Optimize Online Sales with More Personalized Delivery Options

Reducing shopping cart abandonment starts with understanding customer desires: no-cost, time-definite, and customer-centric delivery options. Sendflex’s Parcel TMS enhances online shopping experiences by enabling merchants to offer cost-effective, personalized delivery alternatives at the speed of eCommerce.

Frustrated shopper

The way consumers shop online has evolved, as have their delivery expectations. Yes, they want free shipping, but they also may want purchases delivered on a specific day at a specific time. Some may want it delivered to a PO box, others to a store for pickup. Some customers have concerns about sustainable packaging and transportation. In a highly competitive eCommerce landscape, where 70% of online shopping cart sessions are abandoned, recognizing and accommodating these preferences can significantly boost sales, profitability, and brand loyalty.

This article explores the latest trends in consumer delivery preferences, the repercussions of failing to meet those expectations, and how retailers can reduce cart abandonment by offering flexible delivery alternatives. We’ll also examine how Sendflex’s next-generation Parcel TMS platform empowers retailers to automate intelligent, customer-centric shipping decisions throughout the order-to-fulfillment process.

Consumer Delivery Preferences: Beyond Fast and Free

Retailers can no longer rely on a one-size-fits-all delivery model. Yes, free shipping is essential. According to a McKinsey & Company July 2024 eCommerce Delivery survey, 90% of consumers are likely to abandon an eCommerce cart if check-out totals include unexpected shipping, taxes, duties, or other fees.

But while free shipping remains paramount, it isn’t the only consideration. McKinsey also found that delivery speed is not necessarily a top priority for consumers, despite Amazon’s market conditioning. The survey indicates that 95% of online shoppers prefer free shipping with standard delivery over paid expedited shipping. 80% of customers over the age of 55 will not pay for 2-day delivery.

Other recent surveys have also found that delivery preferences can vary based on the type and value of goods. Features like security, proof of delivery, and tracking are crucial for more expensive products like electronics and high-end fashion items. For lower-cost items, convenience takes precedence, while same-day delivery is preferred for basic household consumables. Additionally, consumers may be willing to pay extra for unpacking and assembly services for big and bulky items.

Therefore, in the same way that retailers have adopted more targeted product marketing strategies based on specific customer segments, retailers need to move away from a single-carrier, universal shipping strategy approach and offer options that accommodate a wide range of consumer preferences.

The Value of Carrier Diversity and Multiple Delivery Options

With 95% of all online purchases delivered to homes, convenience is king. Emerging research proves that presenting delivery alternatives during the online shopping experience directly influences consumer purchasing decisions. In fact, 34% of shoppers are more likely to complete a sales transaction when offered multiple delivery options. Providing diverse delivery methods assures customers that their needs are understood and respected, ultimately increasing the likelihood of making a purchase.

The flexibility and convenience of returns, including options for return locations, rank as the 4th and 5th most important factors for customers when purchasing goods online. What’s more, customers are nearly twice as likely to look elsewhere if the return window is too limited.

Some retailers also find value in promoting specific carrier brands; consumers often feel more secure with deliveries from well-known carriers like USPS, FedEx, or UPS rather than gig-economy services.

Speed is Overrated, Reliability Is What Counts

Express delivery services have thrived based on the idea that customers want next-day or second-day delivery. However, it’s becoming increasingly clear that consumers value time-definite delivery and predictability even more. In fact, these factors rank 3rd among the most important delivery considerations. As noted in a McKinsey study, “speed is overrated.” Today, it’s certainty that matters.

Setting clear expectations and proactively communicating delivery updates are highly valued by today’s consumers, particularly those in urban areas. In fact, 50% of buyers regularly check tracking statuses when measuring delivery performance against what was promised at checkout. Despite this, on-time deliveries are still hovering in the low 80% range in the post-COVID era. Interestingly, 85% of consumers don’t consider a 1-2 day delay to be “unacceptably” late, as long as they are informed proactively. Providing more accurate delivery predictions and maintaining communication after checkout can yield significant benefits.

Sustainability Is a Growing Priority for the Largest Online Purchasing Segment

For many shoppers, sustainability is an important component of their purchasing decisions. With 65% of consumers considering environmental impact, particularly buyers in the 18-24 age group who represent 85% of online shoppers, retailers need to ensure they avoid wasteful packaging during the fulfillment processes. But they can also improve the online shopping experience by offering greener delivery alternatives, as 55% of consumers in that segment are willing to pay $1-2 for more eco-friendly options. Offering to delay delivery to consolidate multiple orders into a more sustainable delivery process can also appeal to younger customers.

In addition to building brand loyalty among online shoppers, more sustainable delivery practices are an opportunity to reduce shipping costs by eliminating unexpected dimensional weight adjustments. Importantly, they also highlight your commitment to eco-friendly fulfillment practices, which can set you apart from the competition.

Legacy eCommerce Fulfillment Systems Prioritize Efficiency Over Transportation Cost and Customer Preferences

The explosive growth of eCommerce has rapidly outpaced the capabilities of many supply chain automation platforms to adapt to change. These systems were built for a time before Amazon reshaped the retail landscape, forcing shippers to adopt omni-channel fulfillment and rethink single-carrier sourcing strategies. Now, the way goods are delivered is no longer a separate consideration—it’s deeply intertwined with how they are sold.

Take, for example, merchandising, once the domain of retail outlets and marketing teams. Today, the digital storefront often represents a consumer’s only interaction with their favorite brands, and the delivery experience has become a crucial part of that relationship. How goods reach the customer is as much a part of the sale as the product itself, making the logistics behind fulfillment an essential aspect of a brand’s identity.

But traditional order management systems (OMS), warehouse management systems (WMS), and parcel shipping systems often focus on labor savings and inventory optimization, emphasizing automation, faster throughput, leaner supply chains, and just-in-time inventory. While these factors are crucial, they tend to overlook a key element of logistics costs: transportation. This is especially important as final mile delivery costs have surged well beyond the rate of inflation over the past decade.

Unfortunately, these systems are also limited in their ability to support upstream carrier service optimization; instead, they rely on generalized rules of thumb and averages, or they integrate with slow and unreliable carrier rating APIs. Moreover, modifying the core functions of legacy systems is expensive and time-consuming. By the time an order is “rate shopped” by a shipping system at the end of a conveyor, it is way too late.

Logistic professionals need more flexibility and control over the business rules that cost-effectively support diversified carrier delivery options. The next generation of parcel transportation management solutions (TMS) offer those capabilities.

Next-Generation Parcel TMS Platforms are Designed to Tackle eCommerce Complexity

Meeting evolving consumer demands for shipping while maintaining margins requires a radical shift in how retailers approach final mile logistics. Staying competitive requires an ability to automate cost-effective, customer-centric decision-making throughout order-to-ship processes and quickly pivot when market conditions inevitably change.

Accurate Shipping Cost Calculations and Delivery Predictions in Digital Storefronts

Sendflex is a next-generation parcel TMS system with an in-platform, high-speed optimization engine capable of processing an astounding 20,000+ carrier rates, transit times, and business rule instructions per second. All without the use of carrier APIs. In addition to automating shipping processes, Sendflex’s optimization engine enables retailers to present online buyers with accurate, personalized delivery options for each order.

Sendflex solves the complexity that has crept into final mile delivery. The complexity of rate calculations has steadily increased as carriers have introduced an ever-expanding myriad of surcharges and fees. In addition, national carrier contracts regularly feature incentive tiers on base rates that can change from month to month. There is now talk of Uber-like “dynamic pricing,” as though calculating delivery costs wasn’t complicated enough. As a result, the gap between what shippers expect to pay and what they see on their carrier invoice is widening.

All of this makes it incredibly challenging to present consumers with cost-effective shipping options in the digital storefront. Obviously, free shipping isn’t actually free – retailers pay, even when customers don’t. This means delivery costs have a direct impact on retail margins, which in most cases are already very thin. Most retailers still incorporate imprecise rules of thumb, hard-coded rules, or “average” shipping costs when pricing their products to accommodate free shipping.

Moreover, using carrier-published transit times to make delivery promises is also problematic, especially with ground services. Carrier rating and time in transit APIs are too slow and unreliable to work in a digital storefront environment, so traditional shipping systems cannot work efficiently in “upstream” processes. With eCommerce, there is a need for speed. Sendflex’s optimization engine opens the door to quickly optimizing carrier service selections across diversified carrier networks without resorting to carrier API, while also considering customer preferences.

Sendflex goes even further with its machine learning-based delivery predictions. The system factors in actual historical carrier performance to determine more precise delivery dates. This gives shoppers confidence not just in the cost but in knowing exactly when their order will arrive, effectively reducing cart abandonment and improving the overall customer experience.

No-code Optimization Instructions Automate Intelligent Delivery Decision

Best of all, Sendflex empowers non-technical logistics personnel to easily configure complex optimization instructions (business rules) in minutes instead of waiting weeks for custom programming and testing. Logistics managers have complete control over business decisions during digital storefront, fulfillment, and shipping processes.

Using drop-down wizards, optimization instructions can be configured to automate delivery decisions based on customer type, customer preferences, SKU attributes, delivery area, carrier performance, and, of course, shipping cost and delivery promise date. For B2B shipments, logistics managers can control carrier account selections and shipping and handling charge markups or discounts to optimize freight cost recovery. They can also condition markups based on customer tier, zone, or SKU type to reduce margin erosion.

Cartonization Algorithms Support Accuracy and More Sustainable Shipping

Accurately calculating shipping costs requires an understanding of how an order will be packed. Today, this involves guesswork during the online purchasing process, especially as consumers add and subtract from an order.

Sendflex solves this by incorporating SKU-based packing rules and cartonization algorithms to instantly determine the most sustainable and transportation-cost-effective way to pack an order. This capability eliminates unexpected dimensional weight adjustments on carrier invoices and minimizes the use of excessive corrugate and fill. It also helps carriers max out cubes on their delivery vehicles, ultimately leading to fewer trucks on the road and reduced carbon emissions—a huge plus for eco-conscious customers’ delivery experiences.

Reduce Shopping Cart Abandonment with Sendflex Parcel TMS

Every abandoned shopping cart is a missed opportunity. With the right parcel management technology, it doesn’t have to be. Sendflex Parcel TMS empowers retailers to provide real-time shipping quotes, accurate delivery predictions, and optimized packaging, keeping customers informed and confident throughout their buying journey.

By addressing the frustrations that lead to cart abandonment, Sendflex helps turn lost sales into loyal customers.

Ready to see the impact for yourself? Get in touch with Sendflex for a consultation and take the first step in improving sales conversions and streamlining parcel shipping.

LEARN

Download
The Five Parcel TMS
Value Pillars

EBOOK

Learn why controlling costs, capacity, carbon, and customer experiences matters in the B2C delivery economy

Shippers who are used to relying on a primary parcel carrier with unlimited capacity must now manage a broader portfolio of carriers, all with different capabilities, performance records, constraints, and rate structures.

DELIVERY CONSULTATION

See What Sendflex Can Do for You

Are you struggling to keep up with the consumer demand for faster, cheaper delivery service options? Is it time for a smart multi-carrier parcel solution?

Whether deployed on premise or accessed from the cloud, our shipping platform apps and APIs support your entire extended enterprise: carrier selection, rating and routing, cartonization, shipping and drop shipping, tracking, and returns.

Untitled-1-1