The peak shipping season is a trying time for any online business, as orders grow, inventory lowers, rates increase as do customer expectations. But, it doesn’t have to be this way! By adopting shipping best practices, your business can better prepare for the peak shipping season and keep your customers satisfied during the holidays.

How Merchants Should Prepare for the Holiday Shipping Season

Almost 40% of holiday shipping occurs in the 4 weeks leading up to Black Friday. Merchants should prepare for the holiday shipping season by taking a look at the data from years past and strategies that worked and didn’t work, taking stock of their inventory and using up-to-date technology to better manage their inventory, and ensuring an adequate number of staff is on-hand to assist.

What Should Be on Every Merchants’ Checklist

To better prepare for the holiday shipping season, use this checklist to guide your eCommerce business in streamlining your logistics strategy.

Set your eCommerce logistics up for success with the following:

• Step 1. Set your shipping policy.
• Step 2. Find the right couriers for your business.
• Step 3. Purchase shipping supplies.
• Step 4. Display shipping rates and information on your store.
• Step 5. Delivery a smooth post-purchase experience.

Strategies to Ensure Smooth Shipping

To ensure smooth shipping during the holidays, merchants should offer multiple shipping options, pack products securely, validate addresses before shipping and use integrations and logistics platforms to handle order increases.

How to Cope with Peak Volume Shipping

During peak shipping season, merchants should always research and communicate couriers’ shipping cutoff dates, factor in weather to delivery times, include expected delivery dates in customer emails, be sure to clearly communicate return policies to customers and ensure robust customer support is available.

Discover even more information, including:

• the first steps to take for prep for the holiday shipping season
• tips on how to communicate effectively
• find 2019 Holiday Shipping Deadlines here.

Don’t wait - prepare for peak shipping season today with these useful insights from Sendle!