Black Friday sales have been taking the Lithuanian market over for several years in a row now, although this year it poses exceptional challenges to parcel logistics. While 86% of consumers claim it is important that e-traders offered at least a few different delivery options, 13% of buyers would not choose the retailer’s services for the second time at all if they faced late delivery. Thus as buyers are looking forward to the biggest shopping time of the year, e-traders and shipment companies are joining forces to ensure smooth package delivery.
A study ordered by Versli Lietuva shows that after the restrictions were introduced on physical stores during the pandemic, 20% of the respondents started shopping more intensely in e-shops, hence the number of deliveries jumped to 54%. Adobe Analytics research predicts that this year the Black Friday turnover will increase by 20% in revenue.
“The companies will certainly have to solve a puzzle of increased orders and their regular logistics chain: how to ensure that the transfer of order data to the delivery services is effective, which delivery options should be available for consumers, and so on. Planning, consultations with parcel delivery partners, auditing of internal processes – they are all inevitable preparation tasks for both, the e-shops with experience in holiday shopping fever and businesses that are only entering the e-commerce market,” says Justas Šablinskas, the CEO of Venipak, an international shipment and logistics company.
For parcel shipment to run smoothly during the Black Friday fuss and for customers to remain satisfied with their shopping experience, merchants should start preparing in advance and consider any potential problems of logistics and the overall stages of parcel delivery.
“First of all, since the staff needs not only to register the orders but also to prepare the parcels for dispatch – select, pack and mark them – businesses should ensure their human resources are strategically planned well in advance in order to deal with an increased workload,” suggests Šablinskas.
Due to order overload, there is a risk that the goods might be shipped too late, and recent studies show that 13% of buyers would not choose the retailer’s services for the second time if their order was not delivered on time. One such risk management way that has been gaining popularity is an e-commerce fulfillment service – a service that allows the shipment company to take over all the warehousing, sorting, packaging and marking tasks from the businesses. In this way, businesses are able to cope better with the increase in orders and guarantee that deliveries will reach their destination the very next day.
During Black Friday and the holiday shopping fever, it is also essential to ensure that the company’s warehouse balance and the range of items on the e-platform coincide in real-time. E-commerce fulfillment service helps to manage this process as well – it enables automatic synchronization of product stock balance with e-shop balance.
“Businesses are recommended not only to implement innovative solutions, which would allow systemising the shipment processes, but for the convenience of their buyers and more effective operations under the sales period, to also offer a great variety of parcel delivery options,” Šablinskas recommends.
86% of consumers believe that the possibility to choose one of the several ways to receive a package increases their loyalty to the seller. This is especially relevant during sales when a large number of orders obliges the businesses to consider the most optimal ways of package shipment: to offer delivery by a courier, parcel lockers or a designated pick-up point. For example, for the convenience of busy customers, there is an option of parcel lockers. By selecting the nearest parcel pick-up point on the map, buyers are given the freedom to plan their time accordingly and collect their purchases at the most convenient time.
However, due to the increased loads of parcel lockers and pick-up points during the sales, it would be a good idea to ensure efficient courier services for the customers. In this case, information about the estimated delivery time is sent by a text message, and, if required, the courier can be contacted directly. According to Šablinskas: “Courier services are currently especially well-developed. Parcels can be delivered not only on the same or the next business day but also after business hours or even on Saturdays.” Providing multiple parcel delivery options makes it easier for a business to ensure that the delivery will reach buyers at the time specified in the text message under any circumstances.
For the logistics chain to be efficient, delivery companies are also preparing for the Black Friday weekend in advance. “We have optimised e-shop interfaces which transfer the customer data to the Venipak system quickly and smoothly, and the shipments are registered automatically. In addition, the businesses are given access to monitor the customer shipment status in real-time and, therefore, prompt parcel delivery to the customer can be guaranteed. Moreover, the systems are equipped with several parcel delivery options to help avoid misunderstandings and fundamentally satisfy customer expectations,” Šablinskas comments on the preparation process.
Venipak offers its customers a number of different parcel delivery options: from traditional door-to-door courier services, the same or the next day delivery, to an extensive network of pick-up points and parcel lockers. The newest service Venipak offers is the collection of parcels on Saturdays and delivery on Mondays. The company’s competitive e-commerce fulfillment service has been in the market for the last three years.
About Venipak
Founded in 2004, globally-operating company Venipak offers shipment delivery services and effective logistics solutions to business clients. As an innovative company constantly investing in system modernization, this is currently the only shipment service in Lithuania to offer e-commerce fulfilment services to e-commerce businesses. In order to ensure wider client accessibility, the company is increasingly expanding its shipment pick-up network – by the end of 2020 Venipak’s clients will be able to pick up their shipments in 396 pick-up points in Lithuania (500 in total in the Baltic countries). The company generating an annual income of under 40M EUR is currently based in the Baltic countries, Poland, Germany, the USA, and China.
