Shipping Delays: Their Impact and How to Deal With Them

Shipping delays can cause a lot of problems for retailers. Unfortunately, they are unavoidable. These delays can cause serious damage to businesses such as lost revenue or difficulty retaining customers. Although delays can be challenging to navigate, it is not impossible.

In this article, we go over a few of the major cause of shipping delays, how they can impact your business, as well as tactics to help deal with them.

What causes shipping delays?

Human error

Acts of God

Current Events

Supply Chain Issues

Wrong Shipping Information

Human Error

With modern inventory and delivery technologies, human errors have become less frequent but not impossible. Where there is human labour, errors are bound to occur. While packages are being processed at the warehouse, employees or management may make mistakes. For example, packages may be incorrectly labeled or misplaced. Apart from warehouse mishaps, delivery drivers may become confused on route which could affect the delivery time.

Acts of God

Despite our best attempts, nature can be unpredictable. When sudden weather changes or natural calamities occur, it forces businesses to either halt or postpone logistics. A recent example can be seen in KwaZulu-Natal, April 2022. Extreme weather conditions caused damage to roads, railways, warehouses and container depots.

KZN Floods

Due to the damage, bottlenecks formed for trucks carrying cargo which slowed down deliveries. This caused adverse affects on distribution, manufacturing and shipping, all while increasing supply chain costs.

Current Events

Global current affairs may have a significant impact on shipping if they disrupt supply chains’ regular operations. We can see examples of this in present world events such as the worldwide Covid pandemic and the Russia-Ukraine war. These events have forced retailers to improve their risk management practices. In fact, research shows that in the previous year, 59% of businesses claim to have implemented new supply-chain risk management strategies, such as diversifying their business to lessen their dependency on China.

Supply Chain Issues

Supply chain constraints are amongst the top causes for delivery delays. This is due to inadequate capacity to store or process orders. Alternatively, if a company outsources its shipment, similar problems may also arise. The shipping company may either lack the workforce, storage, or vehicles required.

Wrong Shipping Information

Shipping delays or unfulfilled orders can often be the result of incorrect shipping information. This may occur either due to the client providing the wrong details or the business not collecting enough information. Luckily, this is the easier of the causes to resolve.

How do shipping delays impact businesses?

Lost Revenue

When a shipment is severely delayed, customers may choose to abandon their purchase or buy from a competitor. Moreover, during the COVID-19 epidemic, congested ports, overpriced freight capacity, and emergency shipments became commonplace. Since then, product line closures, transportation delays, and rising input costs have all been impacted by the situation in Ukraine. These problems have resulted to significant rises in commodity costs, a worrying spike in inflation, and global expectations of increased pricing.

Damage to Brand Trust

When a customer has a negative experience, they may become dissuaded from making future purchases. This is due to the damaged trust; they no longer have faith in the business to fulfil orders on time. Unless there is a justifiable cause for the delay, chances are that customers will not be willing to give your business another chance.

Reduced Customer Retention

When customers have a bad experience with a business, they are less likely to make another purchase. This then reduces the businesses customer lifetime value. Additionally, customer acquisition costs then increase due to negative reviews.

Tips for dealing with shipping delays

Offer Free Shipping

Free shipping is a great opportunity to show customers your business values them. Free shipping goes a long way in enhancing the customer experience and motivating people to shop with you, even if orders are subject to shipment delays. Moreover, this tactic can go a long way in building brand trust.

Shipment Tracking

Shipment tracking is a great tool to help keep customers reassured. In fact, a recent survey showed that 96% of the respondents found GPS order tracking to be helpful while awaiting deliveries. Even if it is delayed, shipment monitoring helps reassure customers that their order is on its way.

Shipment Tracking

Offer Discounts

Even when things don’t go as planned, giving consumers gift cards and discounts is another method to demonstrate your appreciation for their business. Discounts can help lower frustration about the delayed arrival of their order and although this tactic may be costly, it can end up being less expensive than customer acquisition.

In Conclusion

Despite the challenges businesses face in todays world, businesses must strive to stay ahead. But knowing what to look out for is only part of the solution. With the tips provided in this article, you can minimise the impact shipping delays may have.