5 delivery facts ecommerce business owners need to know

At diamond, we believe in helping business owners achieve the best results, and we like to pass on useful findings. We've spoken to some of our successful customers to see what tips they have to share now that we're coming up to peak, and they came up with the following:

• Using an order fulfilment service could help reduce the work times by more than 50%

Outsourcing your fulfilment means that you get to concentrate on the parts of the business that you’re good at, instead of wasting time and effort doing business activities that cost a lot of time and money.

• 80% of customers would shop online if they were offered free shipping

An overwhelming result from numerous ecommerce buyers is that nobody is happy about shipping charges that are unclear and that are added as the last stage in the shopping cart process. It is better to incorporate shipping charges into the sale cost of the item, and to shout about your free shipping throughout your buyer experience. Or, publish the shopping costs on the same page as the item costs. But never keep shipping as a nasty last minute surprise.

• Enabling customers to track their orders online leads to fewer service requests

In 2017, customers expect to know what is happening to their order and view its progress from chopping cart to delivery. Around peak, delays are likely to happen, so your best bet to avoid pressuring your customer services at this time is to make sure that you have a tracking system enabled.

• Get your delivery right to avoid compensation claims

Make sure that you pay extra special attention to delivery and don’t try and do it on the cheap. If consumers have to take time off work or suffer distress and financial losses due to late delivery, they can and will make compensation claims. This is where diamond's unique multicarrier solution comes up trumps, as it enables you to choose the optimum carrier for your goods. You have been warned!

• Offer a range of delivery options

All companies should offer a range of delivery options, including next day and courier. Recent research has uncovered that next day delivery is the preferred compromise between speed and cost for UK consumers, and all products should have this as the minimum delivery method.