Your ecommerce business doesn’t run on coffee, it runs on you and your efforts. Meanwhile, you are likely sucking down as much coffee as you can possibly muster to help yourself stay awake and get those orders fulfilled as they stream into your successful online store. If you are shipping over ten packages per week, you may very well want to rethink the manual and arduous pack-and-ship process. Newer shipping software solutions for FedEx, UPS and USPS can actually help you reclaim those lost hours, so you can enjoy doing something more meaningful with your time instead of pouring through orders and manually fulfilling them.
Importing/Exporting Orders
Your online shopping cart will house all your orders, and those orders then need to be sent somewhere so you can fulfill them. Shipping software will integrate to your preferred shopping cart, allowing you to browse and export orders either individually or in batch. Instead of having to copy and paste those orders into your label printing software, which can take hours and create human errors, with a solution, you can instead just press a button, import your orders and prepare them for fulfillment.
Printing FedEx Shipping Labels
Each carrier has specific requirements for how their shipping labels must read. Basically, these labels need to conform to the carrier’s software requirements. The best FedEx shipping software will allow you to take those imported orders and fill your shipping labels with the proper information, enabling you to print all-in-one labels from any standard inkjet or laser printer. After you prep your packages, you peel-and-stick the label on the package and schedule pickup from your FedEx carrier.
Updating Order Statuses
Once you have shipped out your packages, you’d normally have to manually update the shipping status in your online shopping cart. This can cost you some serious time, especially when you have numerous orders that are coming in. Instead, software will update those statuses for you, will issue tracking numbers and will update the orders in your shopping cart with delivery confirmation, too. How much time could you stand to save with this automation?
Reducing Order Errors
All that manually copying and pasting of shipping info is bound to run into a bluster at some point. It is just human nature to make an error when completing tedious tasks that are mind-numbing, like copying and pasting information. An automated solution can serve to help reduce order errors. Some shipping software actually will scan your outbound data to find any preventable errors before you ship your products out to customers. This can reduce ship order errors, enabling you to save time and money while preserving your coveted customer retention statistics.
Guest author Michael Jon Lazar is a Scottsdale, Arizona, native who specializes in digital marketing. He is the Sr. Growth Hacker for a software company called TrueShip; the company makes fully integrated multi-carrier shipping software for FedEx, USPS and UPS. When Lazar is not working, he enjoys spending time with his beautiful wife, Danielle Lazar, their two amazing children, his two oversized and large-breed dogs, and his rambunctious kitten.