Shipping services have a significant impact on your business. The right shipping service will decide how smoothly your business operates, so you must allocate a lot of time to this critical decision.
There will be telltale signs of good shipping service, just like there are telltale signs of a good seller. Shipping partners or services are a crucial element of any business model, especially online business models that operate through dropshipping, Amazon FBA, or any business whose fulfillment process is by shipping a product to a customer.
If you’re looking around for shipping service, keep an eye out for the indicators below that signal right away that a particular supplier is a promising option:
Knowledgeable- A good shipping service usually has a sales representative or staff equipped with knowledge regarding industry needs, and they are trained to be knowledgeable in industry trends and the product lines they are dealing with. If you are in a niche product line, calling these sales reps and getting their invaluable insight is an asset to your business, especially when you’re new.
Professionalism – A single shipping contact who deals exclusively with your business and is catered to solving your issues is essential and crucial. When you ring up a professional and credible shipping service, you will usually be assigned to an individual sales representative. They will not only deal with your issues but also ensure that they are with every step of the way with you from the introduction, product information, and make a sale, sometimes even after-sales. They also practice good email etiquette, including a timely response rate. Making a call or manually placing orders on the website is a tedious task. Not only is it time-intensive, but it is also cutting back on your resources. Their staff is excellent, and so are their operating systems and website. Being organized and efficient helps minimize errors, saves time, and keeps both parties happy.
Tech-Savvy –Professional shipping services know how important keeping up with technology is, which is why they invest in technology. We’re living in a digital age, and the truth is that no business can survive without technology. Professional shipping services understand the benefits of having a well-functioning website and a chat function where you can easily connect to a representative if you encounter any shipping issues. You want to target these shipping services because they’re much easier to work with. Shipping services with a comprehensive product catalog online, searchable order history, and connections to different courier services in other parts of the world make your life easy too.
Location – Conveniently located shipping services also allow you to consistently promote faster delivery times to your customers, saving you more money on fees and having a happy customer. Being easily accessible location-wise makes reaching out and locating them more effortless when needed. Location is imperative, and a shipping supplier that is situated conveniently means packages can be shipped and delivered within 2 to 3 business days. Suppliers in coastal areas often take a week or more to get orders shipped and delivered, impacting your sales.
As a seller, the best advice would be for you to go with an Ekspedisi same day option at least until your business has picked up the pace. Here are the three primary options you could consider in the early stages of your business:
Private Shipping – It is not uncommon for new sellers to run their new business out of their garage or a temporary warehouse. You will unlikely have a lot of capital to work within the
beginning. What you can consider as a shipping option is to go with the private shipping method. You will store your products in your garage once the supplier has sent them to you. Then once a customer has placed an order, you would ship it to the customer by yourself.
This approach could work well during the early stages of your business when the orders are not rolling in yet. It allows you to add a personal touch to all your orders. Adding a customized note to your packaging for your customers makes you stand out because not many established sellers might have the time to do this. Personal notes are also an excellent way to introduce yourself to your customers when you are new. With the private shipping option, you are familiar with what is going on every step of the way because you are handling it yourself.
FBA Shipping – This is the most convenient and time-saving way to fulfill your orders. Opening your Amazon shop and letting Amazon handle the process is one of the easiest ways you can do shipping. You can focus on other aspects of your business, like developing your reputation. The small fees that the platform charges to handle the entire process for you are a small price compared to the workload and the headache you are saving yourself from. In this process, the most significant part of your job would be getting your product safely to Amazon’s warehouses. The team will take it from there once your products have arrived.
Dropshipping – Dropshipping is part of the retail world. The retail model is defined as a store that allows you to sell merchandise and products without physically holding onto any of the
inventory. This means that you don’t physically keep the products with you on
hand or in stock. This eliminates the need for your brick-and-mortar store to keep an inventory of these items or even rent a warehouse where you’d need to keep these products until a customer orders them. When a customer orders a product, what happens is that the seller will then
purchase the item from a third-party vendor. The merchant will not be directly handling or seeing the product in question. This third-party vendor is responsible for shipping the item now to the customer. Third-party suppliers focus on manufacturing or wholesaling. This type of retail partner works with the drop-ship supplier, who does the manufacturing, warehousing, packaging, and shipping of these products on behalf of the retailer.
