It’s time yet again for the holiday shopping madness. This also means it’s time for holiday packaging season for your brand. Now is the time when everything that you’ve planned and mapped out is being put to the test. The deluge of orders that are placed through your site will undoubtedly put every part of your business systems to the test.
With Black Friday and Christmas right around the corner, the last thing you want to do as a brand is be unable to fulfill orders on time or compromise customer satisfaction. E-commerce orders are picking up everywhere. From the big box retailers to small businesses, you need to be ready to manage the massive increase in shipping and packaging surges that will occur during this holiday season. If you thought that last year was an adventure of sales, just wait until this holiday shopping season hits for your brand and business.
There are many businesses that haven’t had the capacity to work on changing the way that they handle logistics and automation for this holiday season. Logistics have focused on pandemic strategy, but does this help with holiday packaging?
Businesses that didn’t have time to consider the changes of the holiday season will face challenges that come with normal surges in e-commerce, but this season will bring a whole new level of breakdowns.
While we’re already in the thick of holiday packaging, there are still some things that you can do now if you are facing problems to manage holiday packaging. Today, we wanted to take some time and go through some of those with you. And also, we want to look at some things you may be doing now that could be holding you back, and how to change that around before it’s too late.
Here are some ways in which you can best continue managing for the holiday packaging season.
Be sure that your business’ site is ready to convert
When was the last time that you went through and updated your website? Does every link for every product work in your store? Or are there dead links that are sending customers down a frustrating journey, ultimately ending in them finding a different product elsewhere?
Take the time now to review your site—not from the point of view as the brand owner, but as the customer. The customer experience is everything when it comes to e-commerce, so you want to be sure that you’re staying on top of it for your customers.
If your e-commerce store would be inundated with orders tomorrow, could you handle it? Are your supply lines for automation up to date and capable of handling a large increase in orders? Or does your site crash when it’s overloaded with customers trying to place orders in time for the holidays?
Take time now to do a test run for a holiday shopping spree for your customers, so that they’re not the ones doing it for you. The very last thing that you want happening during this holiday shopping season is for your business’ e-commerce store to not work and have the consumer find something that may be of lesser quality, yet still similar to your product somewhere else.
Furthermore, is your online store efficiently connected to your ERP system? With the massive shift to e-commerce, it is mandatory that you have efficiency with your e-commerce platform and how it communicates with your order processing and handling.
Don’t make this mistake, like many who are just focused on the products and making as many sales as possible rather than being sure they can even make those sales.
Packaging design updates
Have you been thinking of doing a redesign of your kitting or branding? You’re already cutting it close, but there’s still time to take a new approach to your brands’ kitting. Taking on a redesign of the way that your products are packaged might sound like a whole big thing, but it can be much more important than you think for the success of your business this holiday packaging season.
While your current kitting design may look great, it may actually in fact be using more packaging materials than you even need. Reducing the amount of packaging materials that you’re using in your brands’ kitting can save money and time. Saving time in the kitting process means that you are able to handle more orders and meet more shipping deadlines through your e-commerce store.
There are a good number of businesses that are slowed down by their packaging process, especially when it comes to kitting. While they may have automated as much of this process as possible, they’re still losing time focusing on fashion over function.
Take the time now to consider any updates and simplifications to the kitting of your products, and you’ll find that you’re able to better keep up with an increase in holiday e-commerce orders.
Have you automated lately?
Is your business spending hour upon hour assembling boxes, packing orders, printing labels, and shipping orders? There are so many businesses and brands, especially ones who are about to dive into their first e-commerce holiday shopping season, that are trying to take it on all by themselves.
Working with a packaging and logistics company can help streamline this process. Having all of your products kitted in the same warehouse that they’re also shipped from will immensely increase your order fulfillment capabilities. The holiday e-commerce shopping season is quickly coming upon us, and if you’ve been thinking of automating your packaging and shipping processes there is no time to waste.
Most companies that work in packaging operations and logistics are able to also warehouse your products, kitted or ‘un-kitted,’ which means they’ll also handle the entire process for you from packing each order, labeling and shipping. All your customers need to do is place the order directly on your online store and the rest is done for you.
Where do you start?
So how do you start doing all of these things to help prepare your business for the e-commerce shopping season? This is exactly what our packaging operations specialists at Hughes Enterprises are here for. We understand all the elements within packaging automation and how to anticipate the holiday’s logistical nightmares that come with e-commerce product fulfillment.
Contact our specialists here at Hughes Enterprises today and find out how we can help with your packaging and shipping processes.