Only a perfect shipping experience leads to lasting customer loyalty. With a good delivery strategy, your shipping becomes a differentiating factor to get ahead of the competition when expanding into new European markets.
In order to guarantee top-class cross-border delivery, you need the appropriate know-how. From country-specific delivery preferences to tracking and return policies, you need to know exactly what your customer wants and how they want to receive their package.
“Only a perfect buying and shipping experience leads to lasting customer loyalty,” says Martin Wunderlich, Head of Parcel Logistics and Operations at Seven Senders. “This rule applies across borders. That’s why retailers should do everything they can to meet the demands in the respective European markets.”
One way to grow across borders is to sell through an online marketplace. The advantages are obvious: You use the infrastructure of the marketplace for your entire sales process – from product placement, payment and customer service, to marketing.
When it comes to shipping, you have the option of using the fulfillment service of the marketplace. However, this is complicated by additional availability and inventory management. In addition, high commissions are incurred. You can also ship from your own warehouse. With this option, you have to manage the shipping completely yourself, while complying with the strict rules of the marketplace: a challenge for your logistics and IT.
If you want to conquer new markets or increase sales in existing ones you need an affordable cross-border shipping solution. In order to ensure high customer satisfaction in every country, working with one expert shipping partner is the best option. In this way, you minimize the complexity of managing many relationships with logistics partners and can serve your target markets with the best service and build up a secure customer base in the long term.
The experts at Seven Senders know European customer needs in the specific markets and know which carriers offer the required services. These include special payment methods, such as cash on delivery in Italy, or delivery preferences, such as pick-up and drop-off (PUDO) in France.
The delivery platform offers another decisive advantage: all shipping needs from a single source. Connecting via a single interface shippers gain access to a wide carrier network, performance analytics, and more. “During onboarding, the implementation team accompanies you from A to Z,” explains Wunderlich. E-commerce merchants who use the platform to optimize their shipments appreciate the support right up to go-live and beyond. They only have one contact person for all shipping processes. “We don’t leave our customers alone,” emphasizes Wunderlich.