We’re talking all about order fulfillment, which we define as everything involved in getting an order to a customer (plus handling returns, too). Host Sam Greenspan is joined by Tabitha Turton, a GoDaddy Product Manager specializing in WooCommerce, and Nik McLaughlin, a GoDaddy Technical Account Manager who helps customers with WooCommerce, to discuss how to improve order fulfillment for WooCommerce stores.
The panel shares statistics and anecdotes on customers’ expectations for order speeds, order status emails, and major shipping problems.
From there, they cover several strategies to help with order fulfillment: setting up order status update emails in WooCommerce, how to offer multiple shipping speeds, live versus flat rate shipping, streamlining the picking and shipping process, keeping orders better organized internally, handling stockouts, and integrating a third-party email service provider to send better transactional emails.
Finally, in the Q&A, the panel addresses whether it makes sense to add WooCommerce to an existing WordPress website or to start clean.
We also reference the ship blocking the Suez Canal, which was a big thing as we were recording (https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-56505413)
Check out GoDaddy’s Managed WordPress Ecommerce hosting which includes many of the premium extensions discussed in this episode for free! https://www.godaddy.com/hosting/ecommerce-hosting
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Extensions and services referenced (* - included in the GoDaddy Managed WordPress Ecommerce bundle)
USPS Shipping Method* - https://woocommerce.com/products/usps-shipping-method/
UPS Shipping Method* - https://woocommerce.com/products/ups-shipping-method/
FedEx Shipping Method* - https://woocommerce.com/products/fedex-shipping-module/
Purolator Shipping Method - https://woocommerce.com/products/purolator-shipping-method/
WooCommerce Print Invoices & Packing Lists* - https://woocommerce.com/products/print-invoices-packing-lists/
WooCommerce Order Status Manager* - https://woocommerce.com/products/woocommerce-order-status-manager/
AutomateWoo* - https://automatewoo.com/
Metorik - https://metorik.com/
MailChimp - https://mailchimp.com/
Klaviyo - https://www.klaviyo.com/
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Sources for statistics
Only 42% think 3-4 days counts as "fast" delivery
70% will choose least expensive shipping option
25% will pay more for same day delivery—but only up to $3
Average cost to fulfill an order is 70% of the AOV (labor costs, overhead, splits, returns, etc.)
94% of shoppers have taken an action to qualify for free shipping (e.g., bought more stuff, chose slowest shipping, hunted for promo code)
https://www.stitchlabs.com/blog/what-is-the-most-frequent-cause-of-inventory-fulfillment-issues/
One in four of businesses spending between 6-30% of revenue on fixing fulfillment issues
Human error by far number one cause of fulfillment issues, at 62%
https://blog.theshoppad.com/22-order-fulfillment-statistics-for-2020-shopify-stores/
Customers look up order tracking page 3.5 times per order
51% want real-time visibility into order status
https://econsultancy.com/55-of-shoppers-abandon-carts-due-to-shipping-costs-infographic/
Cart abandonment based on delivery estimates: 38% abandon at 8+ days, 24% abandon with no estimated delivery date, 16% abandon at 6-7 days
16% will abandon retailer if receive even one incorrect delivery
14% will abandon retailer if receive even one late delivery
Majority expect delivery in 3-6 days with free shipping
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