picture and will gain greater knowledge of picking strategies to fulfill orders, zones, and overall product organization.
• Do reward consistent work
  Rewarding employees who are doing consistent work will help keep morale and motivation levels high. Make an effort to acknowledge their contributions in front of your team. Doing so will help you instill pride of work and build a sense of camaraderie among employees.

Training Warehouse Employee Don’ts

• Don’t be hard to find
  New employees will inevitably have questions about warehouse processes. Make sure you’re available or that they have a resource they can go to with questions at all times. If an employee has to track you down every time they need an answer or if they get a hurried response, they can become discouraged and disengaged.
• Don’t overwhelm new workers
  You hire employees because you need help, so it can be easy to inundate your trainees. But you have to be careful about offloading too much, too quickly. Overwhelming new workers can lead to more mistakes and can result in burnout and low productivity.
• Don’t forget you were once a new employee
  Think about your own warehouse training experience use it to enhance your training strategies. Also, do your best to have patience as your trainees learn — and make all the same mistakes you made all those years ago. It’s easy to get frustrated, but it’s important not to lose sight of what your years of experience have taught you.

With a little planning and thoughtfulness, you can get new employees up to speed quickly, so warehouse operations continue to run efficiently.

Whether transporting food from farms to stores or shipping raw materials to manufacturers, our society wouldn’t survive without freight shipping. While the industry continues to motor forward, technological advancements are changing the future of freight. Let’s take a look at some of the innovations we may be seeing in the coming years.

• Technology is Shaping Logistics and Warehouse Management

  When it comes to logistics, the Internet of Things (IoT) takes center stage. IoT increases connectivity between computer systems in real time to share large amounts of data. Warehouse management software, distribution technologies, and LTL carrier computer systems are continually improving their abilities to track shipment routes, truck locations, and product deliveries.

  Warehouse managers and logistics companies can reap the benefits of IoT due to better transportation transparency. When a problem arises with a shipment, such as a truck breaking down or a damaged pallet of products, better-informed decisions can be made to remedy the issue. Soon, transportation efficiencies will be within reach of more LTL carriers as they adopt new technologies and software.

• Electronic Logging Devices (ELDs) Will Increase Safety

  ELDs increase trucker safety by removing human error from driver log reporting. How do they work?

  ELD sensors attach to a truck engine and automatically record driving time. Software then transfers the recorded data to hours of service records (HOS), giving LTL fleet companies instant access to accurate driver transportation logs. This enables LTL carriers to make better shipment schedules so drivers don’t suffer fatigue, which can cause driving accidents.

• Self-Driving Trucks May Fill Empty Trucking Positions

  Finding qualified LTL drivers has been a growing issue for years. Today, carriers are investigating new solutions. Self-driving trucks are being tested, and may eventually be a viable option for long and short-haul jobs.

  Removing a human driver from the equation may increase safety by eliminating fatigue risk. It will also dramatically reduce transportation costs, and will allow LTL carriers to expand routes to locations that were previously not feasible.

A wide range of innovations are taking shape in the freight-transportation industry. From better logistics tools to self-driving trucks, these technologies will have a significant impact on the future of freight shipping.

What are the logistics and transportation working for?

The whole process of creating products from raw materials leads to its delivery to consumers. Who are these consumers? The customers for whom the companies work.

The customers for whose satisfaction is the high demand in the market. These customers can be vendors, shopkeepers or wholesalers or simply the population of a country, i.e. the common people. Whatever the shopkeepers or vendors are doing buying those products are only for the common people.

So, the basic pedestal of it all is and should be customer satisfaction and requirement.

If customer requirement is faltered with, the loss is of the company’s not the customers. Let’s take a look at what could go wrong if the whole process of logistics management is manipulated with.

Risks In a Logistics Management

There are multiple risk factors leading to the faults that might occur in the process, or operation stages of logistics management.
The ones that are highly risked and so highly taken care of are the things related to the product or to be more precise, the end product.
Let’s dive into the risking factors leading to a bad customer review or experience-
– Poor planning: Poor logistics planning leads to the disbalancing of the whole process by a rapturous increase in the expenses and overall structure of the work done/to be done. The problems may not be witnessed in the initial stages but the implementation stage gradually leads to the showcase of the issues and in the processes ahead.
Planning is the very first stage and everything depends on it, so it is the most crucial stage of all and should be taken care of suitably.
– Fault in initial stages should never be ignored as it carries forward to the later ones and finally the end product is affected which then leads to customers being displeased.
– Failed deliveries are the worst experience for any customer and lead to a bad outlook of the overall company and brand name. Plus compensating for such faults takes an extra amount of money and time.
– Delayed deliveries create anxiousness amongst customers leading to a bad
impression for both, the company and the customers.
– Damaged deliveries are a real pain for it happens in situations which are
completely overlooked and are not attended to properly which otherwise could have been improved and taken care of. Such damages to the end result only make a wrong impression with total disbelief in the brand. s they say the first impression is the last impression, it shakes the trust issues of the customers towards the company probably leading them to not consider it the next time. It also takes the whole time, effort and investment in replacing the product and mending it leading to a loss.

So, if these issues are to be swiped away from your view and customer satisfaction is your first priority and concern, then Truxcargo is the right choice. The experienced workers, highly equipped with skills know what solution is to be served to whic problem, our resources and sources are determined and well known for their efficiency and effectiveness.