Marketplace sales are booming. According to Statista, 63 percent of consumers start their search on Amazon.com, 25 percent on other marketplaces, and only 21 percent on brands’ websites. Consumers trust and prefer marketplaces over brand websites for several reasons, including the availability of fast and free shipping, customer reviews, and easy product comparisons and returns.…
Manish Chowdhary
Recent changes to Amazon.com's Seller Fulfilled Prime (SFP) program has sent sellers and the entire e-commerce industry scrambling. Merchants must quickly adapt to the new norm of nationwide one-day delivery or risk losing sales on Amazon. Offers from third-party sellers which include free Prime shipping can no longer be offered just regionally; they must now…
Amazon.com's new Seller Fulfilled Prime (SFP) requirements went into effect on Feb. 1, 2021. Third-party SFP sellers must now show a nationwide one calendar-day or two calendar-day delivery promise on their Amazon product detail pages. Also, they must meet the strict delivery speed metrics on all such orders. For more details on the new SFP…
In part one of this three-part series, I will decode Amazon.com's latest and most radical changes to its Seller Fulfilled Prime (SFP) program. I will share what merchants can do to adapt and thrive in the new one-day e-commerce delivery world. On August 20, 2020, in a post titled Important Updates to Seller Fulfilled Prime…
In the last installment of this 10-part series, I focus on emerging technologies and trends that will shape fulfillment in the coming months and years. These innovations enable merchants to fulfill orders faster while reducing costs, especially in the last mile and warehouse operations. Many large e-commerce merchants have started to adopt these technologies, and…
In the past four months, we’ve covered nearly 50 unique strategies for making free shipping profitable, from pricing mechanisms and outsourcing to managing returns. In part nine of this series, we’ll focus on tweaks you can make in your operations to optimize your costs further. (Here are parts one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, and eight of this series.) 1. Downsize your…
Returns are a fact of life in retail. The downside of online retail for customers is that they don't get to see and feel the product before purchase. That’s why e-commerce has three times more returns compared to brick-and-mortar retail. In the age of free shipping, returns hit merchants harder. In part eight of this 10-part series,…
Less than two weeks ago, Amazon.com's Fulfillment By Amazon (FBA) community was shaken by the online retailer's decision to restrict the kinds of inventory it’s receiving until April 5, 2020. Shipments of inventory turned away, and many FBA sellers left to fend for themselves during the COVID-19 crisis. Many sellers that still have FBA inventory…
There are hidden costs in order fulfillment that can be minimized or eliminated by streamlining your supply chain. Options such as buy online, pick up in-store (BOPIS) and ship-from-store are increasingly popular among merchants as lower-cost fulfillment, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. Any cost reduction within the supply chain can ease the burden of offering…
The global e-commerce market is booming, and it’s growing faster than the more-saturated U.S. market. Global e-commerce sales increased 20.7 percent last year, surpassing the 14.9 percent growth in the U.S. With such incredible growth numbers, perhaps it’s time to assess how domestic merchants can expand further and tap into international customers. In the past,…
Online shoppers weren’t really asking for free two-day delivery until Amazon.com made it available as part of its Prime membership in February 2005. That moment changed the e-commerce world forever. Amazon is at it again, now getting its customers addicted to free one-day delivery. Living up to this free and fast shipping expectation through your…
Whether you’re a brand or a retailer, the internet is a crowded place to sell things. You're constantly fighting for coveted shopper attention in your emails, ads and paid Instagram posts. Once you have a visitor’s attention, it’s about nailing that conversion to a paid customer. Free shipping could be just the thing to bring…
You might not be familiar with or using all the services that your carrier offers in determining how best to ship your orders. By picking the best service for each type of order, you can cut down on your shipping spend and make free shipping less of a burden. In the third part of this…
The internet has made price comparisons very easy for consumers. This has compelled many merchants to compete aggressively on price. Often the lowest price wins the Buy Box on marketplaces such as Amazon.com and comparison shopping sites like Google Shopping and PriceGrabber. This puts immense pressure on sellers to set a “just right” price that's…
Free and fast shipping is the name of the game now. It has become a table stakes to satisfy your online customers. While shipping may be free for the customer, merchants have to absorb the costs. But the question remains: How can you do it profitably? We've put together the ultimate collection of strategies and…
