What do consumer customers expect from eCommerce deliveries? Speed, punctuality or flawlessness? Or all of these at once?
The logistics is not directly visible to the consumer-customer when doing business in the online store, and few people think about logistics when placing an order. However, it plays a decisive role in the eCommerce customer experience. You may have been in a situation where the order was delivered slower than promised or to the wrong place, or the product you received was the wrong color or the wrong size.
Black Friday, which is one of the biggest seasons of the year, opens the seasons for the rest of the year in online shopping. The same impetus is Cyber Monday and the continuous Christmas season beyond the turn of the year. Depending on the product being sold, Black Friday can increase sales volumes up to tens of times. This naturally puts pressure on storage.
Forecasts control the warehouse and the entire supply chain
Short and intensive campaigns appear in warehouse operations as hectic efforts, and they highlight possible shortcomings in logistics. The increase in volumes brought by the seasons brings challenges to the entire supply chain, i.e. goods delivery, transportation, storage and deliveries to the end customer. We also cannot forget the impact on response times, resources and profitability.
Storage and the entire supply chain work based on the forecasts made. From the storage point of view, the most essential thing is to get information at a sufficiently early stage which products are sold and in what volumes.
Forecasts should be carefully analyzed by analyzing the precise time distribution of order volumes. You have to understand what the given forecasts contain, because in campaigns the order structure can change compared to the normal situation.
Careful planning of the season leads to success
Careful planning of the ecommerce season is everything. Resource planning takes a high position, especially in short intensive campaigns, when the demand increases many times. There must be a sufficient number of trained personnel in the ranks who can operate professionally and flawlessly in the midst of all the rush. Orientation during the season is of course possible, but then it again brings a delay to the process.
In the planning phase, it is necessary to go through the additional needs of the season, so that they can be taken into account in the warehouse processes: will the process change, for example, in terms of additional materials, will the shipments be personalized or modified differently than usual?
In addition, the transportation needs during the season should be reviewed with the transport companies: do packages going to the end customer need to be picked up more often than usual or are there going to be unusual pick-up times. Will there be weekend deliveries, for example, which are not included in the normal, agreed delivery schedules, for example?
High-quality processes, competent staff and the right kind of systems guarantee smooth warehousing
Seasons and high peaks in sales highlight the challenges that can lie in storage and in-house logistics. It’s not worth stumbling into poor logistics in the middle of the hottest season of the year or the busiest campaign. It can appear quite unpleasant to the end customer. What are the factors to ensure success in the season?
One point is the flow of information. Sales and warehouse can be very far from each other, both physically and in terms of communication. Operations can be siloed and information does not flow well enough. A classic mistake is to sell more than there is balance in the warehouse. If the product is not removed from sale in time when the warehouse is empty, the delivery times can be unreasonably long and the customer gets frustrated. Logistics and system integrations must be in order so that they remain operational with large order volumes.
Another point is the previously mentioned sufficient number of competent staff. Extra hands are needed during the seasons to ensure prompt collection and dispatch of products to customers. Training seasonal workers creates the conditions for error-free collections.
As a third point, I raise the clarity of the processes. With temporary staff in mind, the processes must be kept sufficiently clear and simple so that the employee can easily get on with his own work. Work instructions must be available and understandable. The quality of the service is produced by the expertise of the staff and high-quality processes.
You can’t forget the return process in campaign planning. The more that is sold, the higher the number of product returns also increases. In the post-cycle of the campaign, the process of customer returns must function flawlessly. Returnable products are quickly reviewed and returned to sale. This also requires resources just like collecting and sending the products to the customer.
The logistics partner meets the customer’s needs
Maintaining your own warehouse is possible up to a certain point. As operations grow or change substantially, maintaining your own warehouse can prove challenging.
Logistics companies enter the picture at this stage, being professionals in their field. The task of logistics partners is to respond to customer needs and take care of the service level according to the customer company’s strategy by taking care of logistics. Close cooperation guarantees the up-to-date movement of information from one party to the other. When the logistics partner offers information transparently, it is possible to communicate it forward to the end customer. Honest and realistic customer communication is one of the basic pillars of the customer experience.
At HUB, we have facilities, equipment, systems and know-how suitable for storage. You could say that as a logistics partner, we are able to handle things almost one hundred percent in terms of storage and supply chain. We are the engine of warehouse operations, which leads to the successful implementation of seasons and campaigns.
Great that you read the blog to the end! If you’re having trouble with storage, send us a message and we’ll talk about it together. We help companies towards more efficient storage and logistics.
Heikki Mantsinen
Business director, who gets excited when he gets to solve logistical problems, delights his colleagues with engineering humor and manages the everyday life of the logistics center with a sure grip.
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