More and more online shops are gaining customers from abroad. If you send a large number of packages to a certain country, making use of local stock might be of interest to you. On this page, we describe the benefits of shipping from multiple countries and how this can increase the conversion rate of your webshop.
Despite varying wishes and requirements of consumers from different countries, there is one thing they all have in common: Every consumer, in every country, wants the package to be delivered to the agreed delivery location – in optimal condition. Not only that, but if the ordered product doesn’t suit the consumer’s needs and wants, it shouldn’t take much effort to return the package. A large share of consumers value fast delivery. And they also expect that due care and attention will be paid to minimising the carbon footprint during transportation of the order.
Now, imagine you’re an online entrepreneur. Maybe you actually are one!
You know you have to take all of the above into account to keep your customers satisfied.
Now imagine you own a Dutch webshop and you start receiving an increasing number of online orders from Germany. You can, of course, choose to send your products from a warehouse in the Netherlands to Germany, and the foreign consumers can simply return their items back to the Netherlands. However, in many cases, this does not outweigh the benefits of having a warehouse or local stock within that specific country (Germany in this case).
For instance, if you’re working with local stock in each of the countries where you sell a substantial number of products, you will eventually never run out of stock anymore…
Sounds like magic, huh? Please continue reading and we’ll explain it to you.
Let’s state five key reasons why you should start focusing on cross-border logistics:
- Shorter lead times. This one speaks for itself, but is definitely important. Your lead times are shorter because your products are already closer to your customers. This means the package gets to the consumer faster, which will increase your customer satisfaction. More happy customers = more repeat purchases. Which means…. More revenue!
- Smaller footprint. The carbon footprint will be reduced, since distances are shorter. This is becoming increasingly important to consumers.
- More favourable rates. Delivery costs are lower because agreements are made with (multiple) local carriers.
- Reliable and fast return process. For any consumer, it feels much more reliable to return a package to an address in their own country than an address in another country. In addition, the product will be sent back to the warehouse faster (because of the shorter distance) and therefore the product will be put back into circulation quicker. This means that the customer can expect the refund for that product sooner. This faster turnaround is also beneficial for the webshop. In sectors like fashion, where more than half of the items are returned, having a local presence of your products is essential for a quick response and to keep costs manageable.
- Sold out? Not at all! Now and again, a product from an online shop can run out of stock during a successful national campaign. We, the people from Monta, have thought about this. For instance, we have a client that sells home products. This client has local stock both within the Netherlands and in Germany. Some months ago, they had a very successful campaign in Germany. In the end, the product sold out there. In this case, some fulfilment companies simply choose to replenish the stock (supply new stock from the Netherlands and ship it to a warehouse in Germany). But that actually takes quite some time. At Monta, we don’t like to wait. And we understand that our clients don’t like waiting either. We want to act fast and be proactive. This way our clients grow rapidly, which is what we love the most! So…. We do things differently: Whenever a German client orders a product which is sold out in Germany (most of the time, this doesn’t happen, but for now just pretend it happens: AAGGH!), we can then forward the online order from the warehouse in Germany to our warehouse within Netherlands using our own Monta-software. We then send the item ordered by our client directly from the warehouse in the Netherlands to the German consumer. This way, we can still deliver to the consumer quickly. Well, we know this is in contradiction with the things we said earlier. But in THIS particular case, it will always we the fastest way. Plus, you can still sell the item, because it’s not really completely sold out. Conclusion: you won’t miss out on any orders. You keep your customers happy and you can still make money. And while we are forwarding the orders, stock is being replenished in the meanwhile in the warehouse in Germany. The consumer notices nothing, and the online shop doesn’t miss out on any orders.
Having multiple local stocks definitely influences the competitive position and conversion rate of a webshop. Experiences of Monta’s clients highly confirm this. There are also customers who choose to send all orders from one country, that’s fine too. The choice should always be up to the entrepreneur.
