As the popularity of online retail has grown into the phenomenon it is today, customers have developed a new addiction. It’s not the actual process of shopping, but instead, the part that comes after: tracking packages.
But the benefits aren’t just for the buyers – sellers can see significant benefits too, as long as merchants can leverage them successfully. Let’s review 4 benefits of shipment tracking when it comes to retail shipping:
1. Higher Customer Satisfaction
For customers, there is a strange satisfaction in witnessing their deliveries journey from afar, city to city, to finally arrive at their doorstep. This is great for merchants because a customer that’s provided with a package tracking tool for their order is 50% less likely to leave that same merchant negative feedback in the event of late delivery.
Aside from feedback concerns, providing retail shipping tracking numbers to customers will also reduce customer service inquiries if there are delays or issues because a buyer can see in real-time where things are and what’s happening. This can take pressure off your team.
2. Saving Money Due to Packaging Considerations
As a seller, when you track shipments, you can get a better overall understanding of what you’re shipping and how often. This can include if there are patterns to what you’re shipping – consistent dimensions and weight, for instance, that can even earn you discounts from shippers because you can negotiate based on a predictable package type.
Dimensional weight shipping has added a new wrinkle, making it even more critical you’re packaging things in a way that doesn’t add to your shipping costs. You can monitor what you’re shipping out, and what it’s costing you, and ensure you can adjust if you’re not being as efficient as possible.
3. Saving Money Due to Late Shipments
While shipment tracking is beneficial to merchants and their customers, the process isn’t as seamless or automated as you might think. It can be very difficult for a merchant to ensure that packages arrive on time, especially when that merchant is a higher volume shipper. With Ecommerce businesses spending an average of 10% of every sale on shipping, it’s imperative that they understand the details of their shipping spend. Otherwise, it can be very difficult to operate your business efficiently.
There are options to enhance and simplify the process of shipping efficiently and cost-effectively. By actively monitoring your shipping activity, you can ensure you are paying only for the service promised.
This procedure should be a part of every merchant’s day-to-day operations, with extra attention being paid to late deliveries or lost and damaged shipments. You can ensure that your shipments have arrived by going to your shipping carrier’s site and entering your customer’s tracking number. You will be able to view proof of delivery and the time of delivery.
Many businesses disregard this step, believing late deliveries are expected and not wanting to go through the long process to file claims. This is a mistake. Shipments that arrive late, even by 60 seconds, are entitled to a 100% refund covered by UPS and FedEx’s on-time delivery guarantee. Because many merchants don’t collect their refunds, over $2 billion is unclaimed annually.
How to File Claims for Retail Shipping Refunds
To manually file claims, your company would need to track all shipments on FedEx.com and/or UPS.com and cross-reference deliveries to find areas to dispute. A claim would need to be filed within 15 days of the package’s delivery with all necessary documentation and inspections.
However, manually filing these refunds isn’t always the best solution for all businesses. Many companies do not have the resources available to navigate the intricate claims process. Moreover, customers do not always report when shipments arrive late, meaning there could be many potential refunds that go unreported and unclaimed.
The alternative would be to use third-party software that audits shipping information on your behalf. Utilizing this method can save extensive time and resources as opposed to manually filing. This provides businesses like yours with ample reporting to better negotiate and interact with your carrier. Third-party software such as 71lbs provides your company with its own dashboard, pulling all your shipping data from your carriers into one convenient location.
It is more important than ever for merchants to stay on top of their parcel deliveries. Whether you use a third party or monitor your shipping activity manually, you can identify exactly where your shipping dollars are invested and optimize your operations for efficiency.
4. Ensure Products are Delivered On Time
Going through the process of filing for those refunds also will highlight one other benefit for sellers – their ability to see where things are breaking down, which could open the door to adjustments. If the shipping provider you’re using is having consistent issues delivering on time, it may yield findings that your business is being hurt by this. Or, you might want to adjust promises on how long it will take items to get to a buyer.
Many sellers fail to get to know what’s happening on the shipping side with enough understanding to see where things are breaking down. So performing these audits will serve as another way to spot when issues are developing.
Check Out the Webinar
Zoey joined with partner 71lbs to discuss important shipping considerations, how to ensure you’re getting credit for package delivery errors when shipping items to customers, and how to avoid overpaying for shipping.
Then Check Out Zoey
Shipment tracking is an important part of Ecommerce, but so is having a platform that can support B2B and wholesale sales in a native and efficient way. If your business needs to move forward with a solution that gets the job done, talk with our team and we can highlight how Zoey can strengthen your business:
