“Wow”, this is the feeling your customers will get when they log on to your cosmetics and makeup portal. They will see their favourite products and most likely put them in their cart. There will be an ample amount of ‘promising factor’ that you must have ensured to make them an integral part of your business.
You must have considered endless things to create and curate your online store carefully. And soon you will realise that customers have started making a beeline. Now it is up to you how you provide them with an unforgettable shopping experience – right from order placement to e-commerce shipping and post-purchase services.
The cosmetics industry revolves around producing and selling beauty products. It continues to grow across the world, churning out more and more brands. This segment like most other industries, is consumer-driven. Since customer satisfaction is the key to business success, the beauty industry places a premium on making customers happy.
As an owner of an e-commerce cosmetics store, all your efforts and objectives should be geared towards maintaining a loyal customer base. For this several aspects are important right from how you want to present your brand to what you want to offer. But amidst all this, don’t forget to think about this: How you want to offer? Yes, supply chain management is one important link you should be considering for your online business.
Once your cosmetics store is in full swing, it is time to ask yourself these questions. How will the products reach consumers? What should be done to provide them with a hassle-free experience? How to increase brand loyalty while managing the budgets?
A swift delivery and logistics experience require superior shipping services for every singular order. This is what makes the online beauty and cosmetics business highly competitive. One way to take your business a notch higher is to find a courier service provider early on. Doing so can help you save the stress and time that goes beyond in-house inventory management. A reliable courier service partner will ensure that your brand fetches sufficient visibility, there are minimal product losses and almost negligible customer dissatisfaction. Besides these, it should also address other aspects of shipping that are must if you see your brand stepping into the limelight.
Table of Contents
1. Let the packaging speak for itself
It is a beauty and makeup product! Hence your packaging should also be downright beautiful. Your supply chain partner should be able to craft boxes to improve packaging and labelling for long-term business growth.
The primary reasons for improved packaging are safe delivery and effective brand promotion. But besides this, investing in packaging supplies boosts the business in a positive direction. When your consumers receive the product in good shape, they are immensely satisfied and chances are that they will reorder and prefer your online store.
Your e-commerce courier service provider should understand that proper packaging creates a lasting impression on the customers and helps in creating a strong brand identity. A customised label with the brand logo and brand name can create a distinct brand value and help you stand out from your competitors.
2. There is no one size fits all
Have you had this experience when you ordered a mini lipstick and received a huge box? Were you agitated with the overall unpacking experience? Well, you do not want your customers to go through the same thing, isn’t it? An agile and innovative logistics provider will analyse the product size and right-size the packaging. It will decide the product packaging basis the volume and weight of the item. Doing so will bring down your packaging cost considerably.
Yet another aspect of this, that nowadays most carriers consider is sustainability. This includes reducing waste through the entire logistics chain and optimising the packaging is the first step in it. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if your consumers get to know that as a brand you are environment conscious? Will that lead to any better sales? Think!
3. There is no jack of all trades
Contracting with a single courier service provider during the initial stages of business development will suffice. But as you proceed towards expansion and online sales shoot up, you need to redefine your shipping strategy. Not diversifying your shipping strategy to cope up with rising volumes can put you at risk of insufficient order fulfilment and increased shipping costs.
More so, no two logistics service providers are similar in context to what they offer. Each has its own set of advantages and features that benefit different types of freight and consumers. Having a list of multiple carriers handy means you can commit fastest shipping times and exceptional customer experience for each and every order. All this while keeping the rates reasonably at par with your competitors!
Let us, for instance, assume that during the festive season, there is a segment of customers that demand faster delivery. They do not mind paying extra shipping charges to avail the luxury. In this case, if you are only associated with a single e-commerce courier service provider, you will be unable to attend to those particular customers. Maybe at that point in time, your supply chain partner is already very preoccupied with other fulfilment orders, backlogs and returns or maybe it does not cater to that particular geography.
Now you cannot afford to miss these orders and the extra cost associated with it, can you? So what is the wise thing to do? Instead of relying on just a single partner, you should ensure to work with multiple carriers to ship the orders. This provides you with the benefit of cost, good customer service, technology and also steady supply chain.
4. Allows you to manage your inventory
Cosmetics and makeup market segment is one of the most demanding ones amongst the FMCG sector. It requires excessive inventory management due to its quick in-trend and out-of-trend factor and lesser shelf life. Besides this, a lot of technicalities such as storage instructions and temperature control need to be taken into account.
It will only be wise to choose a partner that provides a 360-degree view of your inventory and sales. Your courier service provider should also be able to automate the supply chain to minimise manual errors. It should streamline your logistics by managing all your orders from a single platform. Choose a partner that is more technology-driven for inventory management. You can’t imagine how transparent your supply chain can get and in what ways it can drive more business.
By now, you must have realised that choosing a courier service provider for your online cosmetics store is no cakewalk. Recently it has turned a very complicated affair. Management of more and more fulfilment locations, multiple carriers and ever-evolving technology has made supply chain extremely cumbersome.
Final Words:
Understanding your needs and managing them are some of the most effective ways of finding the right third-party logistics partner for your supply chain. So how will you choose a perfect service provider to ensure smooth management? One of the most convenient ways of doing so is to tie-up with a shipping aggregator platform. This will let you access the services of different courier companies. It will also enable you to compare the offers and help you choose the most convenient option suitable for your business and budget.
Planning to go live with an online makeup and cosmetics store? StoreHippo can help you roll it out swiftly. StoreHippo ecommerce platform provides extraordinary solutions to power your brand. Right from product management and logistics to website developer tools, it is a one stop solution for setting up your online store. It also offers you relevant tools to market your brand once it is live. Moreover, you can also avail, ShipKaro shipping aggregator services for discounted, wide-coverage, optimized shipping. So what are you waiting for? Make a sound decision and give your online business the boost it deserves.
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