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How to save time and costs on e-commerce fulfilment

If you’re selling online, shipping is one of the most important components to get right.

Not only because it can make or break a sale, or because it can influence whether or not your customers stay loyal, but because it can eat up your time and money.

Whether you’ve been shipping for years, or you’re just getting started with an online business, it pays to think about your shipping strategy and how you want to charge for delivery. The right shipping strategy will help you close sales and protect your margins at the same time.

A new ebook from shipping partners ShipStation and Sendle, The Small Business Guide to Efficient Shipping, reveals the key steps online retailers can take to help save time and costs on e-commerce fulfilment.

The guide provides practical tips for setting up the right shipping strategy, navigating demands for free shipping, automating your shipping workflow, and saving your valuable time and money along the way.

ShipStation is a multi-channel, multi-carrier shipping software that helps you streamline the fulfilment process for your e-commerce store. 

The guide also highlights how the integration of ShipStation and Sendle can create a simplified shipping solution, as well as provide a number of shipping automation and shortcuts designed to reduce manual entry and save you time. 

For example, Subo, which runs its storefront on Shopify and ships with Sendle, started using ShipStation to automate and streamline fulfilment.

“With e-commerce, fulfilment is the biggest thing. We knew we needed to get that part right-both for the efficiency of our operation, and for our customers,” said Jen Wales, Operations Manager.

“Up until then, we’d print every shipping label individually, and handwrite the order details on the back to fulfil it that way. It was a very manual process, which left a lot of room for human error.”

The arrival of lockdowns sent sales booming yet again, and Subo’s new streamlined way of shipping ended up being a lifeline for the business.

“For us, one of the biggest time savers has been the use of order tags to automatically allocate things like packaging size, type of destination, and shipping provider. Connecting to Sendle was simple too, and once we’re ready, Sendle picks our packages up right from the warehouse door.”

The time Subo now spends on shipping has been cut in half, and as the business continues to grow, the team can put that time elsewhere.

“We weren’t expecting it, but the pandemic really put us into a stage of growth. Now we need to continue it. Making the process of fulfilment so much easier allows us time to focus on the marketing side of the business and continue to grow.”

ShipStation has worked with its partner Sendle to compile a guide full of practical steps that online retailers can take to set themselves up with the right shipping strategy for their business. 

Setting yourself up to ship in the right way is a critical part of running a successful online business. That little bit of extra effort will cut down your costs and give you back valuable time you can spend taking your business to the next level.

Download The Small Business Guide to Efficient Shipping from ShipStation and Sendle to learn more.