The key to success as a small business is to cater to the unique demands of the customers. With smaller-scale operations, this should be a fierce commitment.

It is said that the main advantage of dealing with small enterprises is the fact that attention can be directed toward personalized services. One of the ways to demonstrate that is through shipping. With people increasingly relying on the internet for shopping, shipping services are more important now than ever for SMEs.

If you’re a small business owner who wants to secure customer loyalty, your shipping services should be carefully planned out.




To help you with that, here are tips highlighting six smart shipping elements to consider.

1.     Urgent delivery options

Speedy services are always a strong tactic to get ahead in the business game. The more you can make sure that your customers’ orders can be shipped as soon as possible, the better.

Therefore, choose a logistics company that uses various shipping methods to ensure a precise schedule for your business delivery.

2.     Attractive and secure packaging

Your business should pay close attention to the state of your products when your customers receive them. Reinforce your brand with cute packaging and extra details, but at the same time, make sure that the product will be intact. Look into smart packaging designs that ensure product quality no matter how rough the journey from your store to your customer’s doorstep may be.

3.     Flexible payment for shipping services

Although the common practice is to pay for the product and delivery services online, cash on delivery is a good payment option to provide as well. There are customers who just feel safer making payments this way, so this option will help ensure their peace of mind.

4.     Shipping suitability for all inventory

It would be to your business’s advantage to make all your products shippable. Again, your choice of a logistics company to partner with is important for this aspect of your service. Choose one that can deliver different parcels, from fresh produce to cakes to athletic equipment and more.

5.     Package tracking

You need to be able to provide your customers’ package tracking information. Providing them the assurance that their parcel will arrive on time is always a great way to secure a good reputation of your operations.




Use your customers’ contact information (mobile number, e-mail, even social media accounts) to update them about the location of their parcel. Or better yet, use an application that will allow them to track their orders anytime they wish.

A lot of businesses already do this, but the difference you can provide is to be more consistent about it.

6.     Customer “checkup”

This is already a popular additional service provided by small businesses in Japan. Shipping services include a checkup for customers because a large percentage of customers are elderly folks. The delivery person asks a few questions about the customers’ health and forwards that information to the business.

This additional service will allow you to express your concern for your consumers, as well as allow you to generate data to better improve your business’s personalized customer service. This is a clever strategy to implement if you truly want to set your business apart from your competitors.

Indeed, shipping is one of the best aspects of small businesses when done the smart way. Be creative about using this to advance your operations.

AUTHOR BIO

Naveen Joseph is the Head of Operations – UAE for Fetchr which supports both B2B, B2C and peer2peer deliveries in the Middle East.

Affordable
As a small business, you’re probably on a bit of a tighter budget than big-name competition. This means you can’t necessarily afford all the glitzy marketing they can. Luckily for you, POS products usually come with a very small price tag that isn’t going to cut a huge chunk out of your funds, and once you pay for them you have them for life with no repeat payments. The only additional cost will be the printing of the content to put in them, if you are using that sort of product, but this is usually very cheap as well.

Bring Customers In-Store
If you’re using products such as pavement signs, these can be placed out in the street, directly in the path of on-coming traffic. This means you’re advertising directly to your target market and, as long as your content is effective, enticing customers in to your store. People are much more likely to spontaneously come into your shop if they’re walking right by it, rather than seeing an ad from home or whilst driving, making POS products very effective.

Encourage Sales
Once the customer is actually inside the premises, your in-store POS products can take over! By using items such as snap frames and leaflet holders in areas of high traffic, you can promote deals, new products and current stock to your customers. It’s incredibly important that you push sales once the customer is in the store and don’t compromise on your advertising. Customers in your shop are going to be far more impulsive when it comes to deals and new products than those seeing your ads elsewhere, so you should be using your POS products to really drive home sales.

Branding

POS products aren’t all about the sales, despite what it may seem. They’re also great for branding, which is especially important for you small, less-established businesses. You can use your POS to re-inforce your brand identity to customers by being consistent with the colours and font you use, and putting your logo on everything (but not being too ‘in your face’ about it, of course). This will help customers to recognise your other advertisements out of the store and you’ll become more than just a name. You can also put across your ideals and values through the contents, for example if you’re very big on your brands heritage it’s easy to incorporate that into the contents of your POS products.

POS products are a great marketing tool for small businesses, and if you’re not already, you should definitely be using them in your store. They’re so cheap and such an effective way to push sales that it seems crazy not to! Look into what type of POS products will best suit your store and work on some effective content and you’ll soon have in-store marketing that can compete with the big shots!