Knowledge Base

Most Expensive Ecommerce Shipping Mistakes

Mistakes are inevitable on the way to successful business process. But some of them can cost you a lot of money and can lead to losing customers. That’s the main reason why it is important to try your very best to learn from mistakes of others rather than repeat every classical mistake in your own business. Shipping is sometimes underestimated and seen as not the most essential part of e-commerce business. But in fact, shipping is your real contact with the client and there is nothing more important than that. That is why we created a list of most common and most expensive shipping mistakes that sometimes happen with even best of the best e-commerce businesses.

1. Flat Rate Shipping

- Flat rate shipping is a way to be polite to the customers and make the processes of shipping as easy and clear as possible. You might think that there is a certain logic in charging shipping price depending on the size of the item and the distance it has to travel. But in fact, your customers will definitely appreciate flat rate shipping and it will much easier for them to make up their minds and complete the order.

2. Wrong Packaging

- In many cases using wrong packaging automatically means that you will never see this customer again. It is disappointing to find out that the item you ordered received in a damaged condition because the shop didn’t bothered to provide an appropriate packaging. Never forget that in packaging cheapest is the dearest and be especially careful about it. It is also a great idea to remember that it is nice when packaging is not only safe but also looks good. And there are always ways to improve your packaging without spending too much on it.

3. Incorrect Product Specifications

- No one liked to be fooled and that’s the reason why incorrect product specification is a number one sin in retail. Obviously, for you it is just one mistake in thousands of specifications, but for your customer that might be first (and possibly last) experience with your brand. Don’t be surprised that in this case the product will be returned and the customer will never visit your store again.

4. Validate Customer Addresses

- If you fail to validate customers address they simply won’t get anything delivered and you will lose more time and money reshipping an item and dealing with an angry client. That’s the only reasons why the site should have best possible options for validating customer address and it is vitally important to work on these processes. Most of the time this problem occur because of the incorrect data that was provided by the customer –more often the error is in the zip code or address details. If this happen often then checking everything in databases and reconfirming customers their address validation status before the shipping might be the only option to avoid this problem.

5. Audit Shipping.

- The rule is simple: if you don’t research how your business processes work you will never find out your shortcomings. And it means that you will probably only notice them when they already turned into dramatic problems that put your business at risk. So, don’t wait too long and start audit shipping right now. Everything from time to packaging, from price to reviews has to be carefully audited. Just to make sure that you are fully aware of how every little detail of delivery process works in real life not just in your mind.