Retailers vs. The Amazon Effect
Consumers are enamored with Amazon and its superb treatment of its customers, providing customers with visibility to their orders from dock door to the final destination – all shipped within a timeframe that ranges from a few hours to a few days. Consumers expect every retailer they order from to have the same customer service capability. While this may not be fair, its reality, and retailers need to revamp their operations to comply.
E-Commerce businesses need to provide accurate, on-time delivery of customer orders to keep customer satisfaction and profits up, but successful shipments for the right price require a transportation management system (TMS) that integrates with e-commerce platforms. By integrating with a TMS, e-commerce businesses get complete control over carriers, rates and modes of transportation and can gain access to more quality carriers across all modes, offering the most competitive rates and opportunities for freight consolidation.
E-commerce platforms integrated with Kuebix TMS put world-class shipping power within the reach of any business, regardless of the size. E-commerce businesses have a one-stop transportation shop to choose any transportation mode and services at their fingertips when their e-commerce platform is integrated with a TMS, creating flexibility in deliveries, such as consolidation opportunities.
A TMS provides the ability to batch, rate, schedule, track and analyze orders for improved operations when serving customers, creating greater efficiencies and lowered costs. Using an e-commerce platform integrated with Kuebix TMS streamlines logistics operations to control costs, ensures delivery accuracy and speed, and enhances customer service.
Recently, Kuebix integrated with e-commerce platforms, Big Commerce and Shopify, allowing merchants to better serve customers. Real-time visibility across the entire supply chain from checkout cart to the end user’s door allows you to communicate estimated delivery times and supply alerts if a shipment will be delayed. Because Kuebix TMS supports all modes, including parcel, LTL and TL, e-commerce you can choose whether it is more profitable to ship heavier items via LTL than the traditional parcel method.
With an integrated TMS, e-commerce merchants are empowered to choose the best mode that best accommodates each shipment’s freight amount, weight and dimensions; distance to destination; delivery speed and priority; special handling requirements; and other direct-to-consumer variables. Kuebix TMS offers advanced analytics to monitor and influence issues at a granular level, allowing managers to quickly visualize freight spend savings or carrier performance.
Access to the most competitive rates from all transport modes boosts sales as more customers expect competitive pricing on shipments. Merchants are able to see their logistics operation as a profit center, rather than a cost center by saving on delivery costs. Kuebix TMS offers full tracking and visibility of your freight expense down to the SKU level across every mode and along every step of its journey.
Got an e-commerce shop? Look into how you can better price your transportation transactions so you don’t lose money and so that your customers will get their orders when they want them. Contact Kuebix today.
