There’s multiple factors when it comes to running an online business. It’s great to be able to generate sales. Many companies consider that to be the hardest part of running an online business. However, there’s something that good businesses know. If you can’t ship your sale to the buyer, then you might as well have not made the sale.
There are many platforms out there that will offer both ecommerce and shipping. There are also those which specialize in just the shipping aspect of things. It’s not a bad idea to make sure that your platform specializes. Those platforms only care about how well they can help Users ship their products out to their customers.
What Should a Shipping Platform Do For Your Business?
There are many things that a shipping platform needs to be able to handle with your business. No matter what ecommerce platform you are running, your shipping program needs to handle it all as well. It’s not easy to integrate platforms together. Here’s things that your shipping program/platform needs to provide you with:
- Receive and Manage Orders - All shipping platforms need to receive the orders that come in through the ecommerce platform. Sometimes the two are integrated together, but if they are separate entities, the information needs to be transferred flawlessly. It also has to be able to send information back to the ecommerce platform on shipping status if the customer is curious.
- Label and Shipping - A shipping platform should make the process easy. Labels and shipping information should be easily printed out so that they can go straight on the box and be headed out to ship immediately.
- Product Information - Whenever an order is placed, it’s important that product information is imported into your shipping program. This ensures that the information is consistent and there is no chance for an order being mixed up.
- Handle Discount Codes - It’s often best for people who place an order to see the discount code that they used within on the packing slip. This will ensure that they know exactly what they are getting.
- Email Updates - A shipping platform should always update the customer whenever there’s a change in the status. Customers want to know when their items ship. It allows them to get an idea of when to expect their items.
Popular Shipping Tools and Apps
There are many tools out there that are contained within single shipping platforms. Here are some of the best platforms available on the market:
- ShipStation - Shipstation is one of the most popular and powerful shipping tools available to anyone. It integrates really easily into almost every ecommerce platforms. Shipstation is reasonably priced as well. It moves from nominal monthly fees up to around $160 per month. In addition, ShipStation users get discounts from the USPS or FedEx!
- NetSuite - If your business is larger and needs a big shipping platform, then NetSuite is the way to go. Typically anything powered by Oracle is going to be a powerful piece of software, and this is no exception.
- ShipRush - This shipping solution is excellent for businesses working through multiple store locations. It can amalgamate orders into one location and get things sent off. ShipRush also gets an excellent discount form the USPS, though less of one from other shipping companies. It also does an excellent job of keeping customers up to date via email. Users can spend some time and streamline the process to make it quite easy.
