How the pandemic has impacted delivery. With Ben Woodward and Tash Jones from SmartFreight

Ben Woodward and Tash Jones from SmartFreight are experts in the shipping and fulfilment industry, which means they’ve spent 2020 getting to grips with how a global pandemic has changed the shipping habits of retailers. From getting stock into the warehouse to getting the parcel to the customer they have seen retailers across the world ripping up the rule book and making huge (and small) changes to enable them to continue to survive and thrive in these ‘interesting times’.

Ben got into eCommerce through his partnership work at SmartFreight, specifically regarding how his retailers were using smart and connected technologies in their businesses.

Understanding how he could best help his retailers required him to get involved in eCommerce necessarily as the technologies grew. Ben is located in Australia.

Tash, like so many others, got into eCommerce by accident!

She worked for another software vendor handling in the shipping space and years ago started seeing the trend as more and more of her clients were eCommerce businesses.

Today, the two are inextricably linked. Tash is located in the UK.

One of the biggest challenges for businesses switching from B2B to B2C fulfillment is the shift from shipping pallets to individual packages.

Ben says the most important thing to remember is that you can’t rely on a single carrier.

Having the ability to offer choice to the consumer about the shipping within your eCommerce infrastructure needs to be integrated within your sales channel.

Freight profiling is a term Ben uses to describe balancing your product with the freight options available to you.

While certain customers are willing to pay exorbitant fees for overnight delivery, most want the least expensive shipping option.

Understanding which item fits best with which freight providers weight limits, jurisdictions and delivery bands.

In the UK, some of the larger retailers have everything in place and automated already. These companies were easily able to ramp up online sales since they had so much infrastructure in place already.

According to Tash, some of the smaller businesses who are seeing more demand for their products than perhaps ever before don’t have the level of automation in place necessary to deal with the demand.

She says that getting your data in order is really the first critical step for smaller businesses getting up and going.

To put the volume in perspective, Tash says that 34% of the Royal Mail’s volume rose in parcels instead of letters which comes to 177,000,000 in the space of 5 months.

This increased overall volume combined with major upcoming shopping events means that it’s more important than ever to automate and integrate several freight relationships.

Even with all the tech in the world, Ben says you really need to maintain your relationships with your freight providers. The online and final mile delivery experience is incredibly important. Increasing delivery visibility is critically important for this.

Ben says that even if you’re experiencing delays, the customer experience is going to be better if they know what to expect. Tash backs up the positive customer experience piece.

Above everything else, she says, make sure you have the right communication processes in place.

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