How To Ship Products To Customers: Online Shipping in 2024

You set plenty of effort into ensuring your customers have an important experience. You approve the photographs, you tweak your store, and also you write the emails, all with the goal of leaving your customers joyful.

But you are probably still asking yourself, “tips on how to ship my products to customers”. Ecommerce shipping is a key a part of your enterprise. It’s the purpose where a customer finally experiences your product in person, and it could also represent a significant expense in your enterprise, depending in your ecommerce shipping strategy.

On this guide, we’ll go over shipping strategy, product packaging, using popular carriers, tracking and insurance, reducing your shipping costs, and delivery options for ecommerce shipping integrations.

The way to easily ship products to customers

1. Design your packaging materials
2. Package your order
3. Print your shipping label
4. Drop off orders at your selected shipping facility

1. Design your packaging materials

Your product packaging can have a huge impact on whether customers return for future purchases, which is why you’ll wish to spend time occupied with tips on how to package your products. 

The packaging materials you could want to contemplate creating unique designs for are:

• Boxes/bags
• Tissue paper/filler
• Tape
• Stickers
• Business cards
• Branded promotional materials
• Customized notes

The more unique your packing materials are, the more they’ll stick in your customers’ minds. You may as well consider adding customizable “thanks” cards to every of your packages.

Concentrate on your packaging design before you even start selling your first product so you may start wowing your audience right from the get-go.

2. Package your order

Now it’s time to package your order—or place all ordered items right into a box to ship to your customer. Be sure you insert your package filling before gently and securely placing the products within the box.

Place any additional packing materials within the box, like stickers, a business card, a thanks card, or a customized note. Then seal your package and get it able to ship.

3. Print your shipping label

When you get an order in your Shopify online store, log into your Shopify dashboard to access your shipping label. This may include all pertinent information in your customer, including name and mailing address. 

Place the shipping label right on top of your sealed package and place it off to the side when you work through packaging every other orders you could have.

4. Drop off orders at your selected shipping facility

When you’ve finished packaging all your orders, it’s time to take them to the shipping store! As we’ve mentioned, there are plenty of available options, from USPS or FedEx to UPS or DHL Express.

Pack all your orders up into your automotive and take them all the way down to your local shipping facility. You’ll also wish to get tracking numbers in order that your customers can see when to expect their delivery.

Or, benefit from an ecommerce achievement warehouse

Turn our four-step guide right into a two-step guide and don’t worry about shipping products yourself. By utilizing an ecommerce achievement warehouse, all it’s worthwhile to do is design your packaging materials, then send those and your products to the achievement center.

After that, anytime your enterprise gets a brand new order, all you’ve to do is collect their payment. The achievement center will probably be notified of the acquisition, gather the order items, package it, and ship all of it for you.

Ecommerce shipping strategy 101

There are some basics that set a foundation for the remainder tips on how to ship products to your customers. While you may come back and alter each of those afterward, as you learn more, these are the important thing decisions and steps that make up your high-level shipping strategy.

Your shipping rates and methods

Are you going to pass the total cost of shipping on to your customers or will you offer free or flat-rate shipping to soak up some or all of the associated fee? How will you get orders to your local customers? By the top of this post, you’ll have more information on tips on how to make this alternative for your enterprise.

Product weights

To streamline the means of shipping ecommerce orders, measure and update the burden of every product you sell. Having this details about your ecommerce shipments arrange will assist you get a superb sense of your total costs, and pass along accurate prices to your customers.

Select your selected packaging

While there’s more to be said about what type of packaging is correct in your products, when you’ve chosen it, you may add that information to Shopify so you may calculate accurate shipping prices.

Source your packaging

You may order free packaging from some carriers comparable to USPS, UPS, or DHL, or put money into branded packaging if that’s a part of your strategy.

Set your ecommerce shipping rates and methods

Before you may start shipping ecommerce orders, you’ll first need to determine your pricing strategy for shipping. There are several common methods, but your alternative should all the time be told by the underlying financials of your enterprise.

Offer Free Shipping

Offering your customers free shipping is among the best ways to scale back shopping cart abandonment. Nonetheless, as you would possibly suspect, shipping isn’t free. Someone all the time has to pay. To make free shipping work, you’ve a couple of options.

1. Increase product prices to cover costs for shipping (customer pays).
2. You pay the total price of shipping out of your margins (you pay).
3. Increase prices of products barely to cover partial costs of shipping (you and your customer pays).
4. Offer a discount code to certain customers without spending a dime shipping.

Moreover, you can even try offering free shipping on a minimum order amount. This strategy may help offset the prices of shipping by helping to extend your average order size, but you are still the one paying for it out of your margins. Subsequently, it’s not all the time the very best shipping solution for online sellers.

Charge real-time carrier rates

One other effective shipping strategy is to charge real-time carrier rates for shipping. In case you’re using Shopify as your ecommerce platform, you need to use Shopify’s ecommerce shipping integrations that work in real-time with various carriers like USPS and Canada Post (amongst others) to generate shipping options and live pricing from various carriers. This permits your customers to decide on and pay for the precise service they need.

Charge a flat rate

A preferred option is to supply flat rate shipping. The perfect practice for this feature is to attempt to make sure that that you just don’t drastically undercharge or overcharge your customers. Flat rate shipping works best when you’ve a reasonably standard product line of things which have similar sizes and weights. Flat rate shipping tends to change into complicated and fewer effective for those who sell a wide selection of products with different sizes and weights.

Offer local delivery

One other method to contemplate is local delivery. That is an important option for small businesses seeking to offer an easy and reliable next-day delivery method to their local customers. If you arrange local delivery, you may customize your delivery area using a radius or an inventory of zip/postal codes. Customers who’re inside your defined delivery area will find a way to pick “local delivery” as a shipping method at checkout. Offering local delivery without spending a dime over a certain order amount, or offering it for a low price can assist you cut down on shipping costs and get more local customers. In some cases, you may do all of it yourself without using an ecommerce shipping provider. 

Calculating ecommerce shipping rates

All shipping couriers base shipping rates on quite a lot of aspects including:

• Package size
• Package weight
• Origin address
• Destination address

Plus additional shipping options like tracking numbers and insurance.

It could actually be difficult to check services exactly as all of them offer barely different options, and each business may have their very own unique variables.

Below we have now compiled an inventory of shipping calculators with ecommerce shipping rates for a number of the largest and hottest shipping couriers so you can begin comparing pricing and options. In case you’re based within the US or Canada, you may pay for USPS, UPS, DHL Express, Canada Post, and Sendle Shopify shipping options and receive pre-negotiated rates. See example rates here.

Consider your margins

To achieve success at ecommerce, you usually have to regulate your profit margins. Because shipping for ecommerce represents a big expense for merchants, for those who don’t do your research, you possibly can find yourself losing money on shipping.

Before you finalize your pricing and strategy in your ecommerce store, you must use a chart just like the one below to map out all ecommerce shipping solutions and costs related to getting your products into your customers’ hands. Lots of the very best ecommerce entrepreneurs are shocked by how quickly the little charges add up for shipping ecommerce orders. Don’t get caught in the identical trap.

Here’s a fast example of how you possibly can calculate your total price to incorporate the associated fee of ecommerce shipments.

Packaging and marketing

Because the world of ecommerce develops so do the expectations of consumers who buy online. Years ago, packaging and shipping was simply a option to receive a product purchased online, but increasingly more individuals are searching for shipping, packaging and presentation as a part of the ecommerce experience.

This expectation signifies that for a lot of businesses, outside of selling commodities, competing effectively means going above and beyond to impress customers and exceed their expectations by delivering an experience, not only a product.

Packaging inserts and presentation may be an efficient option to set yourself apart. In a world where sealed factory bags and a black-and-white order receipt are considered standard, it’s the small details that go a good distance in making an exceptional impression on customers.

Consider how you may provide a greater customer experience through your packaging, and the way you need to use packaging as an extension of your brand.

Packaging options

Before you may ship your products, you’ll have to package them for protected transport. So what ecommerce shipping options do you’ve on this regard? There are a couple of common options for packaging including boxes or envelopes (padded or unpadded). For instance, Arka and its Shopify app offer blank and custom packaging materials including boxes, mailers, package tissues, tape, and stickers. 

For a lot of businesses and products, you’ll use a box in addition to another packaging materials to securely ship your products.

Chances are you’ll also wish to try pondering outside of the box (no pun intended) and have a look at other packaging options. For instance, some ecommerce shipping providers offer poly mailers as a option to mail products that don’t need plenty of structure or cushioning, like clothing.

Poly mailers offer multiple advantages. They’re lightweight, which reduces your shipping costs, they usually can adjust to different volumes and weights depending on what’s included within the order. For instance, the identical size of poly mailer could accommodate one pair of socks, or five, and also you wouldn’t be overpaying on packaging weight or dimensions for the one pair.

Another large packaging suppliers you could want to contemplate are ValueMailers, Fast-Pack and eSupplyStore. Moreover, many carriers like USPS, DHL, and UPS offer free packaging in differing types and sizes.

Keep it light and small

Because the associated fee of most shipping options is predicated on size and/or weight, do your best to maintain your packaging as small as possible. This may not only assist you save in your ecommerce shipping rates and what your customer paid for shipping, but may even keep packaging costs from eating away your profit margin.

Depending on your enterprise and product line, you could want to contemplate carrying quite a lot of package sizes and packaging materials.

Most individuals would consider the packaging for the product above to be excessive. This is precisely what you’re attempting to avoid because it inflates shipping costs dramatically.

The Shopify guide to shipping and achievement

Boost customer satisfaction while driving sales growth in your ecommerce business with an efficient shipping and achievement strategy. Use this guide to create a plan that covers all elements of shipping and achievement, from how much to charge your customers to selecting the best achievement method.

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Insurance and tracking

Depending on what you’re selling and its value, shipping insurance and tracking can offer an important deal of security. With most ecommerce shipping firms, insurance and tracking is comparatively inexpensive and provides you recourse should certainly one of your packages wander away or damaged. Some shipping services like UPS and USPS Priority Mail include complimentary coverage for as much as $100, and that coverage may be as much as $200 in some cases.

Consider purchasing insurance on big-ticket items in order that, within the rare cases when a package does wander away, you will be covered. Take into accout that some shipping services have insurance already built into the value, so consider this if you find yourself comparing various courier prices.

Customs declaration and forms

For international shipping, you’ll need to incorporate the right customs documentation. These can be found online through Shopify shipping options or at your local post office or shipping retail location. These forms tell the customs officers on the country of import what’s within the package, how much it costs, and whether it’s a present or merchandise.

Check along with your country’s postal service to search out out exactly which forms you’ll need to connect to your package. These forms ought to be accomplished truthfully and clearly to stop your package from getting held up in Customs.

Tariffs, taxes and duties

If there are any additional customs fees due when a package reaches its destination, your customer will probably be accountable for them on the time of delivery. It’s all the time a superb idea to make sure that to incorporate this information in your shipping policy page so customers aren’t surprised by unexpected fees. 

Here’s an example of how one store prominently displays information regarding additional charges on their ecommerce shipping policy page to make sure customers are aware of possible charges:

Customs declaration information

For more information on customs declaration and the required forms and policies, please see the resources below when shipping for ecommerce:

Business accounts

Once you’ve selected the carriers you wish to use, consider establishing business accounts. Business accounts offer quite a lot of services including discounts, higher expense tracking, and a complete host of online tools to more efficiently manage the shipping elements of your enterprise.

For USPS, UPS, DHL Express services in the USA and Canada Post services in Canada, join through Shopify Shipping for preferred rates and discounts.

• UK Royal Mail Online Business Account – An internet business account with Royal Mail will assist you save time by managing all of your shipping expense and invoices multi functional place.
• Australia Post Business Credit Account – A Business Credit Account with Australia Post will help you charge lots of the common services on to your account for higher management of your expenses.

Labeling your packages

Once you’ve found out your presentation, packaging, return policy, carrier, and costs, you’ll need to find out how you wish to label your packages. Many recent ecommerce entrepreneurs start off by writing the ship-to and return addresses on the package by hand. Although this may be an important option to start, it tends to be time consuming, tedious, and never scalable as your enterprise grows.

That’s where Shopify Shipping is available in. You may print and pay for multiple shipping labels directly while you use Shopify shipping options.

You may print your labels on plain paper using any printer, or to save lots of much more time, you may upgrade to a thermal label printer to print directly on self-stick labels.

Using a achievement warehouse

Success services and warehouses may help automate and handle the shipping for you. If you decide to work with a achievement center, you’ll store your inventory at certainly one of their warehouses. Depending on their level of integration along with your shopping cart, when an order is available in your achievement partner will routinely be forwarded the order to select, pack, and ship orders in your behalf.

There are a number of benefits to using a achievement warehouse including:

• Cheaper shipping rates. Because achievement warehouses ship such large quantities for multiple vendors, they receive cheaper shipping rates. Additionally they have ecommerce shipping integration capability (often) with all of the key shipping logistics, providing you with easier access to the widest range of shipping options.
• Shorter shipping times. Strategically selecting your achievement partner and the warehouse to store your inventory means you may store your inventory closer to the majority of your customers and meet customer expectations more readily.

Success warehouses aren’t for everybody, though. There are several disadvantages as well that a business owner should consider.

• Branding experience. Generally, for those who use your packaging presentation as a part of your branding experience, you’ll be hard pressed to search out a achievement warehouse that may work with that level of dedication and customization in your brand.
• Less cost-effective. Although you’ll probably receive higher shipping rates working with a achievement partner, there are other rates that must be paid including what are commonly known as ‘pick and pack fees’ in addition to warehouse storage fees. These fees may be determined by order or by monthly fee, so you’ll want to look into the small print and select what’s best based in your volume.

Best rates, instantly

Businesses in North America routinely get access to pre-negotiated shipping rates with all the top shipping carriers—UPS, USPS, DHL Express, and Canada Post. Normally you would wish to get your individual account with each of those carriers and negotiate your individual discounts (often based in your previous shipping volume). But for those who’re just starting out, business costs are already high, and the final thing you wish is to pay high rates for shipping.

With these online store shipping rates in hand, you now have options. You should utilize these rates to point out exact shipping costs at checkout, passing on savings to your customers. You may as well use these rates with Shopify’s in-built label printing. This implies each time you fulfil an order, you may print out the corresponding USPS, UPS, DHL Express, or Canada Post shipping label, saving yourself a visit to the post office, a visit to a different website, or paying a 3rd party to print labels.

Schedule pickups while you need them

Coping with a stack of orders is each a blessing and a curse. It’s exciting you’ve made all of those sales, but now it’s worthwhile to get them to your customers. As a substitute of ordering an Uber, driving through traffic, and waiting in line, you may now schedule a pickup for UPS or DHL Express shipments directly in Shopify. Just go in and schedule while you desire a driver to reach at your door, including same day pickups, with no minimum volume required.

Pickups are free for DHL Express shipments, and $4 flat for UPS (retail costs start at $5.80 and may include surcharges).

Shipping is a fundamental a part of your ecommerce business

Here’s the underside line: determining tips on how to ship products to customers is a difficult aspect for any online product-based business. Every business may have their very own unique challenges they should work through and overcome to develop the very best and best ecommerce shipping solutions. Like many elements of constructing your recent ecommerce site, it can take time and tweaking to find out what works best.

Understanding all of the variables and evolving the way you approach shipping ecommerce orders is important to its long run health and success. So once you think that you’ve ecommerce shipments found out, don’t let it go stale. Reevaluate every six months to make sure that you are delivering the very best possible service and experience for the very best possible price to your customers.

Thanks to Mike McGuire and Desirae Odjick for his or her contributions to this post!

Illustration by Rachel Tunstall