The E-commerce business model has taken over the world and has become the main concept when it comes to any field, marketplace and company. Although retail stores still exist and are popular, it seems like e-commerce brought fantastic and tectonic changes into how we perceive the very process of shopping, ordering, returning and all the other steps of the process. Research shows that people rather go and visit a website of their choice or a couple of websites if they need a specific thing, than physically going to a shop. This is at the same time, one of the biggest benefits and conveniences of e-commerce. You can get everything in a couple of seconds and with almost no effort. Can you imagine what life looked like before all these available options?
But to be able to understand the importance of this concept, it is crucial to mention the changes it brought for business owners and businesses, whether they are big or small, family businesses. E-commerce has erased the geographical boundaries and borders, and turned the whole world into a big, united marketplace. This has tremendously helped all the businesses to grow, and has increased the chances of people discovering brands, and therefore – making purchases. As a result, brands started to thrive, with great profits and high revenue. None of this would be possible without e-commerce, which is why this is one of the most significant innovations of this century.
Still, managing every part of a business is nothing but easy. All the available options for both purchasing, shipping and returning, along with the whole customer support sector should be flawless if businesses want to be rated as great, have good reputation and more importantly – have happy customers. If something, anything goes wrong during this process, the client or the customer will just pick another brand, or will be disappointed and will show that disappointment online. To prevent this from happening, business owners pay close attention to details, and develop strategies for creating the best service (and products) possible.
Research shows that meeting customers’ expectations is as important as the product that’s been bought itself, if not more. If the product is good quality but the delivery was too postponed or bad, it will leave a mark on the product and the customer will most certainly be unsatisfied with the whole experience, no matter how good the product is. This is especially the case with small products. What’s the reason behind this? If the item you’ve bought is not complicated to deliver, or in other words, large in size, extremely heavy or something similar, then the expected delivery time will most definitely be shorter. Your customers will expect their order in the shortest time frame and more importantly: they will either expect free shipping or small shipping fees. If you are a small business owner or you are a newbie in the business, you might find this challenging, since the whole process of packaging and shipping items to your customers might be very expensive and hard to execute. This is why it’s important to thoroughly plan everything beforehand and do your research about the best packaging and shipping options. The best thing you can do is find a reputable website with the best and the most convenient offers. Find out more info here.
If you don’t know where to start and if shipping small products is your nightmare, then you may use certain tips and tricks that worked for many businesses, whether big or small. Let’s dive into it:
1. Make All the Choices at the Very Start
Depending on what you want, you can plan your shipment costs beforehand, and add this amount to all the other expenses you have as a company. This is why it’s important to choose everything on time. If you want branded packaging or free packaging, if you want special materials, boxes, bags or anything of your liking, you should be specific about it. Do your research and calculate everything before you even start shipping products to your customers. Being specific and transparent will both help your business and your customers since they will know what to expect (if they’re about to pay the shipping) and you will also be able to keep track of your expenses more successfully. Finally, you need to decide whether you or your customer will pay the shipping fee for small items, and act accordingly.
2. Either Measure of Establish a Flat Rate
Although small products are usually lightweight this doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t measure each one of them. Measuring is a very important part of the shipping process and it helps you successfully predict fees and other expenses that go with shipping of both small and large items. However, if your company sells a huge variety of products that differ in size and weight, then you shouldn’t choose a flat rate option, because it may become unfair to your customers. On the other hand, if all of your products are small, then you can go with this shipping option, which is convenient since you don’t have to do individual calculations every time you need to send a small product.
3. Treat Your Products With the Same Enthusiasm as if They Were Bigger
If your products are small in size it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t treat them with the same effort as if they were bigger in size. What does this mean? When you’re selling a product to your customers, you’re providing them with experience rather than items. This means that you can communicate through the product that you’re selling, so investing a bit more in marketing: leaving a cute note, adding stickers and personalizing the product will make your customers wanna come back again, repurchase and finally – help building and maintaining an ongoing relationship with your company.
4. Develop a Good Communication Strategy
We all know that communication is key, so make sure you ask your customers whether they are satisfied with your shipment, what they love and what they hate about it, so that you can constantly improve your services. That being said, it would also be a great thing to update your shipping policies every couple of months, so that you can be sure everything is the best it can be.
