The pandemic in 2020 has had a huge impact on every life. But, have you noticed how things have changed in the last 18 months? Quick lock has been lifted; offices, restaurants, shopping malls and cinemas have largely reopened; and schools have partially opened in several states. While everyday situations are rapidly changing in this post-Covid era, ecommerce/D2C businesses are starting to see new behavioral changes in customers’ shopping habits. Plus, those changes over the past year show signs of holding up into the future. Subsequent changes in the eCommerce and eCommerce shipping industry caused more logistics service providers to enter the market.
What’s Causing Changes In The Ecommerce Industry?
As national and state governments impose country-wide lockdowns to avoid contagion of the deadly virus, major shifts in consumer spending behavior are sure to occur. People are choosing online marketplaces over physical marketplaces to shop for essentials and non-essentials from the comfort of their homes. Furthermore, millions of consumers searching for online marketplaces led to the unexpected growth of the digital economy.
How Ecommerce Delivery Works Now
In the post-covid era, logistics providers need to carry out the delivery process with great care to comply with Covid norms. Below are some of the practices logistics companies are following to function effectively in the post-Covid era.
Handling Business Surge
The e-commerce industry has experienced steady growth in recent years but after the Covid-19 pandemic, its growth has been unprecedented due to changes in consumer behavior. Consumers choose online marketplaces over physical stores to buy almost anything. These changing behaviors can be permanent, and to manage them successfully, ecommerce businesses rely on logistics service providers.
With lakhs of shipments to deliver, offering flawless order fulfillment services may be a challenge for logistics partners. To overcome this situation, logistics partners are carrying out several steps such as automation and other advanced technologies for inventory management, multimodal transportation, increasing workforce capacity, adopting different delivery methods, and ultimately maintaining customer satisfaction.
Safety and Cleanliness
Logistics order fulfillment starts from taking orders online, arranging goods, and packing, preparing invoices, dispatching, and delivering shipments to customers’ doorsteps.
Even as vaccines have been introduced and medical services have changed, taking safety precautions and improving hygiene in operations are the only key factors that can minimize the threat of transmission of the virus. This includes ensuring inventory cleanliness, reducing human contact during transportation, eliminating routine signatures for package deliveries, cleaning shipping equipment regularly, training employees and third parties to comply with safety requirements.
Managing Covid-19 Regulations
Authorities and local governments have put in place many rules and regulations to prevent the spread of the virus. Logistics service providers must be prepared to comply with these regulations in order to deliver products to customers’ doorsteps safely. This includes taking the sender’s body temperature, cleaning the delivery equipment, delivering the package within the designated time slot, wearing all safety gear, etc.
Creative Shipping Methods
The customer is the priority in logistics and product delivery is the most important here. While the transmission threat still exists, courier companies need to adopt creative delivery methods in the long run. The use of non-contact delivery methods, such as lockers and pick-up points, and combined with real-time tracking and communication with customers, using OTP-based customer verification, and adopting digital payment services are some of the delivery enhancement techniques that need to be adopted.
Dynamic Price
It is clear that the pandemic has adversely affected businesses and markets. Every online business owner and courier partner associated with him wants to make his work profitable. Logistics companies must adopt new scenarios and change their prices while complying with various customer requirements to make it possible without sacrificing service quality.
Rethinking Customer Fulfillment
Customer fulfillment is the umbrella that covers everything from the time the order is received to the time it is delivered to the customer’s doorstep. This includes product delivery speed, delivery time, tracking facilities, reverse logistics services, and the behavior of delivery personnel.
Customer experience is an important aspect that business owners and logistics providers should pay attention to when faced with another bad situation. Shifts are required in the whole process to meet customer expectations. This includes revamping order tracking tools, adopting safe and hygienic methods when delivering products, timely delivery while complying with all government regulations, etc.
Consumers are increasingly turning to online shopping platforms. As such, identifying theft and other security issues is also a significant issue for logistics providers as they can seriously hinder the order fulfillment process. To overcome all kinds of negatives in the new order fulfillment process, ecommerce sellers need to hire a reputable logistics service provider who follows all the safety rules while serving the end customer properly.
