As ecommerce brands prepare for the holiday season, experts seem to focus on the marketing challenges associated with this time of year. Everyone is talking about setting up the right promotions, increasing ad spend, and optimizing their presence on online marketplaces ahead of the holidays.
What experts seem to forget is that ecommerce brands face equally challenging fulfillment and delivery issues during the holiday season. Every year, over 900 billion packages get delivered by USPS just between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day and 16 billion pieces of mail and packages during the entire season. The number of returns alone increased 19.6% between 2018 and 2019, according to USPS. Skyrocketing prices and delivery gridlock are an ever-increasing problem for brands across the nation.
In this article, we break down the three ways that X Delivery’s innovative shipping API technology helps ecommerce brands save money this holiday season.
Let’s dive in.
How to Avoid Holiday Peak Pricing
If an ecommerce brand is unprepared and exceeds their delivery capacity then they have to seek out new delivery providers to meet the demand of the holiday season. That’s one of the worst situations a brand could be in. Even existing carriers can increase their prices ahead of the holiday season.
Large carriers run out of capacity very quickly because they use outdated systems that can’t manage the demand. At X Delivery™, we use smaller and more flexible shipping carriers and a network of in-motion supply chain assets. That means we keep our pricing consistent and help brands avoid holiday peak pricing.
Decrease Costs with Zoneless Pricing
Another major cause of concern for ecommerce brands is zone pricing. Traditionally, the price of delivery depends on the zone you’re delivering to. For example, shipping to zone 2 close to your warehouse would cost significantly less than shipping across the country to zone 8. The difference is not only due to the distance but specifically prices according to the particular zone that you’re delivering to.
The difference in cost could add up very quickly and specifically affects many direct-to-consumer brands that tend to have a lot of coastal customers on both sides of the U.S. Also, the complexity of zone pricing goes up significantly as merchants have to calculate the zone for each delivery. Zone pricing affects holiday shipping significantly as it hikes up the price and the complexity at a time when ecommerce brands want to simplify fulfillment as much as possible.
With X Delivery™, merchants get zoneless pricing, which means a flat rate by weight regardless of where the shipment is heading. This method is used to bypass large carriers’ networks entirely. The merchant is able to skip zones by using regional carriers and our easy-to-use shipping API and then send the shipment directly to a local delivery service provider for the last-mile delivery.
Zoneless pricing provides an easy all-in rate per pound and saves ecommerce brands up to 55% on delivery costs compared to other national shipping carriers.
X Delivery™ Makes Costs Predictable from Year-to-Year
The greatest benefit of using X Delivery™ for your holiday shipping is the predictability that we offer. Ecommerce brands don’t have to stress over surcharges and fees from other shipping carriers. They don’t have to switch between carriers, negotiate capacity, study the zone map of the United States, or stay up late dealing with sudden delivery bottlenecks.
X Delivery™ offers predictable delivery costs throughout the year with zoneless pricing, no surcharges, no holiday peak price increases, and no carrier shopping. Our innovative shipping API allows ecommerce brands to enjoy the flexibility and stability of a national network of smaller carriers with consistent capacity across the year. All in all, ecommerce brands can finally focus on their sales and not worry about their holiday shipping costs peaking.
Recap
No ecommerce brand likes to get hit by holiday peak pricing and hidden surcharges at the busiest time of the year. Yet, traditional carriers have been consistently increasing prices between October and December and the holiday season has been expanding steadily.
The advantage of using zoneless pricing and a predictable pricing model that doesn’t change during the holiday season offers ecommerce brands predictability and increased optimization. Business owners can predict their expenses early enough, prepare their business better for the peak shopping season, and spend more time optimizing their marketing campaigns and product offerings.
With X Delivery™ you get all the benefits of a national delivery network, an easy-to-use parcel shipping software, and predictable pricing so it’s really a win-win. We’re revolutionizing the fulfillment and delivery industry and making an incredible impact that gives ecommerce brands much-needed peace of mind and predictability year-over-year. Come join us! Sign up to start shipping with X Delivery™.