You got your new online store up and active. And it’s time for you to promote your products through social media, search engines, and other marketing channels. But, the one question that is ticking your mind is how to handle and manage the delivery of the received orders. Well, you don’t need to worry about that anymore, here we show you the exact way to ship products to your customers in any part of India.

Once you get an order from your eCommerce store, your next task is to safely deliver the ordered product to the buyer’s destination. One thing to make sure of is that you would require a shipping partner for your online store. This eCommerce shipping company would be responsible for your product’s shipping and delivery.

If you are not sure about how to contact or hire an eCommerce shipping service provider, then this guide will definitely help you with that process – How to tie up with an eCommerce Shipping Company.

Follow these simple steps to deliver products to the customers in India:

Calculate Estimated Shipping Charges

To begin with, you must be aware of how much it would cost you to ship an item to your buyer from your pickup location. For this purpose, you can make use of Shiprocket’s eCommerce shipping rate calculator.

The Packaging Of The Courier

You need to make sure that you pack the item properly to avoid any damage during its transition. If the item to be shipped is easily breakable, like glass, you should take extra care of that.

Print Shipping Labels

You have to print shipping labels to be pasted on your courier package. These labels basically contain information about the customer’s address and contact details. It also shows your details as a buyer. You can easily create such labels if you have tied up with any eCommerce courier company or shipping aggregators like Shiprocket. These services make these shipping labels automatically for you, you just need to print them from their panel.

Handover The Package

Once you place the order with your eCommerce courier provider, the delivery guy would pick the shipment from the pickup location you mentioned while placing the order. You can select multiple pick-up locations for your shipments to be delivered depending upon your courier provider’s functionality and features.

Tracking The Delivery

As you hand over the package to the delivery guy, you can track your shipment’s delivery status directly from the shipping panel of your shipping company till the time it reaches your customer.

That’s all, you are done with your first shipment. Congratulations!

Talking about an eCommerce or online business, we commonly come across the term supply chain management. It is an integral part of online business and if you are an online entrepreneur you need to have some idea of the whole process. In simple terms, the objectives of supply chain management or SCM include the management related to the flow of goods and services at various stages. It starts from the manufacturer to the retailer, and ultimately to the customer. At each level, proper management is required in order to ensure the seamless flow of the products.

The main objectives of supply chain management involve the management of a wide range of components and processes, such as storage of raw materials, managing the inventory, warehousing, and movement of finished goods from the point of manufacture to the point of consumption. In economic terms, it can be referred to as the design, planning, management, and execution of supply chain activities from the point of production to the point of sale.

Supply Chain Management Functions

On a broader level, supply chain management consists of these four major functions and key element components, such as:

Integration

This forms the crux of the supply chain and is meant to coordinate communications to produce effective and timely results. It can include innovation of new software or advanced technological processes to improve communications.

Operations

This involves management of day to day operations in the eCommerce business. For example, it may deal with keeping an eye on the inventory or coming up with marketing approaches.

Purchasing

This deals with the purchasing decisions and management, such as purchasing raw materials, source materials and so on.

Distribution

This deals with the management of logistics across wholesalers, retailers, and customers. This may mean keeping an eye on the shipment, and other details.

In addition to these, there are also some subsidiary functions that an effective supply chain management process fulfills, such as:

• Aligning distribution flows
• Integrating the functions from manufacture to delivery
• Designing complex and advanced systems
• Managing and coordinating resources

If you get the basics right and manage your supply chain in the right way, you will surely enjoy good profits. Always remember that proper planning and implementation are the keys to successfully achieving the objectives of supply chain management.

How to Successfully Manage Supply Chain Operations

Seamless Communication

All the aspects of a supply chain must be connected with a strong communication network. A transparent communication will help each section progress and a constant flow of data will help in simplifying operations.

Integration Between Processes

There must be proper synchronization between every operation to ensure the smooth functioning of the entire supply chain. This can be attained by applying automation systems ad decreasing the load of manual tasks.

Shipping and Transportation

Shipping and transportation must be imbibed with a strong network of pin codes so that the entire supply chain is sorted and its role is defined. You can make use of transportation systems or shipping solutions.

As an online entrepreneur, owner of an eCommerce business, one of the concerns you always have is the timely delivery of the products to your customers and that too safely. There is no denying the fact that there are multiple courier options available today that provide eCommerce shipping and logistics services. But, to be a preferred choice of your target audience, you need to give the best customer experience, and for that, you need to tie up with a courier company which is both – professional and dependable.