With all the hype and talk about same day omnichannel and e-commerce order delivery and order fulfillment, a recent UPS and corCom survey showed that 50% of the online customers are happy to wait in order to get free shipping. Four out of five online consumers placed free shipping as a top decision-maker as to who they make purchases from. Likewise, 88% of the omnichannel and e-commerce customers surveyed read the fine print on the return retailer’s website. This attention to detail shows how organizations need to have a consumer-friendly returns policy otherwise it will directly impact their bottom line sales. 52% of the online customers wanted a return label enclosed in the box.
So what does this mean for the non-Amazon and Walmart-sized omnichannel retailers? It means your omnichannel and e-commerce business future can be controlled by your decisions. Providing your customers with free shipping is a direct result of having the lowest operations cost possible. By strategically using best practices, clean processes, and simple automation virtually all organizations can dramatically reduce their operating costs to offset the costs incurred for free shipping. The process starts by analyzing your current order profiles, commonalities, inventory levels, space, and labor utilization. Once analyzed and understood, reviewing processes and material handling equipment and systems utilization to verify high levels of efficiency. Areas that do not align simply need to be planned, budgeted, and implemented.
I’ve overly simplified a process that will take time and resources, but the end result will be dramatic and will free up the resources required to pay for the free shipping. Examples of reducing labor by 2/3, space savings of over 85%, and accuracy levels that hit 99.99%+ are all achievable by utilizing systems that match your inventory and order profiles. The cost of these systems isn’t necessarily dramatic, but the return on investment and internal rate of returns often are.
A good example is the survey identifying 52% of the Omnichannel and e-commerce consumer respondents wanting return labels in their order when they open the box. This is easily accomplished utilizing one automated document and manifest printer and inserter system doing 3,000 orders an hour and start at under $29,000. This solution can practically be implemented over a weekend. Not a huge impact, fast return on investment which impacts 52% of your potential customers… fast and easy solution!
Thinking about how to solve these issues? Let ISD perform a free space and labor survey and we can show you how to not just compete, but beat Amazon, Walmart, and the other Omnichannel and e-commerce retailers!