This year the eCommerce side of business went booming. It grew more in 6 months than it did in 10 years. That is because for much of the country that is the only way to shop. Insane right. But I am guessing most of our politicians invested heavily in eCommerce before they made it mandatory. Truly, It is a strange world we are living in and the economy keeps on changing. Our country has made many fundamental shifts in how it does business as of 2021. This is all because of the COVID-19 pandemic and many companies are having to make drastic changes to the way they work and most are now working from home. That has been another huge budget cut. From shipping departments doubling in size overnight to floor sales staff being let go. The changes are really happing on the back end of many companies and what is happening is that shipping departments have become the most important parts of companies. This is happening in many different ways and this year they must stay competitive in order to survive. This means knowing your boxes and how to save money on them.
Losing your edge will get your company destroyed overnight. I am pretty sure the easiest way for a company to go out of business is to not be competitive. This year most brick and mortar companies are changing into more e-commerce based businesses. The transition is truly complicated but one simple way they are losing to the competition is through lack of proper quartermaster purchasing. When you are overspending on packaging supplies the whole show starts to collapse. If you end up buying boxes at twice the price of your competitor then it is hard to lose several percent on every single sale. What happens if your tape and labels are also being sold at higher prices? We know that you end up slowly fading into the failure of your own work.
What you need to do is be wise and find the best deals. This means finding a great packaging supplies company and get better deals. If you can go direct and buy in bulk, I have found that you can at least stay competitive and maybe get a competitive advantage over a rival. That is the easiest, simplest, and yet most overlooked area. It is because the shipping department seems small and there are bigger fish to fry, but if you do not look out this area will sink your e-commerce company.
The next area that can be difficult is staff changes. In order to make your shipping department thrive, you may have to change who is working for you or hire new people while letting old ones go. I find it better to retrain if you can. The sales department workers on the flood who are now no longer needed can be great shipping department workers. I know it is a job shift, but they know your products and can help get it out to new people. They can also help with the customer service side of your company that may have not existed the week before. The new transition will mean lots of more calls coming in about fixing issues. So be prepared and make sure to make the right call. Now go out and win.
