If you are an e-commerce business owner, you might agree that starting the business doesn’t always have to be too difficult, but making it profitable, well, that’s the real challenge.

Aside from the competition and online multichannel selling (mis)management, the real challenges of today’s e-commerce businesses are ensuring customer satisfaction and managing your logistics cost (as the only part of the business where you can put some extra money in your pocket). Knowing these challenges, in order to keep your business running successfully, you might consider shifting to a multi-courier strategy. As we like to say, in shipping, one size does not fit all. Every business has different requirements and different volumes. Therefore, you are less likely to find only one shipping provider that meets those requirements. Keep in mind, each courier company has its own area of expertise, strengths, and weaknesses. By using the multi-courier strategy, you can optimize your business at any time, ensuring success, everytime. 

To put things into perspective, we will mention some of the strengths and weaknesses you should pay attention to when choosing your shipping provider.

Prices

This is often a “make or break” decision factor. Price fluctuation can vary based on the size of the selling products, business volume, delivery time, and location. As the competition between shipping providers is high, the chances of finding the same service at a lower price are high.  

Region Coverage

Depending on your product(s) and the brand’s strength, you may focus on selling to the local market or expanding internationally. If your target is the local market, you should focus more on the local courier companies that offer good domestic coverage and have competitive prices.

However, if your online business also has worldwide shipping, you should go for more prominent companies such as DHL or UPS. These companies have well-established clearance processes and international linehaul. In addition, because of their exposure and business volume, the shipping rates can be lower compared to the smaller, local courier companies.

Service Offer

In order to stay competitive, shipping providers often tend to come up with different services to attract customers. A good, accurate tracking system, speed of delivery or return process are only some of them.

Since these factors heavily impact customer satisfaction, having multiple couriers will allow you to tend to your customers’ needs, increasing your chances of reaching high levels of customer satisfaction. 

Delayed Delivery

Unfortunately, despite courier companies always trying to stay competitive, delivery delays can still occur. Most of the time, the reason for this is traffic or lack of workforce, and there is not much you can do about it. However, mismanagement of operations can also be a reason for delayed delivery.

Make sure to keep track of the courier’s performance to optimize your chances of reducing delivery delays. 

Shipment Handling

This is especially important if your products are fragile. Even when they’re not, most e-commerce business owners put a lot of effort into packaging to keep in line with their brand, and to provide their customers with a purchase experience. Mishandling your products can take that experience away and might even stop a customer from buying your product(s) again.

Ask your customers for delivery feedback. Not only will it show them that you are invested in them and their experience of your business, but you will also get a lot of insight about the courier services you are utilizing. 

Client-Customer Support

Not all courier companies provide technology-developed systems to help you track your orders and delivery statuses. They might not even answer your calls or reply to your emails promptly. With access to multiple shipping providers, it will be easier to compare pros and cons and choose which ones to stay in business with.

Now, we know that time is of the essence when you are an e-commerce business owner. Unfortunately, exploring each courier company and its services can be extremely time-consuming, and the vast majority do not have the resources to do this research extensively. So, we did it for you.

Driven by technology and wanting to simplify your online business management, we created an e-commerce SaaS platform that gathers multiple couriers under one roof. Shiplifier also gives you access to discounted shipping rates with select shipping providers. 

Plus, as an e-commerce business owner, not only will you will have access to all the insights of delivery performance and cost comparison, but you will also be able to integrate your multichannel sales accounts and lead your entire business from one single dashboard. Shiplifier is the shipping solution you need for all your e-commerce order processing. 

Explore all your options and start your Shiplifier journey for FREE today!