This week it emerged that Amazon is asking its American sellers of books, CDs and DVDs to increase their delivery times by up to 40%.

From 31 August USA media sellers will be required to deliver items within four to eight days, instead of the current four to 7 days.

“Customers are more likely to purchase products that have a faster estimated delivery time at checkout”.

 

Amazon believes this to be in the seller’s (as well as the buyer’s) interests and with an estimated 66 million Prime members, all who have access to 1-2 hour delivery slots, they have a point.

It is not yet clear whether (or rather when) this requirement will be rolled out in the UK and beyond but even so, it is always good to be prepared:

Top Tips to Achieving Quicker Delivery Times

1. Streamline

Are you handling orders from listing, right the way through to shipping, in the most efficient way possible? Review the entire process and make it lean.

2. Stock Room

Whether it’s a warehouse, garage or spare bedroom, is it properly organised, accessible and labelled to allow you to retrieve orders quickly and efficiently?

3. Shipping Integration

Multichannel management software, such as Expandly, allows you to integrate your sales channel(s) (Amazon, eBay and Etsy), shopping cart (e.g. Magento, Woo Commerce and Zencart) with your shipping carrier, allowing you to send and receive shipping data automatically, update your sales channel(s) automatically and save you time – automatically.

4. Shipping labels

Batch printing your shipping labels saves an incredible amount of time and allows you to delay the process slightly (meaning that you can catch those last-minute orders). Multichannel management software provides you with an easy-to-use, central portal to print shipping labels for order from your sales channel(s) and shopping cart (such as Zencart, OpenCart, XCART, Shopify etc.) all in one place.

5. Inventory management

One of the brilliant things about multichannel management software is live inventory management. Live inventory management automatically syncs your stock across Amazon, eBay, Etsy, Wish and your shopping cart (such as PrestaShop, WooCommerce and OpenCart), meaning that you never oversell and you can stay ahead of the game to avoid being out of stock: Enabling you to fulfil orders faster and within expected delivery times.

6. Updates

Provide your customers with regular and honest updates, and where possible providing tracking information. Customers are less likely to complain if you are upfront about any delays.

7. Fulfilment by Amazon

Consider whether a service such as Fulfilment by Amazon (where Amazon store, pick, pack and deliver your products directly to your buyers) is right for your business.

About Expandly

Expandly is multichannel management software that is all about saving you time and effort.

From the moment you login in the morning to the moment you ship your orders, Expandly aims to reduce your workload. It is simple, easy to use and focussed on helping small eCommerce businesses go from home-office or unit to warehouse and beyond.

Find out more about Expandly Multichannel Management software