E-commerce is a fast-paced market with new trends emerging frequently. One instance is the delivery space and the rising customer expectations regarding how, or even when they receive their online orders. When businesses try to keep up, they evolve to become more like logistics businesses. It’s now at a point where it’s not too far-fetched to say that logistics is a key driver of an e-commerce business. 

This conclusion is further validated when you consider that e-commerce businesses can spend up to 20% of their operating budget on logistics and ensuring fulfillment. However, despite the increasing logistics costs, merchants are still under pressure to experiment with fulfillment methods to meet increasing customer demand for a better delivery experience. 

Your customers want an Amazon-like delivery experience. They expect to be fast, transparent, and seamless. And if they can’t get it from your business, they will get it from your competitors. Here are some delivery trends that your customers already expect from your business. 

Some of the more prominent ones include: 

• Same day or next-day delivery

• Pick up, and drop-off (PUDO) points

• Hyper-accurate estimated delivery dates

• Free and fast delivery

• Simple returns

Keeping up with customer expectations for a better delivery experience can be immensely stressful for both consumers and e-commerce businesses. For customers, not having their expectations met means finding a new channel to buy what they need. For brands, giving in to delivery experience demands and leads to costs rising exponentially. 

And if your logistics costs spiral out of control, they will eat into your bottom line. Read on to learn how you can avoid this and build amazing delivery experiences that are sustainable for your business. 

Transparency is crucial for reducing costs

Having a firm grasp on your logistics data is the key to upgrading your delivery experience cost-efficiently. Regardless of what delivery standards you want to implement, you will need standardized, real-time data that lets you see every detail of the delivery process. When you get transparency into the delivery process, you are able to understand which delivery methods and logistics partners work best for the business and your customers. 

For example, if you were to implement PUDO points, you would be able to figure out when customers typically retrieve their parcels. If they only collect several days after the parcels are in the PUDO points, you can potentially work with a slower but cheaper logistics provider and save on costs. 

But no matter which delivery method you choose, you would want to keep an eye on customer preference. Because if it doesn’t translate to happy customers, you may find that following the latest delivery trends may not be worth doing. 

That’s because your customers want good service. According to 87% of consumers, transparency is at the heart of a great delivery experience. Getting this right is crucial - 93% of consumers say they’ll be more likely to make repeat purchases with companies that provide excellent customer service and 86% of consumers will even pay more for it. 

With high-quality logistics data, you can also empower customers to keep themselves updated on their orders with tools like intuitive self-service portals powered by real-time updates. According to recent studies, 69% of consumers will first try to resolve their issues independently.

 When customers find information on their own, it can eliminate up to 20% of “where is my order” (WISMO) queries that customer service teams get. And when your team gets WISMO queries, your logistics data helps them resolve issues faster. 

Eventually, that results in happier customers and an unburdened customer service team that is free to focus on more difficult customer problems. 

At the same time, customers also want their orders faster. Logistics data can help you make this happen with your existing resources. Leveraging your logistics data to work more closely with carriers can help you reduce your delivery times and costs. 

By keeping a close eye on your logistics data, your logistics team can spot recurring delivery issues. From there, they can collaborate with carriers to resolve problems at their cause, preventing delays from even forming. 

A great overview of your data can also help you make better decisions on what carriers to engage. With sophisticated analytics, you’ll be able to understand carrier performance by location,  assess their SLA compliance, and even pinpoint specific delivery incidents. 

This can all go a long way to support your logistics teams in making decisions and negotiating less costly contracts with carriers.

Building a future-ready post-purchase experience 

Ever-rising customer expectations can put immense pressure on e-commerce businesses, but establishing great post-purchase systems with real-time data can help keep yours on track regardless of the trends. 

With visibility over your logistics data, you can win the hearts of your customers with the seamless delivery experiences they expect. At the same time, you also give your teams the transparency they need to optimize your delivery processes. 

That means, simply by introducing transparency into the delivery process, you elevate your customers’ buying experience with your brand. The result is higher revenue and unburdened internal tems, at a fraction of the cost.

Learn more about how you can transform your business’s delivery experience to win your customers’ hearts while saving costs. Speak to our sales team today.