The Essential Dos and Don’ts of International Shipping

If you’re an e-commerce business owner looking to expand globally, you will want to know a thing or two about international shipping. Mistakes can be costly when it comes to international shipping, and even if you work with a fulfilment partner, having the right knowledge can help you make the best decisions for your supply chain. At Delta Fulfilment, we consider ourselves experts in UK fulfilment services, so we’re here to share the essential dos and don’ts to set you on the path to worldwide business success.

International Shipping Terms To Know

Before we get into the nitty-gritty, here are a few terms used in the world of international shipping for e-commerce brands.

Freight forwarder: A freight forwarder organises how your goods will be transported from one place to another, handling all the logistics.
Bill of lading: This document is used as a receipt and contract, listing the type and quantity of goods, the destination, and the shipper.
Incoterms: These are pre-defined terms set by the ICC to provide clear terms between global buyers and sellers for each part of the shipping process, including payment, transport, insurance, and even customs duties.
Cargo insurance: A safety net that protects you financially if your goods are lost, damaged, or stolen during transit.

Now we’ve covered a few key terms you’ll see pop up in this post, let’s get to the good stuff!

The Dos of International Shipping

Choose Reliable Freight Forwarders

If you’re sending wholesale goods, your choice of freight forwarder can make or break your international shipping experience. A good freight forwarder not only ensures your goods reach their destination on time but also helps you navigate complex customs regulations, saving you time and potential legal headaches.

You should look for forwarders with positive reviews and testimonials and a wide network in various countries. If you can get a recommendation from a fellow business owner, that’s even better! However, you should also make sure that your chosen freight forwarder has experience in your specific industry or product type, as they will be better equipped to handle any unique challenges.

Properly Package Goods

The journey from warehouse to customer can be full of potential hazards. Proper packaging for your customer orders ensures they arrive in exactly the same condition they left your warehouse and improves your customer retention rate. How you package your products will depend on the type of products they are, but you can use these general guidelines to get you started.

Opt for double-walled boxes for added strength.
Use bubble wrap, foam, or paper to fill gaps and prevent items from moving.
Use strong tape, ensuring all openings are sealed.

For perishable products, consider using insulated packaging and including ice packs for items that need to stay cool. You may also find anti-static bags beneficial to prevent damage to electronics during transit.

Consider All Modes of Transport

If you are sending bulk orders internationally, there are various ways to transport goods. Over 80% of all international goods are transported by sea, which makes sense as it’s one of the cheapest ways to send goods internationally. However, delivery timescales are longer with this route, especially compared to sending by air. This option is more expensive but you can ensure quick delivery of your goods.

Alternatively, road-based transport is often used for smaller intracontinental deliveries, while rail services are best suited for large order quantities over land.

Depending on the products your e-commerce business sells, you may find that you need to increase your international shipping delivery charges to customers to cover a more expensive mode of transport. For example, if you sell perishable goods, your best option is to send goods via air so they arrive quicker, but you need to ensure this decision doesn’t impact your profit margins.

You should consider all modes of transport to ship your goods internationally and, ideally, use several to accommodate the different order sizes, values and delivery options you want to offer your customers.

Invest in Cargo Insurance

Nobody wants to think about what can go wrong with international shipping, but the reality is that shipments can and do get damaged, lost, or stolen. Cargo insurance gives you financial protection and helps to protect your reputation with wholesale customers by quickly addressing and rectifying any issues. It’s worth noting that not all cargo insurance policies cover every risk or the full value of your products, so make sure you read the fine print and understand what’s included.

Comply with Customs, Duties & Regulations

Every country has its own customs procedures, and while the specifics vary, the goal is to regulate goods entering and leaving. Duties and taxes are paid on imported goods and these rates vary from country to country as well. It’s essential that you research this so you are clear on whether your goods are likely to have higher duties or taxes in certain countries and who will be responsible for the charges.

For example, if you’re a US-based business with access to UK fulfilment centres to supply customer orders in the UK, you will generally be responsible for covering these costs. This Incoterm is known as Delivery Duty Paid (DDP) shipping. Whereas, if you ship goods to customers in the UK from a US fulfilment centre, you will need to decide if that is a cost you will cover or pass on to your customers. If you choose to pass that cost on to your customers, the most widely used Incoterm is Delivery At Place (DAP) shipping. Our guide to DDP vs. DAP shipping provides many more examples than this and can help you decide which Incoterm, if either, will work best for your business.

Your Incoterms should be effectively communicated to international customers to ensure they know any additional costs they may incur before they receive their goods.

The Don’ts of International Shipping

Don’t Slack on Paperwork

Paperwork might seem tedious, but documenting everything helps keep a smooth process in all areas of your business, especially with shipping goods internationally. Proper documentation provides a clear record of what you’re shipping, where it’s going, and its value, which ensures that your goods move through customs without delays or penalties.

Inaccurate or incomplete information can lead to your shipment being held up and, in the worst-case scenario, result in fines or confiscation of your goods. In the event that your goods or documents are lost during their shipment, we recommend you keep copies of all shipping documents so you can track them and make any disputes or claims needed.

Don’t Underestimate Shipping Costs

International shipping costs can quickly escalate, especially when unexpected fees crop up. Some of the “hidden costs” with international shipping that you need to watch out for are:

Demurrage and detention fees if your goods aren’t picked up from a port or returned in time.
Fuel surcharges added by couriers.
Delivering to remote areas.

If you are working with a fulfilment partner, they should ensure they get detailed quotes from couriers or freight forwarders that include all potential charges. You should also budget a little extra for unforeseen expenses, especially if you are new to offering international shipping of your goods.

It’s also worth noting that sending goods internationally can often increase packaging costs, especially for food goods that need controlled temperatures or electronics that need protection from electrostatic discharge.

Don’t Keep Customers in the Dark

In the world of D2C e-commerce, transparency isn’t just appreciated; it’s expected. As international shipping takes longer than nationwide shipping, keeping customers in the loop, especially when issues arise, improves their customer experience and trust in your brand. Having a clear line of communication with customers can also prevent misunderstandings and reduce the number of customer service queries, which can help reduce staffing costs or heavy workloads on your customer service team.

Follow these best practices for communicating with your customers from the time they place their order.

Provide order tracking so customers can track their orders in real time.
Communicate delays or problems with customers before they come to you.
Ensure your website clearly outlines shipping times, costs, and any other important information.
Have a clear returns policy on your website and consider partnering with local return centres.

Don’t Sacrifice Quality Over Costs

As you explore modes of transport, make sure you don’t let the costs impact the overall quality of your brand’s customer experience. While it might seem ideal to use sea freight for international delivery of your customer orders, your delivery timescales will be a lot longer. Depending on your business model, this may not be an issue. After all, brands like Shein quote 7-11 working days for deliveries and customers are happy to wait that long because of how inexpensive the goods are. However, if you’re selling a premium product or price competitively for your industry, making customers wait too long for their goods can lead to negative reviews or a low customer retention rate.

International Shipping Opens Doors

Offering international delivery for your customers can open up many doors for your business. So, even if this blog post has given you some food for thought, know that it’s a step that can scale your e-commerce brand to global success. If you’re feeling unsure about how to get started with this, at Delta Fulfilment, we’re here to steer you in the right direction. We specialise in UK and EU order fulfilment services for growing e-commerce brands, and we’re passionate about creating trustworthy and reliable fulfilment partnerships. After all, your business success is our business success!

Dani Mechlowitz is the Founder & Managing Director of Delta Fulfilment. When you’re ready to expand into new markets, Dani and the Delta Fulfilment team are here to help guide you every step of the way. Request your quote today for UK and EU fulfilment solutions!

What happens if your products are really successful?

Let’s say there’s huge demand for your eCom products. But you just don’t have the capital to fill that demand.

What do you do?

Turns out, there’s a service called inventory financing that can sometimes help in situations like this. That’s why I’ve brought on David Koifman, the VP of Sales at Kickfurther, a company that specializes in inventory financing.

We’re going to cut right to the interview in just a minute. But real quick – my name is Brandon, this video is brought to you by Fulfillrite. We ship orders for eCommerce and crowdfunding. Link below for more details. Quotes are free!

One last quick note – we edited with a light touch on this interview because we wanted to keep it simple, a little lo-fi, and honest, just like two professionals on a Zoom call.

Alright, let’s cut to the interview!

Raw Transcript

This transcript is AI-generated and may contain minor inaccuracies.

00:00.00
Brandon Rollins
Right? So David first of all, thank you so much for coming on. Absolutely so to start us off can you briefly explain to me what kick further is and what the company does.

00:02.66
David Koifman
Thanks for having me Brandon. It’s awesome to be here with you.

00:15.53
David Koifman
Kickfrither is an inventory financing platform. We’ve been around nine years now and our goal is to provide business owners who either produce or purchase physical goods and then sell them later at a profit to have access to the capital. To pay for the the goods as they produce them essentially every single business that is growing fast the faster they’re growing the more they feel this cash flow pinch exhibits a tightness when they have to pay for stuff that they plan on selling but it takes so much time. From the moment that they have to issue the payment to their manufacturers or their raw materials producers until the point in time where those materials turn into finished goods and then get sent to a buyer and then sometimes even get paid for by the buyer months later based on payment terms. So. There’s a variety of a variety of different timelines that ah can occur from point a to point b and we’ve developed a program that is custom built for every customer’s unique timeline case. To provide them the capital to pay for the stuff and not require their payments until the stuff gets turned into cash on the other side.

01:33.19
Brandon Rollins
So It’s interesting because it sounds like what you guys do essentially is if a company is doing really well. They’ve got a product that is just going to be a smash success and you know this and you have the data to prove this. You just make sure that they are not. Limited by the amount of capital they have available to them. Um, in order to meet the demand. That’s there.

01:54.75
David Koifman
Exactly imagine you have an opportunity to produce an order for somebody like target for the first time ever and so you’ve been selling your product on shopify through your own website and it’s taken off and the sales are increasing and every time you place an order with your. Manufacturers you’re paying a little bit more because the order quantitynt is increasing a little bit but now Target comes to you and they say hey I’m going to place an order that exceeds everything you’ve done in the last twelve months so all of a sudden you have to double your biggest previous order ever. How are you going to pay for that right? and some businesses actually have to say no to those opportunities. Because they don’t have the cash available and so there’s a lot of different ways to access cash and I think we’ll be discussing that in more detail today inventory financing is the method that we’ve developed that intends to align most closely with the cash flows of this type of business.

02:47.48
Brandon Rollins
And that makes a lot of sense because it would be terrible to be in a company’s situation like that and say well we’re five hundred bucks short we cannot produce this massive run for target that’s no fun for anybody not for the business certainly not even for Target. Um, but you had mentioned ah just a second ago inventory financing. So for those who are unfamiliar with the concept. Can you explain how that works.

03:12.70
David Koifman
Inventory financing is not ah, a new concept. It’s been around for I would say over 100 years and it’s been tackled from a number of different angles. Um, it’s interesting because. Inventory is the collateral in all of the deals that do inventory financing. We operate a unique agreement based on consignment where we’re actually purchasing inventory on behalf of the business and then they’re selling it on our behalf on consignment. Which is it’s kind of like if you think of a consignment store where you bring them a couch and then they sell it for you and then you take in the proceeds minus their fee. That’s how our deals work. So.

03:49.69
Brandon Rollins
Um, a.

03:56.27
David Koifman
Inventory is collateral. You know as opposed to other financing methods where you have like your entire business as collateral for say a bank loan or a line of credit or for say accounts receivable financing where the accounts receivable is the collateral. And that would be actually applicable in our previous target example where target place is in order. Let’s say for a 100000 worth of goods you deliver those goods to them and then they say cool. Thanks, we’ll pay you in sixty days and a an accounts receiveable financing program at that point would say all right. They’re gonna pay you a hundred k in sixty days how about we’ll pay you ninety now and then we’ll get paid by then sixty days from now we’ll take our fee and then we’ll give you the balance. So. That’s that’s how accounts receivable financing works and that’s been around for for ages. The difference now is that so many businesses are selling through marketplaces and through their ecommerce website and you have no accounts received wool because you’re not delivering a big order to somebody who’s paying you at a later point in time.

04:54.21
Brandon Rollins
Um, a.

05:06.95
David Koifman
So you have these multiple channels for delivering product to customers and they all have different terms like if you sell up 1 widget on your website. You’re getting paid for it instantaneously some some buyers buy on 10 day terms some buyers buy on 30 day terms some buyers buy on 60 day terms.

05:24.00
Brandon Rollins
Is it.

05:26.27
David Koifman
The funny thing is those buyers are actually financing their own inventory by giving the terms to begin with right because they don’t have the cash to be paying everybody upfront for stuff what they’re doing is they’re taking the stuff they’re selling it. They’re turning it into cash and then they’re buying it from you. Right? So That’s kind of their their own little version internal version of and inventory financing that just is an industry standard for all big retail.

05:52.52
Brandon Rollins
And you’re just kind of opening that up to a larger E-commerce market.

05:57.89
David Koifman
Yeah, we’re we’re trying to target Multi-channel or any individual channel and and sort of giving them the same treatment but hyper focused on solving their unique problem or their combination of channels.

06:01.81
Brandon Rollins
And.

06:15.78
David Koifman
As a whole.

06:15.89
Brandon Rollins
Now How does this compare in terms of advantages and disadvantages to something more like what’s the word I’m looking for like business loans or credit lines.

06:28.45
David Koifman
It depends on who the provider is I would say you know I’m trying to be educational here. So I’m not just going to say take further is the best for everything um a bank will give a line of credit. Or a small business loan that will be the lowest rate you can access outside of friends and family. That’s your number 1 choice the problem with that is that often. They decline businesses that are in high early stage growth because they’re looking for a longer track record or they’ll provide a limit that. Is nowhere near what you’re looking for so we look at it as part of the capital stack and so you have a number of different places where you get your money. One of them might be your own personal bank account. You know you, you might be looking at line of credit or a loan from a bank. Um, you might be looking at. Raising an equity round to bring cash into the business inventory financing is something to definitely consider as part of that Nix then you have revenue financing you have accounts receable financing purchase order financing. These are all different programs different products to look at.

07:39.20
Brandon Rollins
Now that makes sense now because the banks generally they’re going to be ones looking for just something that’s been around for a while. That’s that’s kind of how they like to roll they like to minimize their risk. Um, but I’m assuming that you probably still have some qualifications in place that kick further requires Before. You’re able to provide inventory financing is that is that fair to say.

08:00.37
David Koifman
Yeah, it’s it’s funny. The name kickrither came from like ah essentially a playoff of kickstarter. So kickstarter is the first production run right? You have a great idea. You’ve developed a prototype and.

08:06.94
Brandon Rollins
Are.

08:15.10
David Koifman
You’ve contacted a manufacturer about producing your first major production run and now you go to kickstarter to finance your first production run where a community of participants who is interested in buying the product is also financing their own unit of products and so you gather that money together. Pay your manufacturer and then you’ll fulfill the order to all the customers now what happens next you want to make another run and you want to start selling it on Amazon how are you going to pay for that production run because each customer isn’t always willing to wait a year for their one widget to arrive.

08:41.27
Brandon Rollins
Is in.

08:53.38
David Koifman
So that’s kind of the genesis of the platform is what happens next and the idea is you’ve worked out the kinks you’ve produced your stuff once or a handful of times and demonstrated your ability to manufacture quality control sell deliver product take in revenues. And run your business and so for that reason we require four hundred k in trailing twelve months sales in order to qualify for inventory financing with kick further.

09:22.28
Brandon Rollins
Okay, yeah, that makes sense. Um, can you also help by let me let me let you do this one again. That’s a beauty of editing isn’t it. Um, yeah, that makes a lot of sense so far.

09:30.48
David Koifman
Soon.

09:37.30
Brandon Rollins
So kind of on my related note can you break down the costs that are associated with inventory financing.

09:41.47
David Koifman
We look at it on a cost per and month basis. So essentially you are looking at the amount of time between when you need to pay your manufacturers and when you expect the cash to start coming back in.

09:45.30
Brandon Rollins
See.

09:57.69
David Koifman
Ah, from the sales of that particular inventory run. That’s when you start making payments and then once you’ve seen 80 to 100% of the cash come in from those sales. That’s when you expect to stop making payments. So every deal has a unique duration based on your projections as a business owner.

10:00.47
Brandon Rollins
It.

10:16.22
David Koifman
Um, and the total duration multiplied by the rate per month is what your cost is going to be and I would say as a rough estimate one to two and a half percent a month is sort of the range and where you fall within that range is based on the risk of your business. We look at data.

10:26.31
Brandon Rollins
And.

10:34.99
David Koifman
That comes from bank accounts accounting platform and sales platform.

10:40.72
Brandon Rollins
Now Let’s say somebody does it secure inventory financing. How is that going to affect their cash flow in their working capital.

10:51.53
David Koifman
The idea is to streamline the cash flow right? So you you want you don’t want to have lumpiness in your cash flow where all your money is coming in when you sell the product and the rest of the time you’re just spending here. You’re getting access to money to buy product.

10:54.46
Brandon Rollins
Me.

11:10.10
David Koifman
Before you actually sell the product. It’s also freeing up cash for whatever other needs. The business has. For example, if you need to spend on equipment or marketing or.

11:24.57
Brandon Rollins
No.

11:26.62
David Koifman
Some sort of R and D this sort of smooths out your cash flows so you have access to capital more frequently than just when your product is selling.

11:33.23
Brandon Rollins
That makes perfect sense. So have you observed any trends or shifts and demand for inventory financing in the last five years particularly because ecommerce has changed so much.

11:48.99
David Koifman
Yeah I mean 5 years is ah is a big period in time and I’ve actually been with kick further that entire time. Um, it’s interesting. How things have changed with the relationship with China and also the pandemic. It’s it’s really just driven businesses.

11:50.32
Brandon Rollins
You.

12:05.23
David Koifman
To want to buy more less frequently. So they’re placing bigger orders maybe instead of 4 times a year three times a year or twice a year and there’s a couple things that they’re they’re essentially trying to address risk and costs so risk.

12:09.52
Brandon Rollins
Um, even.

12:14.53
Brandon Rollins
Is it.

12:24.34
David Koifman
Comes in some sort of delays in fulfillment or logistics where you know they experience that containers were sitting in port for a while or waiting to go out to sea and they were unable to get their inventory on time. So ah, and especially when you have multiple orders that are sort of. Staggered throughout that delay process. It becomes even more painful. So it’s important to get larger quantities of inventory in-house so you can be more resilient to those sort of events and the other thing is if you place bigger orders. Then one you can save on logistics costs so you can maybe fill a container or have multiple containers and 2 probably most importantly, you can get discounts from your manufacturer because you’re placing larger orders and so that’s really the best way to drive down costs and a third thing is. A lot of people will get terms from their manufacturers and essentially that means the manufacturer is offering them some sort of inventory financing and most of them are not in the business of finance and do this just so they can close more deals. So if you bring them an opportunity to maybe reduce their margin a little bit but not deal with having.

13:23.49
Brandon Rollins
Is it.

13:30.37
Brandon Rollins
Um, yeah.

13:36.44
David Koifman
Ah, payments do after you sell your inventory or after you receive it. They would definitely offer you Not definitely start that one over.

13:42.37
Brandon Rollins
Um, if.

13:49.73
David Koifman
They are often likely to offer you a discount in favor of the terms that they’re currently offering you.

13:52.46
Brandon Rollins
And that just makes a lot of sense because if you do financing on a regular basis. You have a pretty good idea of like when you’re going to get paid Back. You get a you you get a good sense of that I imagine after a while manufacturer they just specialize in manufacturing. Like sure they they know what they’re doing with billing but um, they might charge a higher percentage than your rates just for being able to send that stuff out in advance and have it on Net thirty Net Sixty Net ninety or whatever they need to do just convince people to buy the bigger loan.

14:23.70
David Koifman
They would need to because they’re almost certainly less sophisticated and evaluating business risk so they need to cover their losses more conservatively.

14:30.93
Brandon Rollins
Um, you know.

14:37.46
Brandon Rollins
That makes a lot of sense. Um, so with that in mind where can people learn more about kick further link in the description.

14:44.93
David Koifman
Kickferther.com is a great place also feel free to email me directly David at Kickfrither.com and our our team is great at answering questions. You know, many businesses do come to us a little bit before they’re qualified. We’re happy to be a resource. Ah, we have a number of partnerships that may help businesses grow faster and also can give you guidance for when you are ready to engage with us. Um, that’s it for that question.

15:07.54
Brandon Rollins
The.

15:15.38
Brandon Rollins
Yeah, absolutely and also in addition to that I’m going to include the kick further social media down below so you can also check that out if you would like to follow kick further on well on whichever channels you’re on all right? Well thank you very much for your time.

15:28.60
David Koifman
Cool.

15:34.13
Brandon Rollins
We really appreciate it all right.

15:34.37
David Koifman
Thanks Brandon that was a great chat.

Final Thoughts

Thanks for watching this interview. I appreciate it and I know David at Kickfurther does too!

Details on both our companies are in the description.

And just in case you missed the name earlier, my name is Brandon, here on behalf of Fulfillrite. If you need help shipping your orders, go to fulfillrite.com and request a quote. We’ve shipped for thousands of eCommerce companies before and we’re happy to help you too. The quote doesn’t cost a thing, so if nothing else, you get some good information about pricing. Link in the description.

If you enjoyed this video, please take a moment to like and subscribe. Don’t forget to slap some postage on that bell so we can express ship new videos to you as soon as they drop. And last but not least, if you have any questions, leave a comment below. I will personally answer as many as I can.

Thanks for watching!

According to a PwC poll, 30% of consumers desire to try new brands. It reminds businesses to focus on retaining their current customers and enticing new ones by providing original and differentiated products and services.

In our fast-paced world, establishing brand loyalty is crucial for the growth and prosperity of any e-commerce enterprise. Especially now that customers have vast arrays of options and the competition is intense.

But how can you build and maintain brand loyalty in a constantly shifting market?

This article will show ten strategies to keep customers loyal to your brand and propel your e-com biz to success. These tactics will enable you to develop a foundation of devoted customers and find long-term success, regardless of your online store experience.

Provide Exceptional Customer Service

Exceptional customer service fosters brand loyalty. It’s a vital aspect that helps develop a loyal clientele making them spend more on your product or service. But what precisely qualifies as excellent customer service?

To begin with, it involves actively listening to and addressing the needs and apprehensions of your clients. It’s critical to answer quickly and courteously to any queries customers may have, whether related to a problem with their order or concern regarding your product or service.

Allowing clients to contact you through various methods is one of the best approaches to providing outstanding customer service. Nowadays, it can be done through social media platforms effortlessly, but helping through phone calls, emails, and live chats adds more value to your business.

In the eCommerce world, AI chatbots have become a massive trend. By leveraging this tool, you can offer exceptional customer service by providing instant responses and personalized recommendations. To implement a chatbot, you can find Java, Ruby, and Python developers for hire, ensuring a seamless integration that enhances the overall user experience.

Allowing your employees the freedom to provide extraordinary service can lead to the creation of above-and-beyond customer service. Encourage them to pay attention to clients’ issues, develop unique solutions, and then check in to ensure the problem has been fixed.

Helping your consumers requires effort, commitment, and a sincere desire. While it may require dedication and commitment, creating a foundation of long-term customers can have significant payoffs.

Deliver a Consistent Brand Experience

To develop and maintain brand loyalty, you have to be consistent. Wherever your brand is encountered, it should be recognizable and trustworthy to your customers. Delivering a consistent brand experience across all channels, including your website, social media accounts, packaging, and shipping, is necessary.

So how do you guarantee a unified brand experience?

First, set your brand identity, including your brand values, mission statement, and visual identity. Ensure that everyone on your team knows these concepts and how to apply them consistently across all platforms.

Next, ensure your tone of voice and messaging are the same across all media. It must be unified via email, social media, or your website.

Finally, ensure your branding is consistent outside of the digital realm. Your packaging, shipping supplies, and in-person customer interactions are included. No matter where they come across it, your brand should be recognizable to your customers.

Building trust and familiarity with your customers through a consistent brand experience will help maintain their loyalty. The secret to long-term success in e-com is having devoted customers.

Create a Strong Brand Identity

Building brand loyalty in the e-commerce era requires a strong brand identity. Your brand’s identity comprises its mission statement, core values, and visual representation, and it should be uniform across all channels.

You can start by defining your brand values and the guiding concepts to help your company stand out. Ensure everything you do, from your website copy to social media posts, reflects these principles.

Make a mission statement summarizing your brand’s purpose and objectives next. This assertion should be clear, memorable, and the foundation for all you do.

Craft a visual identity that accurately represents your brand’s mission and values. Your brand’s logo, color scheme, and typography are integral components in visually representing your brand.

A well-crafted brand identity helps distinguish your business from competitors. It attracts customers who connect with your values and mission. The secret to long-term success in e-commerce is having devoted clients. Spend the effort necessary to create a solid brand identity that accurately portrays your company.

Offer Competitive Pricing

Price is usually the decisive factor for many buyers in online shopping. Offering competitive pricing is therefore crucial for fostering and maintaining brand loyalty.

It doesn’t necessarily imply that you must offer the lowest pricing; instead, you should follow what customers reasonably anticipate paying for your goods or services.

You can also look for pricing patterns and trends and use this knowledge to guide your pricing choices. Keep in mind that in addition to considering your expenditures and desired profit margins, your prices should also consider what your target market is ready to pay.

In addition to providing competitive pricing, consider additional pricing tactics that can promote and maintain brand loyalty. For instance, offering discounts and other incentives to loyal consumers can encourage their continued patronage.

You can create a dedicated customer base that trusts your brand by strategically pricing your goods and services. In the end, maintaining competitive prices is just one aspect of developing customer loyalty.

Personalize the Customer Experience

Building brand loyalty in the e-commerce industry can be easier by personalizing the customer experience. Personalizing customer interactions can demonstrate a commitment to meeting their unique needs and building long-term relationships.

Here are some ways to provide a personalized customer experience:

Gather information such as their demographics, purchasing, and browsing histories. Utilize this information to adapt your messaging and product recommendations to each customer individually.

Knowing where to optimize your user journeys is also incredibly important. You won’t find much ROI personalizing a section of your user journey that doesn’t have any issues or customer drop-outs. Instead, you want to focus on the areas that customers are consistently dropping out of. This is where you’ll find the most gains.

Deliver individualized help and communication. It can include tailored interactions with chatbots or emails, product recommendations, or packing and shipping choices. But remember that personalization goes beyond simply utilizing a customer’s name in your email.

Be sure that your efforts to personalize the consumer experience are sincere and meaningful and improve it. You will then establish closer relationships with your clients and entice them to use your services repeatedly.

Invest time in understanding your customer’s needs and preferences to create personalized experiences that set your brand apart.

Provide High-Quality Products

Offering superior quality products can help differentiate your business from competitors and build a robust and loyal customer base. Customers seek assurance and satisfaction in their purchases and therefore require goods of impeccable quality that align with their expectations.

To do this:

Use premium materials to create durable items.
Ensure that all your products are constantly dependable and well-made.
Include detailed product descriptions and photographs depicting the goods you’re selling.

Offering top-notch goods will help win clients’ trust. Customers are more inclined to suggest your company to others and keep doing business with you when they feel confident in your offerings.

Producing high-quality goods demands investment in raw materials, production techniques, and quality control procedures; therefore, it can be more complex, but the reward is worth it. You’ll establish a reputation for excellence and prepare clients to spend more on superior goods.

Engage Customers through Social Media

Social networking is a potent tool for attracting customers today and fostering brand loyalty. You can share your brand’s story on social networking websites to connect with customers and excite them.

To properly engage with customers on social media, publish user-generated content. It includes testimonials, videos, audio, images, and even polls. Use appropriate hashtags and tags to broaden your audience and inspire your followers to interact with your brand.

Offering special offers and promotions to your followers is another approach to attracting customers on social media. They can be exclusive discounts, freebies, or first access to new products. Making your followers feel like members of a select group will entice them to shop with you repeatedly.

Social media interaction with customers involves much more than simply broadcasting your brand’s message; it requires attentive listening, social media moderation, and a genuine desire to understand their needs. Always watch your social media accounts, and answer comments and questions quickly.

Be imaginative in your approach, offer exciting information, and build a sense of community among your fans.

Encourage Customer Reviews and Feedback

Actively encourage reviews and comments from your customers. Their opinions and evaluations offer insightful information about what’s working (and what isn’t) in your company and assist other customers in making informed purchasing decisions.

You may strengthen and increase the loyalty of your customer base by paying attention to consumer feedback and adjusting your goods and services but make sure it’s easy for them to do this.

On your website and email correspondence, provide clear calls to action urging visitors to submit reviews or offer feedback. You can also reward customers for ratings by giving them discounts or freebies.

Ignoring reviews and feedback, positive or negative, is not an option for businesses that value customer relationships. Customers are more inclined to stick with your company and refer you to others if they feel like their opinions are being acknowledged.

Use comments and reviews as a tool for ongoing improvement. Then make adjustments to your business based on feedback. Consistently engaging with customer reviews and feedback can help your brand establish itself as a customer-focused business that prioritizes meeting customers’ needs.

Reward Loyal Customers

Cherish your loyal customers with special discounts, gifts, and other benefits. One good strategy is implementing a loyalty program where customers receive points for each transaction. You can offer them the opportunity to exchange their points for deals or free goods.

Offering special discounts or promotions to clients who have patronized your store for a specific amount of time or have made a certain number of purchases is another method to thank devoted customers. You can generate excitement and brand loyalty by giving your clients the impression that they are part of a select group.

Rewards for recommending your company to their friends and relatives is another good strategy. You can encourage word-of-mouth referrals and build a strong network of devoted customers by providing a discount or freebie to both the referrer and the new customer.

Make sure that your rewards program is easy to comprehend. How your program works should be simple to read, especially on your websites, emails, or social media accounts. Add a way for customers to monitor their progress. Spend time establishing a rewards program that benefits your company and customers.

Provide Fast and Efficient Shipping

Every e-commerce company needs quick and efficient shipping. Nobody wants to wait weeks for a product to arrive, so ensuring your shipping procedure is as streamlined and effective as possible is crucial.

Working with dependable shipping companies and fulfillment services that provide quick delivery times and real-time tracking is one approach to ensure prompt and effective shipping. Give your customers the flexibility to choose their preferred shipping speed by offering various shipping options, including regular and expedited shipping.

Offering free shipping on orders exceeding a specific quantity is an additional method to help you win customer loyalty. Your company will be chosen over rivals who don’t offer free shipping.

Keeping your customers updated on their shipping progress is beneficial throughout the shipping process. Customers’ worry will be reduced, and their excitement about their purchase will be maintained by sending frequent updates via email or text.

To strike the right balance between speed and cost in shipping, consider offering a range of options to customers. While some may be willing to pay for overnight delivery, others prefer a more affordable standard option.

Conclusion

For your e-commerce business to thrive, cultivating brand loyalty is a critical strategy. You can build a compelling, distinctive brand that stands out from the competition by putting the ten ideas we’ve listed in this post into practice.

Building brand loyalty requires outstanding customer service, a consistent brand experience, and a strong brand identity. Different ways to differentiate your company from the competition include competitive prices, a customized customer experience, and high-quality goods.

Other crucial techniques include engaging customers on social media, encouraging reviews and comments, and rewarding devoted customers.

Finally, fast and effective shipping is a must in building a seamless and delightful buying experience that keeps customers pleased and satisfied.

Establishing and maintaining brand loyalty necessitates a comprehensive strategy covering every part of your company. By concentrating on these methods, you can build a distinctive and appealing brand that attracts customers and keeps them returning for more, resulting in long-term growth and success.

Will Schneider is the founder of WarehousingAndFulfillment.com, a company that operates as a match-making service for the fulfillment industry. Prior to starting WarehousingAndFulfillment.com, Mr. Schneider gained extensive experience in the logistics industry running two private warehousing and fulfillment companies, and served as the Vice President of netQuote, a real-time quoting service for the insurance industry. In addition to writing informative posts about outsourced fulfillment and shipping services, he is also passionate about helping businesses find the right solutions to improve their overall operations. When not working, Will enjoys coaching youth basketball.

E-Commerce has created new opportunities for selling products outside of the traditional brick-and-mortar store. And, as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, more people are turning to their screens to make purchases. The influx in selling and spending via the web, plus easy-to-use selling platforms on the market like Shopify, Amazon, Etsy, and more, has made starting an e-commerce business more accessible.

While selling online allows many conveniences for both the seller and the customer, like working and shopping from home, there is one aspect that can be particularly challenging—fulfillment.

From keeping inventory organized, to shipping labels, and everything in between, it’s easy to make mistakes during the fulfillment process. Incorrect, delayed, or lost orders can have devastating effects on your customer base. For this reason, e-commerce businesses of every size should consider utilizing fulfillment software to streamline their supply chain operations.

About Fulfillment Software

Fulfillment software helps business owners with some or all aspects of fulfilling customer orders, including the six essential aspects of fulfillment:

Storefront Management
Order Management
Inventory Management
Shipping Management
Packaging
Picking, Packing, and Labeling

This software will also help sellers to process orders via one of three main fulfillment methods:

Self-Service: Self-Service is the “do it yourself” approach to fulfillment where a seller fulfills their own orders. This could be done in a warehouse with a team of workers or by an individual in their own home.
3rd Party Logistics (3PL): To fulfill via 3PL, sellers ship their products to the 3PL provider’s warehouse. The 3PL provider will then store this inventory until an order is placed. Once an order is placed, the 3PL will then pick, pack, and ship the order to the customer.
Drop Shipping: Drop shipping is similar to a 3PL, except that sellers do not own the items they sell. When an order is placed, the drop shipper is notified and will then fulfill that order with items from their warehouse, shipping the order out directly to the customer.

By utilizing fulfillment software, you can save time and money on your fulfillment process, allowing you to focus on the aspects of your business that you love.

What to Look for In Fulfillment Software

While fulfillment software can offer a wide range of useful services, order management tools and smart shipping are two essential aspects a fulfillment software should provide.

Order Management Tools

Order management tools help simplify many aspects of your orders and integrate directly into your storefront or marketplace. Order management software addresses a number of fulfillment pain points, such as syncing inventory across multiple sales channels, viewing all orders in a single dashboard, stock level alerts to ensure inventory availability, and helping create custom orders.

Smart Shipping

When it comes to shipping and packaging, fulfillment software should recommend the best shipping rates and shipping packaging. These recommendations will help make the picking, packing, and labeling process more efficient.

Keeping the above points in mind, here are the 7 top fulfillment software options available for e-commerce sellers today:

7 Best Fulfillment Softwares

1. Soapbox

Soapbox is an all-in-one software that makes e-commerce fulfillment easy and efficient, at scale. Whether you’re a small business owner or a large corporation, Soapbox has tools to simplify your fulfillment.