idrivelogistics.com

An abandoned shopping cart is when a potential customer starts the checkout process but then drops out of the process before the order is completed. Not only did you lose out on that initial $84 purchase, but you may have also missed out on the entire lifetime value of that customer because now they know that your site has unattractive shipping rates. According to Statista, “for digital shoppers in the United States, the primary reason for abandoning an online shopping order is too high shipping costs, followed by discount codes that do not work. Find out your website’s abandoned shopping cart rate, and don’t freak out.

As a company that distributes MRO products, we have seen this impact our business greatly, but this doesn’t mean there isn’t a solution to the “new norm” of surcharges. I have many clients who don’t know how to use online programs to sign things or sometimes I’m required to send paperwork in to other companies on their behalf. While I primarily use USPS for shipping my products to customers, I use FedEx and USPS to ship products to Amazon’s warehouses. While I was not able to do much in the short term, I am definitely keeping shipping in mind for 2021 – as I’m scaling up, I’m looking for new suppliers anyway, and now a willingness to be flexible in which carriers they use is going to be important to my choice of vendors.

The strategic network optimization initiative has been described as a “better, not bigger” market approach which means a sharpened focus on SMB while many large enterprise shippers will face steep cost increases and capacity constraints. By keeping a few key large shippers like Amazon, UPS is maintaining volume, and by focusing on small to medium shippers, the profit margins are higher because these shippers lack the sophistication or expertise to craft best-in-class pricing agreements. Some customers need us for returns; some customers need us for end-to-end pickup and delivery. Shippers need an action plan that includes contingencies and options that create leverage with the carriers, and the executives at iDrive are experts in creating a plan that is perfectly tailored to your business.

However, what may come as a surprise, and what shippers should be aware of, is that there is often a significant difference between announced rate increases and the actual increases announced by major carriers. For instance, even though UPS and FedEx both announced a 4.9% rate increase, in many situations, these increases are closer to 7%. This could look like shipping from Salt Lake City, Utah to Apple Valley, Utah (a small town in southern Utah). Announced rate increases do not necessarily equate to actual rate increases.