E-commerce shipping is a complicated beast.
There are a million obstacles you and your team (and your courier) need to navigate to avoid a Titanic-sinking iceberg hit along the journey from warehouse to customer’s doorstep.
Packaging, pricing and logistics are three of these obstacles which strike fear into any ecommerce business owner.
The potential mistakes involved can be crippling. Without clear and repeatable processes, so many things can break.
As the owner of an online business, you need to avoid these costly mistakes.
Customer complaints can shatter entire corporations (just ask United Airlines).
We want to help you avoid a customer service catastrophe by learning from the most common errors other e-commerce stores make with their shipping and delivery processes.
We’ve collated the ultimate list of 31 ecommerce shipping mistakes to avoid so you can learn how to ship your e-commerce goodies perfectly, every time.
We have 31 ecommerce shipping mistakes from five different websites – bookmark this article and send it to your team. You can refer back to it whenever a specific issue crops up.
1. Shipworks have developed a list of common ecommerce shipping mistakes.
Reverse these mistakes and you have yourself a list of common sense tips you can drum into everyone working on your e-commerce operations.
1. No provision for customers to choose when their package will arrive
2. Failure to listen to specific customer requests
3. Standardised packaging for different sized products
4. Guesstimating shipping costs
5. Failing to track your shipping supplies
6. No preparation or flexibility to adapt to changes from shipping carriers
7. Entirely manual shipping processes
2. Practical ecommerce is one of the most respected ecommerce publications in the business.
Their team have outlined 5 expensive ecommerce shipping mistakes, with practical solutions for you to learn from. Save those dollars, prevent those meltdowns, keep those customers happy and read on for the simple solutions.
8. Not using a flat rate shipping option
9. No options other than Flat Rate Shipping
10. Incorrect Product Specifications
11. Failing to Validate Customer Addresses
12. Failing to Audit Shipping processes
3. Shiptheory has 5 more ecommerce shipping mistakes that will cost you.
Build your customer retention rate by working those savings back into your pricing structure.
13. No transparency about ecommerce shipping costs
14. Failure to shop around and find the best carrier
15. Writing off all ‘flat rate’ carrier solutions
16. Lazy packing practices leading to breakages or damage (learn how to pimp your packaging and
avoid thisshamozzle).
17. Manually creating shipping labels
4. UPS has 5 more easily fixed (and prevented) common shipping mistakes.
Keep these issues front of mind when developing your shipping strategy and you won’t have to deal with these avoidable shipping woes.
19. Right product, wrong package
20. Complicated, time-consuming or expensive returns processes
21. Ignoring inbound logistics
22. Not connecting your website to your supply chain
5. CIO has a really helpful article titled “11 Common Ecommerce Mistakes — and How to Fix Them”.
This resource focuses on your online store user experience and how to avoid the most significant customer-facing shipping issues. These mistakes could increase uncertainty in potential customers and directly cost you sales.
23. Choosing the wrong ecommerce shopping cart
24. Unintuitive or cumbersome site navigation
25. Bad (or no) site search capability
26. Using stock product descriptions
27. A confusing or lengthy checkout process
28. Offering only one shipping option and/or carrier
29. No mobile optimised version of your ecommerce site
30. No clear explanation of shipping and returns processes on product or checkout pages
31. No email or phone contact for specific customer service questions
These mistakes might seem like straightforward errors you couldn’t possibly make – but common mistakes are just as prevalent as common sense.
Running an ecommerce store is bedlam. There’s so many different operational tasks you’re juggling and so many things that can go wrong.
You can’t take these 31 mistakes for granted. Only documented, repeatable shipping processes can save you from falling into these common online retail traps.
If you want to know exactly how to develop a shipping strategy and avoid these common mistakes – download our Shipping Made Easy guide for more handy tips and tricks on streamlining your delivery processes.
