Fulfilling and Delivering Orders Quickly During a Pandemic
Introduction
In terms of demographic spread and physical geography, Australia is in the peculiar condition of having an extensive land mass on which centres of population are both clustered and widely dispersed. What’s more, in comparison to its land mass, Australia has a low population. Remote regions of the country may be difficult to access using conventional means of transportation, making it difficult to serve people in these areas. This makes fulfilment, delivery, and supply chain in Australia some of the greatest challenges in the region. The last mile delivery challenge is especially acute for consumers in hard to reach areas.
For retailers in Australia, this therefore begs the important question: How can you streamline your order fulfilment process, and proactively anticipate and react to delivery delays without passing on the shipping costs to your customers?
A Mounting Challenge
The two years of the COVID-19 experience have witnessed a massive shift in consumer behaviour, with shoppers growing increasingly reliant on digital commerce and online transactions.
At the height of the first COVID-19 wave in 2020, 9 million Australian households -- 82% of the national total -- shopped online. Each month of that year saw an average of 1 million additional households buying online when compared to 2019. Through the early months of 2021, we have continued to see around 5 million households shopping online each month.
Natural disasters, economic uncertainty, and pandemic restrictions raised new challenges for businesses across Australia, particularly those in regional and remote areas.
With the number of online shoppers having increased drastically, retailers are now under intense pressure to keep track of their stock and inventory better, pack goods faster, ship more efficiently, allow easier returns, and maintain transparency and visibility throughout it all.
Strategies For Effectively Managing Supply Chains
A recent study from Australia Post drawing on the insights gained from more than 400 million annual Business to Consumer (B2C) deliveries, The Delivery Experience report, makes five recommendations for order fulfilment and supply chain management, applicable to retailers:
1. Reduce bureaucracy on delivery and offer more collection points
As more consumers shop online, retailers are realising the importance of providing a seamless experience across physical and digital channels. To the customer, convenience is key -- and consumers want a simple experience that doesn’t require multiple signatures or bureaucratic processes before they can take delivery of their goods.
Consumers in congested or hard to pinpoint areas such as individual apartments appreciate the option of having a safe and alternate collection venue, if a first delivery is unsuccessful. Retailers should therefore provide a choice of additional collection points at checkout.
2. Provide end-to-end delivery information
From the beginning, retail supply chain managers should set clear expectations surrounding cost, speed, and estimated time of arrival for purchases. This helps instil customer confidence, and minimises the number of subsequent queries. Mobile apps and eCommerce platforms that issue notifications and alerts can assist in keeping customers aware of the condition and timing of their delivery, and conveying potential delays to customers in a timely manner.
3. Capture relevant customer data and track customer behaviour
Since a customer’s past delivery experiences will have a direct bearing on their current transactions, it’s important to capture relevant contact and transaction information, to help in optimising the fulfilment process.
During fulfilment, use of these contact details assists retailers in communicating any adjustments to deliveries in transit, and matching customers to their consignments for tracking purposes.
4. Optimise address accuracy and labelling quality
Inaccuracies in addressing consignments are a key cause of delays or deliveries to incorrect locations -- two of the principal pain points of online consumers. Fulfilment managers must therefore take care to establish correct delivery addresses, and to label or communication them clearly to couriers and transporters.
5. Use “best fit” packaging
Both for reasons of logistics and economy, it is important to place consignments in packaging that is appropriate to the material being transported. This means striking a balance between bulk, protection, and ergonomic efficiency.
In an atmosphere in which consumers value environmentally friendly packaging and sustainable practices, retailers should also consider materials and techniques in line with these principles. By signing up to the Australian Packaging Covenant Organisation (APCO), retailers can join 1500 other members in a commitment to meeting Australia’s objectives for sustainable packaging by 2025.
How Temple & Webster Are Weathering The COVID-19 Storm
Despite the fact that their supplier warehouses and carrier partners are suffering staff shortages, all of Temple & Webster’s warehouses, suppliers, and carriers remain 100% operational and able to deliver items all over Australia. With the safety of the company’s own team, customers and partners paramount, warehouses and delivery partners continue to work using contactless procedures to get orders to their destinations as quickly and safely as possible in line with the most recent current COVID-19 restrictions in each state.
All Temple & Webster products ship from within Australia. A care team of over 250 persons handles 5-10,000 contacts per day, working hard with wholesale suppliers, warehouse teams and delivery partners to get customers the most accurate and up-to-date information on their orders. Temple & Webster usually send tracking update notifications immediately via email and SMS. However, in the current situation the first notification that a customer receives may be on the day of delivery, as not all items can be scanned individually due to the high volume of items currently being processed. A range of self-help options are available for customers awaiting delivery on the Temple & Webster My Account online platform.
(source: Supply Chain Channel)
Future Trends For Fulfilment And Supply Chain In Retail
GlobalData’s E-Commerce Analytics expects Australia’s eCommerce market to reach $91.5 billion in 2025, as consumers spend more time browsing, researching, and purchasing online. Consumers forced to spend more time at home have been pouring revenue into the furniture and home furnishings, home cooking/groceries, and gardening sectors.
Looking ahead, retailers should bear the following trends and considerations in mind, regarding fulfilment and the supply chain:
- The Cautious Consumer: While more enthusiastic for digital, consumers are becoming more cautious about what they actually buy. This reflects their changing priorities, and the new realities of the marketplace.
- Digital Acceleration and Reliance on Data: Digital transformation will continue apace, with an accelerated demand for eCommerce and online/cloud services. With technology as the main driver of change, retailers with the capacity to build robust digital capabilities will be positioned to thrive.
- Increasing Levels of Automation: To cope with increasing customer demand and greater expectations, organisations will deploy more automated and robotic supply chain and fulfilment solutions. For example, grocery giant Woolworths is building a new automated warehouse in Sydney’s western suburbs, as it gears up for more of its customers shopping online.
- An Emphasis on Supply Chain Resilience and Security: Retail supply chain managers will need to heighten their focus on security and resilience, to counter current and future disruptions at local, national, and global levels.
- Greater Consolidation: With significant changes to retail business models likely, industry structure changes will follow. Some businesses will survive, some will not, and some will fundamentally change - resetting the basis for competition.
Overall, and in an atmosphere where consumers are now living differently, purchasing differently, and thinking differently, retailers with strong digital DNA and eCommerce capabilities are positioned to thrive, and experience rapid growth.