Starshipit are shooting for the stars at the European eCommerce Awards

Starshipit is the best practice shipping and fulfilment platform that helps retailers save time and deliver great shipping experiences. Featuring seamless integrations with all major eCommerce platforms and couriers empowers, and unlimited 5-star local NZ support, Starshipit is the ideal platform to help retailers to hit the ground running with shipping.

Being shortlisted for this award is a true delight for our team. We all work hard to build the best shipping automation platform for our customers, helping them to save valuable hours every week.

Introduction

If you work in eCommerce or run your own online store, you’ll know just how easy it is to get lost in the day to day. Planning the next promotion, working on ways to increase sales, managing staff and other logistical issues are all par for the course – and expected.

But despite its importance, many of us neglect shipping, both from a customer and a business perspective. We don’t give our customers the delivery options they want, and we fail to realise how much time we could save by shipping smarter, not harder.

The problem with shipping

In eCommerce, it’s easy to focus on everything up to the point a customer clicks “Buy now”. This is for good reason too: there’s no shortage of issues to solve or opportunities to seize. Understandably, this has made shipping somewhat of a black sheep in eCommerce – a neglected area that is in desperate need of some love.

When shopping online yourself, raise your hand if you’ve ever come across the following:

• Inconsistent, low quality delivery notifications
• Delivery options which suit the business, not the customer
• Poor returns experiences

We know that we sure have! Now this actually makes sense. Shipping is such a broad area with so many touchpoints that things are bound to go wrong if you don’t apply some serious focus to it.

Shipping: It’s easy to improve

We think improving your shipping starts with a two-pronged approach of strategy and technology in the form of shipping automation.

If you haven’t come across shipping automation before, it’s nearly always used to mean a centralised platform which acts as the brain of your shipping operation. You plug in your eCommerce platforms and couriers, and then use the platform as the one place to manage your shipments. It’s also where you set up consistent notifications, tweak your delivery options, manage returns and more.

The best part is that you can simultaneously improve your customer experience while simplifying your back end, enabling you to lower costs and reduce handling time.

Importance of shipping automation

Let’s take a look at how shipping automation can help the back end of your business first. As we mentioned earlier, it’s one of the best ways to improve the efficiency and accuracy of your logistics operations.

Beyond just integrating your platforms and couriers and managing them from one place, you can eliminate the manual parts of your fulfilment, like printing labels, selecting courier services, dealing with customs documentation and generating packing slips. Its hours saved per week. If you’ve ever wondered about those eCommerce success stories, there’s a good chance they’ve used technology like this to help them scale.

And that’s really just the start. Shipping automation allows you to lay a solid foundation for your business and deliver better customer experiences. Let’s see how.

• Customer-centric delivery options: Your customers want delivery options that cater to their preferences and schedules – not yours. When they’re at the checkout, they want to be able to pick from same-day delivery, overnight, alternative pickup options and even time-slot selection. Shipping automation allows you to manage this from a single dashboard and create automaton rules to apply to various options or based on your specific needs.
• Enhancing delivery notifications: The excitement customers feel when a package is on its way can quickly turn to frustration if the initial delivery timeline isn’t met. Customers also love knowing when an item has left your store and is on the way to them. Finding ways to keep customers in the loop is not just a way to meet expectations, it’s a chance to communicate and build connections to engage with customers and build loyalty. Again, this is where a shipping platform can help you create the notifications and manage when they’re sent out.

Conclusion

For too long, shipping has been an overlooked part of eCommerce. The results are all too clear: Businesses have dealt with dissatisfied customers, abandoned carts, and missed opportunities for growth.

But by focusing on improving shipping, and using the right tools, you can transform this neglected area into a competitive advantage for your business.