Anyone who ordered gifts for the recent holidays will know the supply chains are under severe strain at the moment, and many packages failed to arrive on time. While eCommerce has grown significantly over the past few years, there is nothing like a pandemic to bring this into sharper focus. With increasing numbers of people forced to shop online for the foreseeable future, businesses need to adopt a more digitized platform to reach customers successfully, a transformation that is not without its challenges.
Ensuring a Timely Delivery
Customers expect orders to arrive quickly, and a strong eCommerce platform is needed to accomplish this, including excellent logistics support. Good load planning software can make sure a load is packed more accurately, so items to be delivered first are easily accessible.
Reducing Shipping Charges
Paying zero delivery fees or only a minimal charge is becoming the norm, even while customers expect faster delivery times. However, shipping costs have increased, and offering free shipping can eat into the bottom line significantly. Some companies will offer free shipping as standard for orders over a certain threshold, but making sure orders are packaged correctly can greatly reduce shipping costs, using appropriately sized cartons and less costly fill material. The most sophisticated Cartonization software in eCommerce can select the correct carton and calculate shipping costs almost in real-time.
Another option is to include shipping in the price and include any custom fees for international shipments. The order can clear customs more quickly, and customers receive their order more promptly and without the fear of paying unknown customs costs.
Reverse Logistics
It is important to consider reverse logistics and to decide if customers are responsible for the cost of returns or how to reduce these costs. One option is to use 3PL partners with their own warehouses and logistics operations. Otherwise, one way to reduce the number of returns is by ensuring each order is handled properly. When an order is correctly picked and packed, not only are shipping costs reduced, but the risk of damage to these items is also lower.
The Importance of Using the Right Logistics Software
MagicLogic load planning software is developed in-house with one goal in mind; to provide companies with the most powerful load planning software available today. Cube-IQ® is our state-of-the-art load planning software program. It is intuitive to use and has a complete database engine built-in. Our BlackBox® optimizer provides Cartonization for eFulfillment and Mixed Palletization using robotics. It optimizes carton selection, order after order.
Our software solutions are helping companies to increase efficiency and save time and money every day. Read our recent case study for True Manufacturing to learn more.
