The e-commerce space is speedily growing, and there are lots of opportunities for budding entrepreneurs to start an online delivery business.
With an estimated global population of 7.7 billion people, that’s about 25% of the world’s population shopping online. With a rapid rise in this number, it is expected that it will hit a massive 2.14 billion people by 2021.
Starting an e-commerce business isn’t as easy as launching a website and getting orders. There’s a lot of hard work that needs to be done behind the scene to make it successful.
One of the critical aspects is an excellent delivery service and a comprehensive delivery management system.
If you are wondering how to find the perfect delivery management software for your new organization, the below tips are there to help you.
1. Be Clear About Your Requirement
Before finding the right delivery management system, sit down and list down your expectations and needs. The requirements can be enabling real-time updates, optimized route suggestions for the deliveries. Whether there are a few items in the list or not, you need to consider some characteristics:
2.Process Automation
Entering delivery orders manually can be cumbersome. From putting tracking information into sheets to managing consignments and deliveries by hand, these are the time-consuming tasks.
So, it’s essential to make automation your priority. There are several automated Delivery Management Systems (DMS) that can save you valuable time, and you can utilize that saved time in other useful tasks.
3.Real-Time Updates
Real-time updates add to your convenience and can be a great way to enhance customer service. Real-time alerts and updates can help you better track your orders and keep records for customers having any queries or concerns regarding deliveries.
So, it would be best if you chose a DMS that can offer updates in real-time to both you and your customers, so they are transparent with their expectations.
4.Hassle-free Integration
It’s vital to integrate your DMS with other software you use to manage your business. You may need to connect your DMS with a software that you use to generate or accept orders, the software to keep your customers updated, etc.
5.Actionable Insights
Insights and analytics are the most critical aspects of any type of business, particularly actionable analytics. You will need software that not only lets you fetch data about your orders and deliveries but also provides that data in such a way that can help you make informed decisions.
Also, it will help you take action to enhance your delivery processes and your business.
6.Route Optimization
It can be not very reassuring to ride back and forth the same avenue multiple times a day to complete your deliveries due to the route that’s not optimized.
This situation can also be time-consuming and create problems and troubles for your customers. In some cases, it can result in delayed consignments.
Fortunately, several DMS offer the route optimization feature to ensure that you visit a street only once in a day with all the related deliveries.
Do the proper research and comparison
You need to do thorough research once you know what you need in a delivery management system.
There are various other service providers, but each of them is unique and will perform in distinct ways while offering distinct attributes.
While you may or may not need some, you should research and compare your requirements. Once you are done with the research, list down your options, and compare those.
Decide which DMS accurately is the best fit for you and your business.
Take a Demo
After comprehensive research and selection of the delivery management software, take a temporary trial if possible. Fortunately, several businesses will offer you a demo of their software for a specific time before you go a full purchase.
A test lets you see and feel the way a DMS works in reality. Many times, it seems that every functionality is perfect while researching for the software.
But when you start using it, several features don’t match your requirements. With a trial, you can switch to a different system if the existing one isn’t the best fit for your business case.
What’s in the stores
When you use software with attributes like automation and route optimization, you can save yourself, your staff, and your couriers more time and even cost than you may have otherwise thought you could.
When you run e-commerce and online delivery business, distinct facets are needed to manage your business smoothly.
With an ideal Delivery management system, you can make sure that all your orders can be delivered in a favorable, timely manner.
Features like route optimization and automation in software can help you and your workforce to save cost and time than you may have thought you could.
