Leaders of small-to-medium-sized e-commerce businesses, shipping fewer than 3,000 packages a month, are balancing a range of priorities, all of which are essential to growing their businesses.
“E-commerce SMB leaders really want to focus on promoting their business, getting new clients, and getting their products to their customers,” said Gitika Jain, vice president, shipping portfolio at ShipAccel powered by Pitney Bowes.
But having the right shipping solution is important to e-commerce business growth, too — and SMB leaders need to ensure that the approach they take to shipping meets their customers’ high standards.
Small-to-medium-sized e-commerce businesses benefit from partnering with a shipping solution that can not only support their future growth, but also help them save time and costs across all stages of their business trajectory. The right partner should be able to offer e-commerce SMBs the following keys to success.
1. Preferential carrier rates
Small-to-medium-sized e-commerce businesses lack the negotiating power of their larger peers. That can leave them paying less-than-optimal rates for shipping services.
Working with the right shipping partner can help SMBs unlock better carrier rates. Using ShipAccel, for example, enables smaller e-commerce businesses to benefit from group rates. And once those smaller businesses grow large enough to negotiate their own arrangements with carriers, they can put those group rates aside without having to switch to a different shipping solution provider.
“If you already have pre-negotiated rates with the carriers, you're also able to use those rate cards,” Jain said. “We're not pushing our rates, we want you to get the best deal. If that's something that you've already worked out with the carriers, you can bring that over through your account.”
2. Robust analytics
SMBs tend to be more price sensitive than larger e-commerce businesses. And while many of them are continually looking for ways to save money, it can be easy to overlook the potential cost-savings within the shipping process.
“They're really just thinking of getting their packages from point A to point B, but there's so much data in between to help them identify where there are optimization opportunities within their shipping workflows,” says Jain.
Using analytics, leaders of small-to-medium-sized e-commerce businesses can review how much they are spending with each carrier, for example, and analyze whether working with specific carriers by region could be more beneficial to them than other approaches.
3. Reliable, branded tracking
Small-to-medium-sized e-commerce businesses are competing with larger businesses for customers, and they need to meet the same customer expectations.
SMBs’ customers increasingly expect to not only know when their packages are arriving, but also to be able to track those packages until they do. Using the right shipping solution, e-commerce SMBs can offer their customers clear, accurate visibility into when their packages are being delivered and where they are in their delivery processes.
“Keeping customers in the know — and not having to worry about the hassle or that headache of wondering where their packages are — is important for these businesses as they grow,” Jain said. “And when these SMBs are able to use their own logos and color palettes in their tracking and returns portals, it helps them maintain strong branding throughout the entire customer journey.”
4. Extensive integrations
E-commerce SMBs work with partners ranging from shipping carriers to e-commerce platforms to IT systems. Having to use multiple systems to handle orders can make it difficult for these businesses to stay up to date on order statuses and workflows.
Using a shipping solution with a deep bench of integration partners, however, allows SMBs to view and manage orders more seamlessly.
“Everything's in one place,” Jain said. “You can see your shipments that are out, you can see your order history. Rather than have to log into multiple different platforms, it’s all right there and is streamlined for the business user.”
Having everything in one place also helps save time. Verifying addresses is much easier, for example, with the right systems integration, helping SMBs avoid mistakes and misprinted labels that can lead to unnecessary costs.
Conclusion: Smarter shipping that can scale along with you
Ultimately, SMB leaders all want more time — as in, more time to focus on their growth-driving priorities and strategies.
“SMBs are in a growth mindset, as they’re trying to scale their business,” Jain said. “They may not be thinking about shipping as something helping them grow their businesses, but it helps them save time and effort in one area so that they can focus on other areas.”
The right shipping partner can not only help facilitate growth by making shipping smarter and more reliable for growing e-commerce businesses, it can also adapt to increased complexity and volume as those businesses grow and scale to new warehouses and locations. Saving money and simplifying shipping are lasting benefits that help SMBs throughout their entire business trajectories.
ShipAccel, powered by Pitney Bowes, is the one-stop shipping solution for e-commerce businesses. Learn how working with ShipAccel can help you save on rates, automate your workflow, and supercharge your growth at shipaccel.com.
