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Distributors that are able to perfect the practice of serving the eCommerce sector will gain an edge over their competition. They�ll be perfectly placed to take advantage of a market that will inevitably continue to boom. Consumers are constantly looking for a faster way by which their purchased items will reach them. As an eCommerce entrepreneur, you are going to have a challenge with having to ship small amounts of orders now and then rather waiting to have them shipped out in bulk. This of course might increase your shipping charges, but customers on the other hand are expecting to have a small charge for their merchandise. Very tricky isn�t it? This situation is mostly faced by the Business to Consumer (B2C) of eCommerce, wherein you have many orders for very tiny amounts of items and you have to make sure they all get to their destinations within the promised time-frame. Business to Business (B2B) on the other hand comes with orders that you have to ship out in bulk. With Ghana being an emerging eCommerce market, the usual trend is mostly going to be that of B2C. As mentioned in last week�s article, there is a great opportunity for the distribution networks here in Ghana withinin the eCommerce industry. If you haven�t as yet got the eCommerce revelation, make your research around it and capitalist on its distribution channels. An online business owner must endeavor to effectively implement the distribution networks in such a way as not to incur so much cost. This is very important because most eCommerce early starters folded up because of huge costs shipping incurred. To encourage customers to always come back, online businesses are sometimes compelled to absorb some of the shipping charges on behalf of the customer. One needs to be creative so as to be able to efficiently serve the B2C demand and at the same put mechanisms in check so as not to run your business down: Optimising the distribution channels: Easy Picking and Packing There is a need for a very well organized storage facility or in the case of larger businesses, a warehouse. To ensure faster processing times for merchandise, you can categorise items or products in such a way that those that are most or frequently ordered are closest to pick up from the warehouse. Luckily enough, there are various off-the-shelf software on the market that can help you take these decisions more easily. Reducing package space When your storage is better set up, as an ecommerce entrepreneur you must focus on how quickly packages are made ready for dispatch. You are also looking as much as possible to reduce the size of you boxes as you pack. This is because courier services are now charging with box-volume in mind. Always make sure your boxes are built up to the item size before shipping so as to avoid additional charges. Increase efficiencies in delivery routes Oftentimes, when we charter a taxi we try to use the shortest route possible. Sometimes it isn�t because we want to get there faster, but it is obvious that the length of the route might cost something extra. The same has to do with shipping. In shipping you must consider the shortest route or better still, the route that will cut down cost and also get to the customer in a satisfactory time. So, some intelligent analysis has to be made in making sure that you don�t end up spending all you profit in paying for carrier-charges. Evaluate how orders are shipped So let�s say your storage facility is located somewhere in Ashaiman-Tema, and you are to ship five different orders to Santasi-Kumasi; obviously it would be smart to do so together wouldn�t it? But in eCommerce it is not that easy as those five different orders might all not come on the same day. Then, how long can one wait for all the others to the same destination to come through? It therefore requires some tactical analysis over some time to be able to forecast delivery trends. eCommerce entrepreneurs are asked to look randomly at orders that are being shipped. If several boxes are due for the same destination at the same time, it only makes financial sense to repackage the various merchandise. Stick to your shipping policy Experiences from other eCommerce markets around the world indicate that efforts have been made by most enterpreneurs to have a shipping policy on their website. I would advise that you make every effort to deliver above your policy. It is worth emphasising that one major lure of eCommerce is the speed with which merchandise is delivered to customers after ordering. Let me end these two weeks of dwelling on Shipping in eCommerce by saying that no matter how hard you might try to implement the best shipping strategy, it can sometimes go wrong: not being able to ship early, packages can get lost; sometimes merchandise gets damaged etc. Whatever the case may be, customers will be happy if you provide them with effective after-sales support when situations such as the above-mentioned do occur. {Your Weekly eCommerce tips: �There�s a good reason why almost every highly successful online retailer uses the likes of DHL, Fedex etc. �Shipping costs are a major consideration to consumers shopping online, because price-hunting online only makes sense if prices are lower than they are at your local store��. 3dcart.com} [Ecommerce Success stories: Our first choice for web-hosting had a number of issues and required too many manual interactions with its software. It was a tedious process that required too much time. Finding a solution wasn�t easy, and in the meantime I familiarized myself with VB.net and ASP.net books so that I could work to customize things on my own. We moved to Volusion over five years ago and have been happy ever since.