Reshipment is a common occurrence in the dropshipping sector. This especially happened more often recently due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, which has caused disruptions in logistics and supply chain around the world. In this blog post, we will discuss why dropshippers need to reship products from time to time and what you can do to minimise the damages caused by those causes.
Firstly, let’s go through some reasons why some orders need to be reshipped.
1. Damaged products upon arrival
It is unavoidable that products and packages are damaged from time to time in the shipping process. This could be resulted from many factors, such as senders’ lack of care when packing the items (e.g., insufficient dunnage inserted) or carriers’ negligence in handling the parcels.
2. Parcels lost in transit
As logistics and supply chain is a highly complex industry, and the process of transporting goods from one place to another involves many parties and many moving elements, it is not rare that packages never reach their destinations (i.e. they are lost at some point in their journeys). Some causes include invalid shipping addresses, damaged labels, theft, or accidents encountered by transportation vehicles.
3. Wrong items delivered
Although most fulfillment services take the utmost care to maintain a high order accuracy rate, it is nearly impossible for them to accurately fulfill orders 100% of the time. Therefore, you should not be too surprised when hearing your customers complain about receiving the wrong products.
Regardless of the reasons, as a responsible seller, you should resend the products to your customers. Next, we would introduce you some best reshipment practices as well as what you can do to minimise the chances that you need to do this in the first place.
1. Keep your customers updated
Once you receive complaints or concerns from your shoppers, you should try to address them as soon as possible. If you need time to figure out what goes wrong in the process, tell your customers so, and give yourself a deadline to respond to them. For instance, you could say:
We are deeply sorry that this happened to you. However, kindly give us 3 days so that we can liaise with our partners and find out more about the actual situations. We will update you accordingly afterwards. Once you identify the issue, inform your customers immediately and let them know what they should expect (e.g. how long it should take for the replaced orders to arrive at their doorsteps). In short, engaging your customers in the communication loops will help to strengthen their loyalty to your brands.
2. Have a system to store your processing and shipping records
As mentioned above, it is not always your fault when your customers receive defective items. For instance, it could be that the shippers cause some damages to the parcels due to their carelessness. In that case, you would probably need to prove that the package was intact when you shipped it out, such as photos and pick-up confirmations. With a good system to track your orders, you can minimise your loss, for instance, by getting reimbursed when it’s the carrier service who is at fault. Besides, this helps you better manage your business operations, especially when you are scaling your dropshipping store, because you have eyes on most situations and can trace back the entire process if any issue arises.
3. Take measures to minimise the chances that those mistakes would be made again
As the saying goes, prevention is always better than cure. Therefore, thoroughly investigating the situations when things go south would help you to systematically fix the issues and avoid making the same mistakes in the future. For example, if the products are damaged because not enough dunnage is inserted or the packaging material is not suitable, you should switch to other packaging alternatives and train your team to pack the items more carefully. Another situation could be that the courier services do not handle your parcels professionally enough. In that case, you should have a conversation with your shipping partners and clearly establish your expectations so that they could exert greater care to your parcels.
4. Work with a reliable dropshipping agent
More often than not, a trustworthy dropshipping agent would help you handle the previous 2 steps while you can dedicate more time and effort in maintaining a good relationship with your end consumers. They might also implement automation in record-keeping, thus saving you some resources (e.g. manpower) when tracing back the root of certain problems. Moreover, if they are in charge of fulfilling orders for your dropshipping business, you can leave the entire process in their hands. For instance, at Xianchao Logistics, we will reship the orders to your customers if they receive damaged products or do not receive them within the promised time frame. In case of product defects, customers do not need to go through the trouble of shipping them back to us before we can proceed with reshipment.
Although many dropshippers regard this issue as a hassle, it should not be the case. Sure, you receive some complaints from your customers. However, it is also your chance to show them how good your customer support team is. It is usually the post-purchase experience that builds up your loyal customer base. Therefore, you should take the opportunities to show your buyers how deeply you care about them.
Do you have a business to grow? Let Xianchao Logistics help you with scaling your dropshipping empire. Contact us today to get all the support you need. With 30+ years of experience in logistics industry and 5+ years in dropshipping sector, we strive to solve your pain points, ranging from product & supplier sourcing to ecommerce order fulfillment, or branded packaging & private labelling to quality inspection & product certification. Please feel free to reach out to us if you need to know any details about partnering with us.
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