Logistics has been gaining weight and has become one of the differentiating elements of companies and with the new sales channels such as telephone and e-commerce, it becomes fundamental.
In recent years, the concept of logistics has been gaining weight and has become one of the differentiating elements of companies. If new sales channels such as telephone and e-commerce are also included, it becomes essential.
If you assimilate Porter’s value chain from physical stores to e-commerce, you will find a fundamental difference. The physical interaction with the customer, the most emotional moment of the purchase such as the delivery of the product, has been transferred and delegated to the transport companies. This delegation is even greater if we do techniques such as dropshipping, the pack & picking process (handling, preparation, and shipping wrapping) outsourced for reasons of efficiency and operation and storage costs.
For these reasons, logistics in eCommerce is a priority, since it becomes the fundamental basis for the shopping experience to be not only satisfactory but surprising and even better than what the customer expected.
For this reason, the strategic choice of the management and handling of the shipment, the carrier, and also the management of possible returns in a comprehensive manner have become the differential elements between the main logistics players.
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In the effort to differentiate, the packing process (order packaging) requires in the best cases of careful care, since they are made in specific and carefully designed packaging, improving the way of reaching the customer and differentiating from the normal shipment that different competitors can do.
If we give our e-commerce the necessary attention to the returns of our customers, the logistics provider must offer a very comfortable and easily accessible service, which should not be an obstacle to significantly increase the prices and services provided.
As it is always important to have as many means of payment as possible, you cannot forget the cash on delivery, since it responds to several customers who for various reasons (children and adolescents without a credit card or simply insecurity in the payment process) prefer to use this type of payment when making their purchases. The management of this type of payment can be definitive in convincing our client to finish making the purchase, being essential to incorporate it in the logistics management of product delivery.
In addition, when you have an eCommerce, you should think that not only local customers can make purchases, but that it is an excellent proposal to internationalize the business. Therefore, and to be able to send these products, you must have a trusted logistics partner capable of responding not only to shipments or returns but also to the necessary customs procedures for areas with different consumption taxes.
Due to the need to surprise the eCommerce customer with an excellent service, facilitating and improving the possibilities of making the purchase and for meeting the requirements that logistics providers agree with their customers, they have been modernizing and offering increasingly integrated and automated services, in such a way that its objective is not to be a supplier, but to become a fundamental partner of the company.