Canadians get everything delivered nowadays. We want what we order immediately, from groceries to clothing, and we don’t want to leave the house to get it and prefer to ship it. What does that mean for your brick-and-mortar store? As e-commerce grows wildly popular, your store might benefit from utilizing ship from store and outsourcing last-mile deliveries. Keep reading to learn about the importance of ship from store, last-mile deliveries, and how you can provide your customers express deliveries.
What is Ship From Store and Last-Mile Delivery?
Ship from store is the process of fulfilling customer orders from your store as opposed to the warehouse. Through ship from store, you able to ship direct to customers from your store.
Last-mile delivery is essentially the last leg of the delivery process. Generally, orders are fulfilled from a warehouse when you order from a store. From there, the package has to be flown out closer to the recipient, especially if from another state. Once the package is semi-close to the recipient and in its last mile, so to speak, it then is transported by courier.
Why is it Important?
What ship from the store does, in most cases, is cut down the delivery process to the “last mile.” This is because when the customer orders from the store, the store is within a delivery range. Therefore, the customer can receive their order even quicker.
How Does Ship From Store Work?
Ship from the store might seem intimidating at first. With some planning and training, your store will be fulfilling orders in no time.
Setting Up Your Stock Management System
Before you start fulfilling orders from your brick-and-mortar store, you need to know what you have in stock. Ensure your stock management system is up-to-date to ensure that customer orders from your website can be fulfilled.
Training Your Associates
Ship from the store requires a bit of training. Your store associates should know how to navigate your stock room, remove items from your system, and package products up in a timely manner.
Having a Ship From Store Space
If your e-commerce site is popular, it might be helpful to have a separate space in-store to process next-day delivery and same-day ship from store orders. Having a dedicated ship from store fulfillment space is useful. Online orders don’t get mixed up with products waiting to be placed on the sales floor.
Reworking Your Staff Schedule
To help fulfill shop from store orders in a timely manner, you will need to rework your staff schedule. Most likely, you will need a sales associate to be in charge of processing any ship from store orders that come in.
Benefits of Outsourcing Last-Mile Deliveries
While one of your employees could deliver your ship-from-store packages, it might be best to outsource these deliveries. Choosing a courier service for last-mile delivery in Canada, like FlashBox, will save you time and stress.
The Flashbox platform lends itself to seamless API integration so that you can easily connect Flashbox to your online store. Furthermore, Flashbox offers tracking and same-day delivery, which will please your customers.
Provide Your Customers Express Delivery
Ship from store benefits everyone. By transforming your brick-and-mortar store into a fulfillment center and utilizing last-mile delivery (and outsourcing last-mile deliveries), you can provide your customers with express deliveries.
Ready to implement in-house shipping and need a last-mile delivery company in Canada to carry out deliveries? Get Started here!
Sources:
https://www.jpmorgan.com/merchant-services/insights/reports/canada-2020
https://www.businessinsider.com/last-mile-delivery-shipping-explained
