E-commerce logistics can be a challenge, especially for secondhand retailers juggling shipping complexities and customer expectations. Mastering efficient shipping is key to streamlining operations and ensuring customer satisfaction.
Consider this: 71% of online shoppers reached out to customer service departments due to shipping issues last year. What’s worse is that more than 36% of U.S. consumers abandoned their orders last year because of high shipping costs. With these challenges in mind, how can your organization streamline its shipping processes to reduce friction and enhance the customer experience?
As a leading e-commerce solutions provider, Upright Labs offers a comprehensive suite of tailored tools to help e-commerce businesses optimize their operations. With software solutions like Upright Lister and Neatoscan Books & Media, you get integrated shipping capabilities that enable real-time rate comparisons, seamless management of multiple marketplaces, and cost savings across your entire shipping process.
In this article, we’ll explore key insights from Upright Labs’ recent master class “Mastering E-Commerce Logistics: Tools, Tips, and Strategies for Growth,” hosted by me, Kristy Shaver, Senior Client Services Specialist at Upright Labs. You’ll learn practical approaches that streamline your shipping operations, improve efficiency, and enhance customer satisfaction. Whether you’re just starting or looking to optimize your existing processes, these insights will provide valuable takeaways for any e-commerce business.
Section 1: Setting Up for Success: Daily Checklists and Marketplace Settings
Daily Shipping Checklists
A well-organized shipping process is vital for success and maintaining smooth operations. Implementing a daily shipping checklist will ensure teams focus on fulfilling orders instead of dealing with issues. By completing these tasks on a regular basis, you can prevent potential issues from escalating and keep things moving efficiently.
Start by building time into your team’s schedule to complete the following daily tasks:
- Clean Workstations
- Refill Supplies at Each Station
- Handle Not Found Items
- Resolve Overdue and Urgent Orders
- Pick and Prepare Items for Shipping
Accomplishing these tasks consistently helps prevent bottlenecks and fosters more time for teams to focus on getting orders out the door.
Other Tasks to Consider
In addition to the daily tasks, there are a few other checklist items to keep on your radar to avoid shipping challenges:
- Staff Appropriately
- Schedule Regular Inventory of Shipping Supplies
- Have Multiple Vendor Options
- Review Picking Profiles and Marketplace Settings
- Complete Shipping Analysis
Task Assignment is Key
One of the best ways to avoid confusion and guarantee nothing slips through the cracks is to assign tasks to specific team members. Clearly outlining who is responsible for what helps resolve uncertainty when issues like missing items or resolving urgent orders come up.
Missed Tasks and Late Shipments
When tasks are missed or shipments are delayed, it can have a significant impact on your business. Late shipments lead to unhappy customers, negative reviews, and lost revenue. Even minor mistakes can diminish customer trust and harm your reputation over time.
Set Appropriate Shipping Schedules
To ensure consistency, it’s important to set clear shipping schedules in your Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) for your team. Have a defined time each day for order processing and shipping, so your team knows exactly when to focus on getting e-commerce orders out. This helps to maintain a steady flow of shipments and guarantees that you don’t miss important deadlines.
Marketplace Settings
Another element that supports keeping your shipping process smooth and avoiding delays is configuring your e-commerce marketplace settings correctly. eBay is one of the most popular platforms for e-commerce businesses, offering robust shipping preferences to streamline order fulfillment. Platforms like ShopGoodwill require different configurations, which we’ll dive into later, but both offer key settings you should prioritize to optimize your shipping process for success.
eBay Shipping Preferences
eBay offers a range of account settings that directly affect how your items are shipped and how much you pay for shipping. These settings can impact your business’s bottom line and seller ratings, so it’s important to configure them correctly:
- Enroll in eBay International Shipping: It significantly expands your global reach and allows you to manage orders around the world with ease. You’ll send the item to eBay’s domestic shipping hub and they will handle the rest, at no additional cost to you.
- Exclude Locations: You can exclude specific countries, states, or regions you don’t want to ship to. This is helpful if some locations have excess charges for shipping to them.
- Set Cut-Off Time for Shipping: This defines the latest moment that you’ll accept orders for that day. It should reflect your shipping location’s work schedule and time zone. Setting accurate cut-off times ensures timely shipments and directly impacts your Seller Rating.
- Combined Payments and Shipping: eBay allows you to set rules around whether you want to offer combined payments and combined shipping. If enabled, you can take this a step further and offer custom shipping rates. Examples include offering a discount rate for combined orders or sticking to standard carrier rates.
- Custom Discount Rates: You can apply a discount rate to shipping, offering a more cost-effective shipping experience for customers purchasing multiple items. This option is a great way to attract more customers, especially in the case of larger orders.
It’s important to note that these shipping settings take priority over individual shipping policies. Think of your eBay shipping preferences as account-wide settings, as they will govern your shipping preferences.
eBay Business Policies
You can create multiple shipping setups based on product categories or item weights with eBay’s business policies. This feature offers greater flexibility and ensures that shipping costs are aligned with specific factors.
You can set up flat rates, calculated rates, or standard shipping. For maximum flexibility, we recommend using standard shipping, as it offers a wide range of delivery options, allowing you to select the most cost-effective rate.
The handling time you set plays a significant role in your Top Rated Seller Status on eBay. A shorter handling time is one of the key factors that helps boost your rating, increasing your visibility and credibility on eBay.
Multi-Item Orders on eBay
Managing multi-item orders effectively can reduce shipping costs and increase your profits. Turning on combined payments for combined shipping is important, as it maximizes savings for buyers. Keep in mind that eBay will not auto-combine items if the shipping policies do not offer the same carrier and service level as the primary service. Here’s how eBay handles combined shipping for multiple items:
- Flat-Rate Items: If the order contains flat-rate items, the highest base flat-rate is chosen and the combined fee for each item is added on top.
- Calculated Rates: eBay adds calculated rates together, either with no discount, by combining all weights, or by combining and subtracting ounces.
ShopGoodwill Settings
ShopGoodwill’s settings are a lot easier to configure, with only a couple of settings that control your shipping:
- Handling Price Cap: The maximum amount a customer will be charged for handling fees.
- Max Buy: The maximum number of stock items a buyer is allowed to purchase in a single order.
- Max Combined: The maximum number of listings a buyer can combine in one order.
Section 2: Optimizing Workflows and Profit Margins
Efficient packing and streamlined workflows are critical to maximizing profits and reducing shipping costs. Here’s how focusing on these areas can optimize your shipping process and improve your bottom line.
Packing Training
Proper packing techniques are key to minimizing breakage and reducing costs. Training your team ensures items are securely packed to prevent damage during transit while using the right amount of materials to avoid excess and keep costs low.
To support your packing process, Upright Labs has created a free shipping guide that provides tips and best practices for packing efficiently and cost-effectively (see guide pictured below).
Another key aspect of optimizing your shipping process is reviewing carrier guidelines, particularly when it comes to insurance claims. Understanding the insurance options available and adhering to the guidelines will help prevent issues if packages are lost or damaged.
Picking Profiles
Your picking process can have a major impact on efficiency and accuracy. Each new account includes three default picking profiles: single item orders, multi-item orders, and pickup orders.
Picking profiles are one of the top support requests we see with our customers, and the issues are generally due to custom configurations that had been set up. Therefore, we highly recommend you trust Upright Link to pick your orders. Our latest release on Upright Link is the multi-order picking functionality to help increase your efficiency in picking multi-orders. Always make sure your Link software is up-to-date so that you have access to new releases we’ve rolled out.
If your organization needs to set up custom profiles (i.e. you ship jewelry from a different location/area), remember that less is more. It’s best to use least restrictive settings if possible.
Conducting a Shipping Analysis
Regularly conducting a shipping analysis is critical to maintaining operational success. Aim to perform a shipping analysis at least two times annually to identify cost-effective shipping methods, reduce unnecessary expenses, and ensure your shipping fees align with actual costs.
For Upright Lister customers, you can download these Lister reports to gather the data needed to conduct your own shipping analysis in-house: Shipments, Orders, and Paid Order Items.
Upright Labs also offers standard reporting for our clients and can conduct a shipping analysis to help streamline your organization’s process. Reach out to your Upright Account Manager to learn more!
The Impact of Small Errors
Even small errors in the shipping process can have a significant impact on your bottom line. Always ensure that your team enters the correct weight and dimensions of items to avoid unnecessary overcharges. For example, using a 1-pound estimate for lightweight packages can lead to inflated shipping costs. While the difference between 1 pound and 5 ounces (actual weight) may seem small, it can quickly add up and impact your profits.
The Value of Shipsurance
Since 2022, Upright Labs has partnered with Shipsurance to provide our clients with additional savings on shipping insurance rates. The typical savings a company can see with Shipsurance is anywhere from 44% – 90%. One of Upright’s clients saved roughly 56% ($44,481.37) with Shipsurance!
To determine if your account is set up to use Shipsurance, simply check your shipping settings and see if you are enrolled in the program. If you have any questions or would like to get set up, your Account Manager is there to help.
Section 3: Specialized Tools for Advanced Shipping
Optional Shipping Equipment
To further streamline operations and boost efficiency, specific shipping equipment can be game-changers for businesses handling high volumes of packages. These tools can save time, reduce costs, and improve packaging quality. While not essential for every organization, they’re ideal for those with large shipping needs or limited space. Here are some shipping tools to consider:
- Electronic Tape Dispensers: With just one touch, these dispensers measure, moistens, and cuts tape.
- Automatic Paper Crumpling Machines: Cut packing time in half with these machines that crumple paper as fast as you can grab it (300 feet per minute), handling up to 400 packages daily.
- Air Pillow Machines: Ideal for organizations shipping up to 150 packages daily, these machines provide fast, on-demand packaging.
- Instant Bubble Machines: These machines produce up to 90 feet of heavy-duty nylon bubble wrap per minute, handling up to 600 packages daily, so you can make your own bubble wrap in-house.
- Box-Making Machines: Create custom boxes to fit products, eliminating the need to stock multiple box sizes. Helps to reduce waste and environmental impact while saving on shipping costs, especially for organizations spending $75k+ in corrugated materials annually.
- Cardboard Shredders: Repurpose discarded cardboard into eco-friendly packing material. These shredders eliminate the need to purchase void fillers.
Space Requirements for a Standard Work Station
Here is Upright’s recommended space requirements for a standard work station:
- Single-Person Team: Approximately 250 sq ft of space for equipment.
- 2-3 Person Team: Approximately 1,100 – 1,200 sq ft of space for room to house multiple machines.
Section 4: Upright Labs Solutions
At Upright Labs, we provide an extensive suite of services and software solutions designed to streamline and optimize e-commerce operations for businesses of all sizes. Upright Lister and Neatoscan Books & Media features multi-channel listing, integrated shipping, and advanced business analytics. They also offer automated shipping solutions that simplify the fulfillment process, saving your business time and reducing costs. With our software, you have all the tools you need to grow your business and manage your operations seamlessly.
Upright also offers consulting services that are tailored to support businesses in scaling and optimizing every aspect of their e-commerce operations, from designing efficient warehouse layouts to improving inventory management. Our industry knowledge and proven strategies have helped clients achieve increased revenue and optimized operations. We’ve already redesigned millions of square feet of warehouse space, specifically focusing on shipping stations to improve workflows and performance.
Upright Labs helps create sustainable product flows, verify product quality, optimize warehouse layouts, and prioritize high-value products. We also support standardizing product grading systems, implementing dynamic pricing, managing inventory diversity, and building adaptability into your business.
With Upright Labs’ suite of solutions, businesses can automate, optimize, and scale their e-commerce operations, paving the way for increased profitability and long-term success.
Looking Forward
Mastering e-commerce logistics is key to achieving continuous growth and success. By optimizing shipping processes, reducing costs, and enhancing customer satisfaction, businesses can significantly improve their operational efficiency and boost profitability.
We explored the key strategies and tools that can help optimize your workflows, from setting up daily shipping checklists to configuring marketplace settings and investing in specialized shipping equipment.
Implementing shipping checklists ensures that your team stays organized and focused, preventing bottlenecks and costly errors. Configuring the right marketplace settings helps you manage your shipping process more effectively, reducing shipping costs and boosting your seller ratings. Optimizing workflows, including packing and picking profiles, not only increases efficiency but also helps cut down on unnecessary expenses. Lastly, leveraging specialized shipping tools can save you time, improve packaging quality, and reduce costs.
Ready to take your e-commerce operations to the next level? Schedule a consultation with Upright Labs today and discover how our team can help optimize your shipping workflow, improve efficiency, and scale your business.
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