Three ways to increase drop shipping business. Without shrinking margins.
As retailers seek an edge, brands are expected to offer direct-to-consumer shipping. For some, it creates anxiety and a struggle to maintain reasonable profit margins. For others, the prospect of working with retailers who might have been unwilling to carry their lines in the past is motivating.
The demands of drop shipping can be onerous—retailer-branded labels and packing slips, tight delivery deadlines, a different ship-to address for every order. A system that eliminates errors and increases automation is essential. Without that, you’ll not only lose customers, you’ll find yourself spending an outsized amount of time on your direct-to-consumer drop shipping business.
If your direct-to-consumer is growing but you’re struggling to make it truly efficient, here are three ways to reduce the time you spend processing orders and increasing the profits they provide.
Three ways to increase drop shipping business. Without shrinking margins.
As retailers seek an edge, brands are expected to offer direct-to-consumer shipping. For some, it creates anxiety and a struggle to maintain reasonable profit margins. For others, the prospect of working with retailers who might have been unwilling to carry their lines in the past is motivating.
The demands of drop shipping can be onerous—retailer-branded labels and packing slips, tight delivery deadlines, a different ship-to address for every order. A system that eliminates errors and increases automation is essential. Without that, you’ll not only lose customers, you’ll find yourself spending an outsized amount of time on your direct-to-consumer drop shipping business.
If your direct-to-consumer is growing but you’re struggling to make it truly efficient, here are three ways to reduce the time you spend processing orders and increasing the profits they provide.
1) Process direct-to-consumer orders the same way as standard EDI transactions.
Let’s say you have a system in place for EDI—you’ve been processing orders from retailers and your team knows it well. Now you’re managing business that requires you to ship single orders that aren’t a bulk purchase. Instead of sending a quantity of, say, 1,000, to a distribution center or a store, you’re shipping one item directly to the consumer who bought it online.
If you’re introducing another system to handle these orders or creating some kind of complicated workaround, you’re setting yourself up for inefficiency. A good EDI and order management platform should handle the entire spectrum—everything from wholesale, traditional EDI transactions to a one-time shipment of a single item to a home address in Des Moines. At eZCom, we’ve invested in updates to our software so our customers can adapt to the shifting retail landscape—managing direct-to-consumer drop ship orders is automated and efficient.
2) Deliver a great service experience to every customer.
If you’re drop shipping a purchase made on a retailer’s web site, you’re processing an order that needs to satisfy the demands of two distinct customers—the retailer and the consumer who bought your product. The retailer expects it to feel seamless to the buyer, so you’ll probably need to provide branded packing slips. A platform that makes it an automated process will reduce the time you have to devote to each order and eliminate the kind of errors that damage your retailer relationships. Of course, you can’t forget the consumer and their experience. If shipping is too slow or the wrong item is sent, you can be sure the retailer will hear about it. And guess what? You will, too. With an EDI and order management provider that automates the process as much as possible, you’ll be able to manage all of it more confidently. What’s more, retailers will value you as a trusted, reliable vendor.
3) Integrate with the system that powers your business.
If your drop ship, direct-to-consumer orders are increasing, it probably means your company is growing, too. This may be the right time to consider integrating with your ERP, your accounting software, your 3PL provider, or your WMS. When you integrate your EDI and order management software, efficiency and automation increases because data is transferred seamlessly. At eZCom, our integration team will create a custom solution that scales as you grow and lets you work the way you want to work. This becomes extremely valuable as you process more direct-to-consumer orders and want to manage your growing business in a way that preserves profit margins.
Make drop ship, direct-to-consumer orders easier.
In a retail environment increasingly driven by online trends, the shift to drop shipping will only grow. For retailers, it offers an opportunity to keep inventory counts low while being able to respond quickly to shifting consumer tastes. Facing intense competitive pressure, their desire to create efficiencies will only increase.
For brands, finding new efficiencies will be just as essential. The right EDI and order processing software can be a critical component that makes drop shipping-consumer orders more profitable.
