Although it is always important to transport orders quickly and safely, it is more important in the busy holiday season. After all, gifts need to be arrived as soon as possible to put them under the tree, distribute at a festival party, or transport them to their loved ones.
In the last holiday season, nearly 16 billion mails and parcels were delivered, an increase of more than 4% over 2017. There are 8% of emails and parcels between UPS and Fedex.
There are many factors that affect the delivery time, some of which you cannot control. Continue reading to understand how to prepare for holiday transportation, set the freight with Woocommerce, and ensure that your package arrives on time.
Set transportation
Your first step is to determine your transportation area or the area you transported. You can choose international transportation or only transport to a specific country. If you sell products such as alcohol, you can only transport a specific area where you have a license.
Set up freight and methods for each area. Essence This helps determine the deadline for delivery in specific areas. For example, you can set up orders for orders globally than orders earlier than hundreds of miles of or out. You can find more detailed information about the selection deadline and the carrier in the following part, or you can read our complete document on setting up the transportation area. Woocommerce offers three default transportation methods:
Free delivery -free your product to your customers.
- Uniform freight -a percentage of a fixed price or total order.
- Local pickup -personally meet with customers to deliver their products.
Free delivery may be a good way to encourage purchase. In fact, if free delivery services are provided, 93% of online shoppers will actively buy more products. If you decide to provide free standard transportation options, you may also need to pay additional fees to provide priority transportation. Using Woocommerce, you can combine various options according to the needs of customers.
If the default transportation method does not meet your requirements, you can use a variety of extensions:
Table freight -use forms to create customized freight. The freight is based on weight, the number of goods, the price, etc.
- WOOCOMMERCE Advanced Shipping Packages -Divide your shopping cart into a separate package and has its own rates.
- View all available transport extensions of WooCommerce.
WooCommerce remote freight -provides freight for your customers based on distance or total travel time.
WooCommerce Shipping – Get discount USPS rate and print tag directly from your WooCommerce dashboard.
Finally, you may need to consider creating a transportation category for your products. The transportation category is used to set the rate of specific items, such as heavy or fragile products with higher delivery costs.
Reading product transportation category documents to learn more details.
Select and integrated with the transport carrier
Selecting the appropriate carrier will have a significant impact on freight, time and delivery quality. The operator suitable for your business may be different, but when choosing one, you need to consider the following points:
Where do you transport it?
Ensure that your carrier can transport everything you serve.
- Do your products need special treatment? If your product is heavy or needs special attention (such as cold or flammable items), make sure your carrier provides a solution.
- What is available? Can a large number of delivery be discounted?
- How fast is your carrier delivery?
- Is it possible to track it?
- Does it include insurance, or can you buy it separately?
- The important thing is that you also have to consider changes in delivery time and rate of delivery during the holidays. USPS, Fedex and UPS have released the expected traffic deadline for 2019, but if you use different carriers, make sure you understand their requirements. Some carrier also charges holiday transport surcharges, especially for large or overweight parcels. Choose supply for your customersConsider these factors for business or determining freight.
In some cases, you may need to use multiple operators. For example, some of your items may have special treatment requirements, or you may need to use different carriers to use some countries/regions that you are transported to you. You can allow your client to choose between transportation methods, or use extended programs such as Table Rate Shipping to select the way to provide specific products. View transportation carrier applicable to woocommerce.
Select the deadline for delivery
After setting the freight and method on your website, please let the customer know the last day of the product that they can buy the product in order to be on the last day in order to be on the last day of the product. Received the product before December 25. First understand the deadline of the carrier you choose. As mentioned above, USPS, Fedex, and UPS have announced their deadlines, but you may need to add some additional filling because these dates are estimated, not guarantee.
Date, because international transport usually takes longer. Please pay attention to any international holiday that may affect the transportation time. In the end, your deadline should be based on your carrier deadline, holidays and weekends, and your own processing time. Then, make sure they show them in a clear way.
Photo https://nuriabeauty.com
A method is to add on your website’s homepage, product page or checkout page A visible pop -up window. Nuria Beauty has created similar things through e -mail instead of the delivery date. Please note that they add a superposition layer to the rest of the page so that the window is clearly visible.
Layla Mattress uses the top columns on each page of its website to promote sales. You can use the same format to display the deadline for delivery, and with clear countdown to show how much time can be purchased during the holidays.
Or, you can use the shopping cart notification to the expansion program to add a color visual alarm to the checkout page, reminding customers your you expiration date. It is important that your deadline is obvious, so that you can avoid any problems to customers.
It is important to provide tracking information so that your buyers can accurately know when they can receive their parcels and pay close attention. This also allows you not to answer the delivery questions raised by holiday shoppers. Using the Shipment Tracking extension program, you can provide tracking information on your website and email. In addition, when you buy labels using Woocommerce Shipping, you can send tracking information via email.
to ensure that the package arrives on time After the deadline, you need to do everything possible to ensure that your package arrives on time. Provide an emergency transportation option.
Add faster transportation options for customers who shop at the last moment, such as priority transportation or overnight delivery. 77% of holiday shoppers plan to buy gifts at the last moment, and the emergency options increase the opportunity to complete these orders.
Print the transport label yourself.
Instead of waiting in the post office, it is better to consider printing and transport labels. You can use WooCommerce Shipping to print discount tags from USPS, or integrate services such as Shipstation or Stamps.com.
Create an efficient order management process . First ensure that the materials and other items required by the supplier will reach the order in time to fulfill your orders. Then, ensure that employees understand their duties and can effectively perform their duties. You may need to hire seasonal or temporary team members to handle the increase in orders.
Prepare all transportation materials.
Ordering additional transportation and packaging materials, and prepare them before the holidays start. You don’t want to wait for custom boxes or go to the store during the seasonal peak. More relatedProduct packaging prompts, please read our posts about surpassing customer expectations by packaging. Please pay attention to shopping days with large traffic. Prepare and formulate the process in order to quickly perform orders after high -traffic shopping days. These may be different from your location and industry, but including Black Friday, Internet Monday and Super Saturday, that is, the last Saturday before Christmas.
Handling late package
But what if your package is really late? How do you handle dissatisfaction and dissatisfaction customers?
A good starting point is to formulate a refund and return policy. Let it be seen on your website, such as on the footer or checkout page, and persist. Return and warranty requests are allowed to allow customers to easily request and manage return from their instrument boards. This can alleviate your burden and simplify the process.
to maintain professional and empathy for frustrated customers, and consider providing them with future purchase discounts Or a certain percentage of the total order. They may still want the product, even if it is late, and will be excited about some refunds or coupons.
If your product is damaged during the transportation due to some reason, please provide a replacement refund for your customers. This can help retain loyal customers, and usually minimize your losses.
Don’t be afraid to apply for a freight refund from your carrier. You may get a refund for delayed delivery based on who to transport your package and the way you choose. Some operators require you to apply for refunds within a certain period of time, so please pay attention to the specific application window of your operator. Moreover, if your parcel is transported and damaged, you can ask for the value of freight and items. immediately began to prepare
59% of shoppers to find promotion and purchase gifts 42 days before the holiday. Make sure you have the appropriate process, policies and settings to ensure that your parcels are delivered quickly and satisfied your customers.
For more information, please read our posts on common holiday transportation problems.
