CX: Order & Collect or Delivery?
It's an exciting time to be in eCommerce. As adoption has expanded, so have opportunities to leverage your store footprint. Today, it's a matter of will with bold eCommerce teams choosing to exceed customer expectations to win!
Improving your cart abandonment rate is the leading opportunity for e-commerce and digital marketing managers. Looking at Power Retail’s 2021 benchmarks across 1000s of e-commerce purchases, it is clear that delivery options and communications across the last mile are key triggers for optimisation.
How likely are you to abandon a shopping cart based on the following?
Of the surveyed, 97% of respondents reported high shipping costs the leading cause of abandonment while 85% reported communications across the cost occurred too late in the shopping experience. As expected, 68% of customers listed the slow speed of delivery as the third most popular lever for abandonment. Additionally, 31% rated both the lack of a shipping upgrade and click & collect not being offered to being responsible as the most likely reason to abandon a shopping cart.
Shipping Costs (97%)
Fuel prices continue to be a challenge for delivery carriers. Crowd sourced carriers are at the mercy of surge pricing, as well as fuel surcharges. Offering pickup (BOPIS) and delivery options such as shipping or local delivery from store enables access of inventory across your store network, reduces the delivery radius and respective costs, alongside sustainability gains and emissions reduction.
Communicating Costs (85%)
Customers expect a minimum of multi-point notifications that include "You order is ready and awaiting pickup", "Out for delivery", and "Order has been delivered" eMails & SMS notifications as table stakes. Having a multi-carrier solution is fantastic to leverage multiple suppliers, but being able to consistently communicate to customers across multiple services requires a single point of customer service. Managing multiple carriers and communicating to your customers across the last mile journey needs to be easy and always consistent.
Delivery Methods (68%)
Standard and Express shipping methods are the norm for nearly all eCommerce businesses today. Businesses like OZ Hair & Beauty and Hairhouse are bringing additional choices to customer demand and winning. Offering click & collect, click & deliver and same-day delivery from store are game changers that are optimising customer journey points, increasing frequency and reducing cart abandonment - driving conversion.
Upgrade Options (31%)
Post-purchase is what the customer remembers as their experience and service with you. It’s also an opportunity to return some black ink to the P&L across shipping and delivery. With the majority of shipping paid by retailers today, offering a shipping upgrade across order notifications is a simple tactic. Adding a link to upgrade shipping after the daily cutoff time can enable a scheduled, express or same-day delivery on the following day. Recouping dollars against a free standard shipping threshold reduces a percentage of cost and grows over time with familiarity. This also goes for upsell opportunities since you know what the customer bought. Offer items that other customers have purchased together across your order notifications. Many ESPs can handle this in their personalisation such as Emarsys and Klaviyo.
Click & Collect (31%)
If you aren’t offering buy online and pickup in store, it’s time to bring your best foot forward. Customers want click & collect to save shipping costs and provide certainty. You can leverage that certainty by connecting legacy systems to modern data management systems such as Comestri, enVista, Fluent, Viare, and other global inventory and order management solutions that take whatever data you throw at them and enable usable chunks across your network. Shipping from store has been fantastic for brands such as Blue Illusion who have seen 55% of orders ship from store during large sale events. This has enabled store stock availability displayed online that would have fallen off the site from a single distribution centre.
Authority to Leave - ATL (24%)
Coming out of the pandemic, customers appreciate their orders delivered contactless and without the use of carriers carding deliveries for a post office pickup. Having ATL options is the customer choice for delivery - ensuring orders are not carded. Additionally, on demand carriers are delivering across seven days and enabling order volumes to leave stores and be delivered store to door on Saturdays and Sundays when the customer is home or desiring their orders sooner.
It's an exciting time to be in eCommerce and Australia has finally hit the world stage across online adoption. As adoption has expanded, so have opportunities to leverage your store footprint to surprise and delight. Today, it's a matter of will with bold and brave eCommerce teams choosing to exceed customer expectations.
The future of commerce is cross channel and local.
About Mike Fowler
Mike is an eCommerce veteran, senior leader & growth strategist for some of Australia's best retailers. Formerly at Afterpay as Director of Merchant Services APAC, General Manager and founder of the growth team at Mosaic Brands (Noni B Group) developing and launching 9 iconic multi-category online marketplaces, including: Noni B, Rockmans, Millers, and Rivers, as well as Head of Digital at Blue Illusion. Member of the Australia Post Customer Advisory Group with more than 15 years experience in helping retailers leverage eCommerce, CX, payments, & logistics opportunities to maximise growth.
