It’s been a month since the European Union implemented the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) - an EU-wide law on data protection and privacy policies. This new data privacy law affects how all companies collect and handle personal data about their European customers.

Our Parcel Perform team have heard your worries and this article is to answer everything you need to know in order to keep sending your beloved email notifications to customers to keep them updated on their deliveries.

How does GDPR / DSGVO impact you, as an eCommerce merchant?

GDPR (also known as DSGVO in Germany) covers any interaction with customers in Europe and EU citizens. The regulation is all about empowering people in the EU to control how exactly their data is being used.

The golden rule: Consent is king.

This includes your customers giving permission to you to collect their personal information like addresses, names and email addresses.

This need for consent now also affects the valuable emails you send to customers to keep them up to date on their delivery notifications. The key impact: Now your logistics carriers, such as DHL, FedEx, and others, cannot send any parcel tracking and delivery notifications (whether by email or phone) without obtaining explicit consent from your customers that’s it's okay to use their personal data.

The Problem: How can you communicate with your customers after checkout?

We all know that in this day and age personalised, data-driven eCommerce drives customer satisfaction. Informing your customers about the delivery status of their orders drives customer satisfaction and turns them into loyal ones.

It is a key communication channel after checkout and performs much better than the marketing newsletters afterward. In order to make use of this contact point and the engagement opportunity, you would want to send parcel tracking emails or other delivery notifications to your customers.

With GDPR now in force from 25 May 2018, this opportunity is threatened. Independent data protection authorities in the EU declared online merchants can only forward email addresses of their customers to logistics service providers and delivery partners with the customer’s consent.

Let’s be clear, this does not mean that retailers can not send tracking updates and delivery notifications themselves to customers. You can only not pass this data on to a logistics carrier who will communicate on their own behalf and in their own branding.

How can you then continue communicating with your customers about their orders after checkout in a post-GDPR / DSGVO world?

Of course, there is the option to get each and every one of your customers to give you their consent and manually manage all the communication between your logistics carriers and your customers.

But, that will come at an enormous cost in time and money - time which can be better spent further growing your business instead of manually managing and constantly updating the data flow between your carriers and customers.

There is a better way to send tracking emails!

Surely there is a better solution where you can have control over the delivery notification process and also fulfilling GDPR requirements? Well, yes there is!

You can assign this task to a white label service provider like us! White label service providers like us are still allowed to send the corresponding emails to customers on your behalf, without giving out data to your logistics service providers or external parties.

Engage a white-label service provider, like Parcel Perform, to handle all delivery email notifications between your customers and carriers while you focus on growing your business.

If you use our tracking experience service to track and deliver parcel notifications to your customers, we communicate all updates on parcel delivery status on your behalf, fully compliant with the latest GDPR update.

Even better, customers will see them as helpful and appreciated communication coming from your brand as all our notifications are fully white labeled and can be fully adjusted to your brand image in our HTML configuration tools.

Within the GDPR framework, this is the most elegant and cost-effective way to ensure no personal data is processed by the wrong party and your customer’s data is truly protected.

By using us, we do all the heavy lifting of sending delivery email notifications and parcel tracking notifications to all your customers with minimal input from you. You can spend more time interacting with your customers and growing your business and less time to micromanage customers.

And no, you have absolutely nothing to worry about! You have full control of the messaging and layout of the delivery notifications you wish to send out. Even if you don’t have them now, now is the right time to get started. Existing Parcel Perform customers have seen an improvement of Customer Lifetime Value of up to 40%!

In Conclusion

With GDPR / DSGVO, eCommerce merchants need to stay nimble. Changes to parcel notifications and delivery tracking updates for your customers can be alarming and complicated but are necessary and continue to be a great opportunity to engage your customers you shouldn’t miss out.

So don’t worry, we’ve got you covered. No matter which carriers you work with, Parcel Perform has already onboarded more than 600+ carriers globally. Our email notifications covering all stages of parcel delivery - from pick up, transit, cross-border movement and issue/delay reporting and can be fully customized to your brand image.

Let us be your partner in ensuring the best customer experience for your customers in a post-GDPR / DSGVO world.  Our team of e-Commerce experts can get you started within a few minutes. Get in touch with our sales team here or directly via contact@parcelperform.com. We are happy to guide you through the details, jointly develop the best approach for your after purchase communication and can get you on a free trial within minutes

Do you have any more questions or input on GDPR? Feel free to reach out to our team at any time.