How to Stay on Top of Delivery Dates and Shipping Times

The eCommerce industry has always had its fair share of challenges, mostly involving shipping delays and supply chain issues. But while such problems continue to escalate, customers still have sky-high expectations regarding how quickly they want online stores to deliver their orders.

92% of customers online show that knowing their package will arrive by the promised delivery date is one of the biggest factors that influence their buying decisions. So it’s clear that customers still expect their orders to reach them on time. Delayed delivery will most likely discourage customers from dealing with you again.

With that in mind, let’s talk about how you can stay on top of fulfillment complications and make timely shipping a norm for your business.

The Dilemma of Delayed Deliveries

2021 wasn’t the most favorable year for shipping, with some of the biggest eCommerce brands struggling to ship on time. Lots of orders failed to reach customers on the promised delivery dates.

And with experts forecasting that supply chain problems aren’t going away soon, we expect that there’ll continue to be prolonged delivery processes. Major carriers have challenges to work through, meaning that shoppers should expect to wait longer to receive their packages.

With these issues proving more persistent than ever, it might be wise for holiday shoppers to place their orders earlier to escape the December rush. That’s what experts suggest at the very least.

Do you want to know the importance of estimated delivery dates? Then click here to read.

The Effect on Customer Experience

So how do customers feel about these issues and delays?

Buyers who feel unsure about what shipping experience to expect from your brand tend to abandon their carts. Delivery is the deal-breaker for many online shoppers, with a significant 84% stating that they would not make repeat buys after a subpar shipping experience.

Research also points to the fact that your checkout page affects buyers’ psychology. When delivery dates and processes are transparent, 60.7% of shoppers will more than likely complete their orders. That goes to show how compelling accurate delivery dates can be for your customers.

Being transparent and precise with delivery throughout the time a customer stays at your online store could be the catalyst you need to boost sales.

Check our blog on tips on how to retain your customers.

What eCommerce Brands Need to Do

87% of buyers say that deciding to shop from a store again depends on the shipping experience. That implies a mediocre delivery experience has a high opportunity cost, inevitably creating an unfavourable image for your brand and leaving you prone to receiving bad social reviews.

It’s simple! Your customers want to be kept in the know concerning when to expect their orders.

The sad truth, however, is that many merchants aren’t confident enough to assure their customers that their packages will arrive on the displayed dates. But since buyers have high delivery expectations, it then makes sense for online merchants to become invested in the checkout and delivery experience they create for their customers.

Being intentional and accurate about delivery dates will help eCommerce stores:

• create a customized customer experience,
• stay many steps ahead of competitors,
• reduce cases of cart abandonment and WISMO significantly,
• increase trust by staying in control of delivery timelines, and
• ultimately drive conversions.

By maintaining complete transparency about the delivery process with customers, eCommerce brands can influence buyer psychology and proactively solve shipping delays.

The Best Solution for Configuring Delivery Dates

To keep up with trends and the ever-changing nature of customer expectations, eCommerce stores need to adopt an intelligent automated solution. Such a system should be able to calculate and tell delivery dates with top-level accuracy in any buying situation.

Fenix Commerce is that solution!

Now, merchants can save money and time by configuring and innovatively displaying tailored delivery dates using Fenix.

These configurations can use the operational data of fulfillment warehouse centers to determine when orders can be sent out or not. It can also identify days when there’ll be blackouts or cutoff times and then use that data to generate accurate lead times for each method and carrier.

Fenix also allows merchants to set up and integrate specific parameters, such as the location of the shoppers and pickup times for every carrier. The calculations will then factor in those details to create more precise timelines.

Now eCommerce brands can thrive in a sea of sameness and improve their ability to convert more customers by using Fenix Commerce, a shipping and delivery software powered by artificial intelligence. Through the AI platform, online stores can offer a plethora of delivery options that are not only accurate but also conveniently tailored to the needs of shoppers.

How Fenix Commerce Helps?

Fenix isn’t some generic tool for delivery dates. Displaying an accurate EDD that helps you give customers assured delivery promises is no mean feat. That's because there are lots of real-time actions going on behind the scene that must be accounted for.

FenixCommerce takes care of all that by pooling data across different important feeds, including carrier, operational, customer, inventory, and product info. It then uses AI to analyze all the variables in real-time to come up with accurate EDDs before displaying them to the customer.

Doing so helps to increase conversions, cut down on shipping fees by using the best option for every customer, and also boost the speed of delivery. When the order delivery options are customized for every single shopper that lands on your online store, you create trust and lower your rate of cart abandonment.

Convert Your Customers Into Loyal Shoppers With Fenix

Providing a superior end-to-end delivery experience for customers is the best way to turn them into loyal repeat buyers and eager advocates for your brand.

Fenix helps you achieve that. Now you can put forward the most accurate delivery dates at checkout and do it better than any other competitor.

If you’d like to see how you can come out on top amidst all the supply chain chaos using Fenix Commerce and also stay in control of the delivery experience you're creating for visitors, request a free demo right away.

Increase your eCommerce conversion rate by up to 14% with FenixCommerce