How optimized is your shipping performance?
Running an eCommerce business isn’t just about selling products – it’s about delivering on a promise.
Products must arrive in the customer’s hands in a timely manner, and in one piece.
The slightest bit of delay in your process can slow things down dramatically. It’s common sense – the sooner the package goes out the door, the sooner the customer will receive it. This will ensure a positive customer experience.
Here are five technologies that will help you optimize your shipping performance.
1. Picking
Do your warehouse workers have to go through products manually one by one to find the right items before packing them and shipping them out?
Picking can be a major cause for slowdown if left unaddressed, especially if you are selling a lot of different products, and workers have to sort through a myriad of similar-looking goods.
Inventory management software and bar code scanners can make a big difference. Tools like TradeGecko are tailor-made for this purpose.
2. Packing
After a product has been picked, it still needs to be packed before it can be sent out. It may seem like a small thing, but can quickly turn into a bottleneck.
If you don’t have a standardized way of packing particular products, not only will your workers have to improvise, products could arrive at the doors of your customers damaged.
Inventory management systems can also aid in this process, but if you need to create detailed step-by-step procedures for packing goods, a tool like SweetProcess will come in handy.
3. Labeling
Labeling is another element of shipping performance that should be optimized. It may seem like customizing, copying and pasting previously used labels is the ideal way to keep things moving along, but it isn’t the most eloquent solution.
If you’re creating labels manually, it’s only a matter of time before an error is made. This can end up costing your business.
Tools like ShipStation make it easy to manage your labeling by importing all of your orders. Automating this part of your shipping process means less time spent on repetitive tasks, and fewer mistakes.
4. Prioritizing Orders
Even if you have your picking, packing and labeling process down to a science, sequencing and prioritizing your orders can be time-consuming when handled manually.
This is where order fulfillment solutions come in, and they do come in different shapes and sizes. Some use mobile scanners, while others use voice. Still others take advantage of light or displays.
Cloud-bases solutions like BizAutomation can help with each of the steps already covered, in addition to helping you sequence your orders.
5. Shipping
Once a product leaves your hands, you have virtually no control over it. There’s only so much you can do.
But once a product is picked, packed, labeled, and sequenced, it still needs to be shipped. The faster you are at getting the initial legwork done, the sooner you can get the product out, and the sooner it will arrive in your customer’s hands.
Fortunately, there are a variety of different software shipping solutions, such as Aftership that can streamline your processes.
Final Thoughts
In the end, fast shipping is all about process. You need to map out a detailed end-to-end procedure that takes all factors into account.
Technology can certainly aid in this process, but if you’re not careful, it can also cause slowdown.
Using too many disparate tools could lead to fragmentation – disparate pieces of software that don’t sync and don’t talk to each other.
Keep things simple, and streamline as much as possible. You don’t need five pieces of software where two would do just fine.
Outsourcing your shipping is also a valuable alternative.
To find out how Floship can streamline your global shipping via our fulfillment centre in Hong Kong, click here to contact us for a free evaluation.
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5 Technologies That Will Optimize Your Shipping Performance – Floship https://t.co/qbwSFTc6Oz pic.twitter.com/x0XEv2mWYh
— Floship (@floship) May 5, 2016
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