6 Steps to Achieving a Successful eCommerce Business

Shopping online provides consumers with flexibility and convenience in their busy lives, that’s why it’s no surprise that the global eCommerce market is expected to reach $5.5 trillion in 2022*. From clothing items, toiletries and furniture, to food shops and pharmaceutical items, almost anything can be ordered online and delivered straight to your doorstep.

In this competitive market, what are some ways you can ensure that you are running a successful eCommerce business?

We believe that business efficiency is vital, especially for an eCommerce business — after all an efficient business is a profitable one!

Here are 6 ways to achieve a more efficient eCommerce business:

1. Where does the time go?

The first step to increasing efficiency is working out where your time goes, and this covers everything from your employees’ time/productivity to eCommerce delivery. By working out the allocation of time you can highlight what areas need to be looked at and come up with a plan to streamline your operations.

It can be difficult to track this kind of data when it comes to delivery, but with the help of GFS Reportor, our multi-carrier parcel shipping solution, you can manage all delivery performance criteria such as parcel volumes, carrier performance, service frequency, geographical distribution, and filter by date, carrier and location to see the exact set of data you need.

2. Listen to your employees

Efficiency and productivity go hand in hand. If you give your employees the opportunity to voice their feedback not only will you gain some valuable insight, it will help to keep them motivated. Whether your team is remote or in-office, keeping communication lines open helps run things smoothly by preventing mistakes and misunderstandings, and allowing improvements.

3. Understand the 80-20 rule

The 80-20 rule developed by Pareto, is based around 80% of the effects/outcomes from a certain situation coming from 20% of the causes. For example, a business could have a very loyal customer base that contributes to 80% of all profits and comes from only 20% of the same repeating customers. This rule can be uniquely applied to any business and can help you focus your efforts in the right areas, whether it’s to save money or invest more.

4. Manage customer expectations

The customer always comes first, that’s why their happiness is key to an efficient eCommerce business. A few ways you can achieve this is by ensuring first-time delivery success by significantly reducing the number of lost or delayed parcels, building a customer service team to deal with any issues, and ensuring that customer feedback is always taken on onboard.

GFS Manager is a parcel management system that can help your customer service team solve eCommerce delivery problems fast through direct contact with carriers and consignees. We believe in our system so much that it is even used by our own Customer Care team as part of our Managed Multi-Carrier Service.

warehouse worker moving parcels

5. Automate order fulfilment

As we touched on at the beginning of this blog, online shopping provides convenience to customers, but expectations are growing, and it is not enough to just sell online with standard delivery. Your customers want choice and efficient delivery options, or they will go elsewhere to one of your competitors.

GFS Checkout offers a choice of more than 1,000 delivery services from 50 carriers that is tailored to the customer – from click and collect to next-day delivery — with full track-and-trace facility. As delivery specialists, our managed multi-carrier parcel delivery service is equipped with state-of-the-art technology for speed and accuracy.

Highlight this stat on page: GFS Checkout customers reported a 16.6% higher basket conversion rate.

6. Take the pressure off

Sometimes the saying is true — you can’t do it all. And luckily you don’t have to. Outsourcing some of your operations is a great way to free up resources and access specialised expertise and leading technologies to become a more efficient business with greater capacity.

Whether you’re a small business or a larger corporation needing an extra pair of hands to ensure things are running smoothly, GFS Operations could be the answer you’re looking for! Our team of logistics experts work round the clock to make sure collections, deliveries, and returns run as smoothly as possible. And just in case something doesn’t go to plan, finding a ‘Plan B’ is what we do best, so you can relax and have confidence that delivery won’t let you down, no matter what.

GFS, your trusted multi-carrier partner

We see delivery differently. Our multi-carrier shipping service can be integrated into one single technology platform for all of your eCommerce delivery and returns, locally within the UK or globally in the EU, US, or rest of the world.

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