The best e-Commerce businesses share one secret to their success. They give generous shipping policies to their customers while keeping their costs down. Here’s how you can do that.

Form a partnership

If you are just starting up, find a courier that will become your lifelong partner. Negotiate discounts and special perks for bulk shipments. Find one that has excellent customer service. You don’t need a courier with low shipping rates but crappy service. Your customers will suffer in the end.

If you’ve already started and find yourself using 2 couriers or more, try and form a partnership with one of them. Explain to them how you want the relationship to move into a partnership. Choose the one with the best rates combined with good customer service. If you must, show the couriers all your offers so that you can get the best deal. Also, be ready to give them a forecast of your growth so that they can commit to a partnership because they know that they will also benefit from it.

Welcome all returns

If you have a very good returns policy, you will surely encourage customers to buy more. This will eliminate customer doubts such as “what if it does not fit?” or “what if the color is different from the actual?” and other questions that make customers hesitate to click the Purchase Now button.

Make sure to display your returns policy in your shopping page. Include a return slip and address label in every package to make the process easy. Your ultimate goal is to make your customers happy to encourage repeat purchases.

Open a branch near your courier

If you don’t own a warehouse, it would be a good idea to open a branch near your courier. This makes the process quicker and cheaper. If you deliver your items to your courier, you can save a lot on transportation costs. Your items will also arrive in good quality especially the ones that are fragile as the travel time is short.

If you can open a warehouse near your courier and near the bulk of your customers, the better. You eliminate a lot of costs and improve your shipping time. Your courier can also pick up items from you several times a day allowing you to offer special services such as next-day delivery with a late cut-off time. Delays can also be lessened if not eliminated. If your customers send returns, they will be able to receive their credits faster.

Rush deliveries but not returns

Always treat orders as rush deliveries. The faster you can get the items out the door, the better. Offer overnight deliveries but do the opposite with returns. Customers won’t mind ground shipping as long as they receive their credits. If you can arrange a returns program with your courier then do so. For example, your customers can contact your courier and schedule a pickup of the return items when they are at home or when they are in the office. This eliminates missed pickups and delays.

Now that you know the secrets, apply them to your own shipping process and you should be able to see an improvement not only in your shipping but in your sales as well.

Image By: Daniel Broche – CC BY 2.0