The Delivery Experience today has a very important bearing on the entire Customer Experience of eShoppers, who are increasingly demanding not only in terms of the online purchasing phase, but also in terms of the delivery – and possibly return – of their orders.
But how do you guarantee an optimal Delivery Experience and satisfy your customers’ needs? The answer is simple: you need to analyse, interpret, and thus know what customers expect from eCommerce in order to offer them a service that lives up to their expectations.
That’s why in this article we will give you 5 key tips for understanding – and then responding to – your customers’ needs in order to offer them the best possible Delivery Experience. Let’s get started!
What is the Delivery Experience
If you are an eCommerce manager, you surely know that the online shopping experience of an eShopper does not end with the purchase of the product on the online store, i.e. with payment, but with the delivery of the order into the hands of the end customer.
This last phase of the Customer Experience is what is known as the Delivery Experience, that is, how the end customer experiences the phase between the actual purchase on the online store and the receipt of the product.
We have already described, in a previous article, how important communication with the end customer is in this phase, to keep him or her up to date on the various delivery statuses. But what are the expectations of eShoppers?
Providing some interesting data in this regard is DHL’s European online shopper survey 2023, which reveals data to understand the expectations of European eShoppers regarding the shipping and delivery phase of their orders. And it is precisely from this data that we have derived 5 five useful tips to offer an optimal delivery experience to your customers.
5 tips for an optimal delivery experience
1. Tell your customer which courier will make the delivery (and choose the one best suited to your and your customer’s needs)
According to data from DHL’s European online shopper survey 2023, 64% of European eShoppers expect to be informed by eCommerce about which courier will deliver their order. Moreover, for 51 per cent of eShoppers this information has a major impact on their purchasing decision, with 43 per cent of consumers saying they are prepared to abandon their shopping cart if they do not like the delivery service provider offered by the online store.
Brand counts, we can say. That is why the choice of logistics provider to whom you entrust the shipping of your eCommerce is so important.
If you are looking for some practical and useful tips to help you find your way around the courier service provider landscape and choose which logistics partner to entrust to you, you can learn more about this by reading GEL Proximity’s guide to couriers for eCommerce deliveries.
2. Offer the possibility to update the delivery address
Giving customers the possibility to redirect the delivery of an order is extremely important. On average, 72% of European eShoppers, in fact, want to be able to change the delivery address even during shipping in case their needs change (e.g. if the customer knows he/she cannot be at home at the scheduled delivery time).
And that’s not all. Customers not only expect to be able to change the delivery address, but in 63% of cases also the expected delivery date.
In other words, customers expect flexibility from eCommerce and couriers, who must be able to respond to changing customer needs.
3. Offer alternative order delivery methods to Home Delivery
Although, as we have seen, offering the possibility to redirect delivery is crucial today, 90 per cent of European eShoppers claim to have had to give up an online purchase at least once because it was not possible to deliver the goods at a place or time that suited their needs.
Consequently, if an eCommerce store does not want to lose sales and customers, it must necessarily offer flexible delivery options as an alternative to traditional home delivery, such as order pick-up at Lockers and Pick-up Points. In fact, 59% of European shoppers (and 62% of Italian shoppers) say they abandon a purchase if the delivery option they prefer is not offered, while 42% say they choose an eCommerce based on the delivery options offered.
Although home delivery is still a popular and widely used delivery method, in fact, consumers like to be able to pick up their parcels where and when it is most convenient for them, without having to wait at home for the courier. Suffice it to say that the percentage of Out Of Home deliveries is growing throughout Europe, including Italy.
If you want to take this advice now and integrate more than 200,00 Pick-up Points and Lockers already active in Italy and beyond into your online store, choose GEL Proximity!
Register to activate major Collection Point Networks in just a few clicks.
4. Track your orders and keep your customers informed of the whereabouts of their parcel
We have already said it: communication is crucial. No customer likes to place an order online, pay, and then never hear back about the status of the shipment. So forget the image of the customer at the window of the house waiting for the courier to arrive. The customer wants to know in advance when his or her parcel will appear on the doorstep or at the chosen Pick-up Point, and organise accordingly for collection.
That is why order tracking is indispensable today.
If data were needed to support this thesis, here they are: 49% of Europeans say that it is ‘very important’ to know where their parcel is, especially if the value of the goods ordered exceeds 100 euros or the purchase was made from an eCommerce store in another country (in the latter case the percentage is 41%).
Source: European online shopper survey 2023, DHL
And that’s not all. Customers also want to track returns, to be sure that the transaction was successful and that the order, in the case of a return, is correctly returned to the retailer’s hands. In the case of a return, therefore, be sure to notify the customer that the item has been accepted and, in the case of a refund, to return the money as soon as possible.
5. Simplify returns by inserting the pre-printed label in the parcel
Speaking of returns, more and more customers now expect to be able to return purchased goods easily, quickly and above all free of charge.
On average, 39% of European eShoppers, in fact, say that they would not even consider a purchase from a retailer with a return fee. In Italy, this percentage is as high as 52%.
Beyond the cost of return, however, there is another issue that is particularly close to European consumers’ hearts: the convenience of returns. In other words, consumers expect the return of a purchased product, for whatever reason it has to be returned, to be a smooth and quick process that does not require too much effort on their part. In fact, the vast majority of European shoppers (68%) expect the return label to be already pre-packaged and present when the order is delivered. Only 24% are willing to print it at home, even fewer (7%) are willing to print it in-store.
If you are looking for a partner who can help you simplify the return process and experience for your customers, and who also offers you the possibility to set up customised logics for the issuing and printing of the label, once again GEL Proximity may be for you!
Find out more about our return service.
