Managing orders, printing labels, generating tracking numbers… Running a parts store is challenging enough with all the time-consuming micromanagement of shipping—especially when you’re selling on multiple channels. If only there were services available that could save you time, money, and manpower when it came to managing all your shipments…
The good news: there is. Signing on with a shipping manager makes every step of the shipping process so much easier. With just a few clicks, a task that normally takes half an hour of your time can be easily cut down to less than 5 minutes.
The benefits don’t stop there. Below are 5 ways that using a shipping manager can make running your eCommerce business just a little bit easier.
1. Organization
One of the biggest concerns for a growing eCommerce parts website is figuring out how to handle the influx of customer orders as the store grows—especially when you’re selling in multiple places, like Amazon and eBay in addition to your parts website.
With a shipping manager, all of your orders are centralized in one location, regardless of channel. This centralization saves you time that you’d normally have to spend looking through each individual platform.
2. Processing Orders
Shipping managers help automate and simplify your orders, which leads to faster and easier fulfillment on your part. Once the order is fulfilled, you can arrange to automatically send confirmations, invoices, and tracking numbers to your customers and keep them updated on their order.
With automated inventory tracking, the system will update your new inventory every time an item has been marked as packaged and shipped. You no longer have to let the fear of manually updating your inventory keep you from growing your business.
3. Price Comparison
Shipping managers integrate seamlessly with all major postal carriers, which makes it easy to choose whatever company (USPS, UPS, or FedEx) you prefer. Most shipping managers also let you compare carrier prices side-by-side to be sure you’re finding the best price for each individual shipment. Sometimes you can even qualify for discounts.
RELATED: 8 Tricks to Avoid Overpaying for Shipping
4. Label Printing
In addition to finding the best price, shipping carrier integration also means you can print packing slips and shipping labels straight from your own computer—and in bulk. Printing all your labels in one go—even if they’re from a variety of shipping carriers—will drastically speed up the process and allow you to ship in bulk with minimal effort.
You can even include a logo on your printed labels to further promote your brand and give your package a more professional look.
5. Information Tracking
Having all your customer data in one location allows you to manage orders however you want. For example, you can organize your customer data based on what they’re buying and when. Being able to look at purchase history of your clients will give you the ability to pick up on trends and locate discrepancies. This information can then be used to adjust your marketing practices.
Of course, the more you sell, the more likely something might go wrong. For example, what if a customer wants a return or exchange? With a shipping manager, you can quickly track down the customer’s information by order number, date of purchase, or even the customer’s last name. A problem that normally costs valuable time can now be solved in a matter of minutes.
READ MORE: How to Optimize your Parts Store with 9 Helpful Shipping Manager Reports
At your dealership, time is money—and a shipping manager lets you have access to more of both.
If you’re a customer with RevolutionParts, you’ll be happy to know that we integrate with ShipWorks and ShipStation. Each shipping manager has different services to offer, so do a little research to figure which is best for you!
