When you run an online store that deals with furniture and home improvement goods, you have to think in a detailed manner and come up with a clear and concrete shipping strategy. Why, the emphasis on shipping? Unlike online book stores and jewellery stores, furniture stores have to ship a large bulky object more often than not.
What can such stores do, in order to maintain a smooth shipping experience?
Research on all available options
Again, you are not the usual shipper. Remind yourself that you will be shipping bulky furniture before you sign up. Get to know best options for large shipments. It is not just about cost. Look at the bouquet- tracking, signature confirmation and insurance. Bigger packages need these services more than smaller ones do. Free shipping is generally a USP with these products. Furniture and Home Improvement goods are pricier than books and knickknacks. So, the customer expects free shipping. Look at building shipping cost onto your product price.
Sign up for a service that offers a deal on returns as well. If the customer returns the furniture unit to you, you will have to make sure that the reverse journey is taken care of.
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Manageable packages
It is wonderful to have furniture that can be dismantled and then assembled at the customer’s location. This saves a lot of space and shipping charges for you. If you ship free of cost, it makes total sense to opt for this. This is easier to manage when you accept returns as well. This also means lesser fuel and packaging material.
Packaging
For all the units that you sell, have a definite packaging strategy. Since large packages need some thought when it comes to packaging, you have to dedicate time and come up with best practices. Use the optimal amount of packaging material- not too less that the package gets damaged, not too much that you beef up the package beyond necessary. Invest in boxes that can be reused. That’s a green trend the planet will thank you for. Make sure packaging does not damage glass panels and varnish in the products. It does not look good on your part, if the shipment reaches the customer with broken shards of glass and chipped varnish.
Click here to know more about green ideas on packaging.
Easy Dismantling and Re-assembly
If you have to ship a cabinet, you obviously beak it down to pieces and reassemble the prices at the customer’s place. Are you willing to send a person to do it at the customer’s place, once the product has been shipped? That involves handling a lot of logistics and you cannot have an assembly expert at every city you ship to. It is a good idea to make furniture and home improvement goods that require minimal effort to put together. A simple enough procedure can be carried out by the customer himself. So, this calls for units to be designed such that they can be dismantled and assembled easily by anyone who can read instructions.
