shipping – Business Plus Baby

If you want to grow your business, allowing for international orders is one of the best things you can do. Many people think it’s going to be very complicated. But it’s not too hard to expand into global delivery. If it’s something you want to do, you have to be prepared to make things easy for your customers. They need to be able to pay for their orders and receive them in a timely fashion. Start with the steps below to help you begin offering international when you take orders online.

Make International Payments Easy

If you want to allow for people to place orders all over the world, you need to think about payments. You won’t be able to offer the service if you can’t take international credit cards, for example. You need to find a system to make it easy for customers to pay for their orders by their preferred method. You might choose to use PayPal, allowing people to use their PayPal account or to input their card details. There are other tools you can use too so that your customers can pay quickly and easily. It also helps to include the ability to view product prices in different currencies.

Organize Your Shipping

Shipping internationally can seem difficult. But it shouldn’t be that hard to add to your usual mail. You can make it easier if you can deal with everything yourself, without having to take it all to the post office. You can look at the range of services offered by USPS or consider using a courier for some deliveries. Find out how to buy stamps online by going to http://www.onlinestamp.net/how-to-print-stamps-online/. It’s easier to attach postage to all your orders if you can print stamps whenever you need them. Don’t forget to consider customs, as well as delivery times. Your customers need to know how long they’ll have to wait for their orders.

Photo credit: VFS Digital Design

Consider Offering Other Languages

Using languages other than English on your website isn’t a necessity. Many people from around the world are happy to place their order in English. However, offering other languages could help to boost your sales. If you do decide to have the ability to translate your site, you’ll have to think about SEO too. A global SEO campaign can be difficult to master, but it will help people find your site. Look at where your orders are coming from to determine which languages you should offer.

Provide Excellent Customer Service

If you’re going to expand your delivery locations, you need to offer great customer service. People from all over the world could be asking about your website and their order. As with your site, you might need to consider offering customer service in more than one language. Dealing with time zones can present a challenge, so you might consider using email support as one of your primary methods.

Think carefully about offering international shipping before you implement it. It will be more successful if you take the time to plan and organize.

Companies that rely on parcel delivery will require a speedy, reliable and efficient service to maintain the integrity of their business. This is especially important in the build up to Christmas as mail routes become exceptionally congested with millions of parcels being sent back and forth over the UK.

To help with businesses that regularly use a mail service, here are 3 top tips to help you with parcel delivery:

Prepare the Package Carefully

Perhaps the most crucial consideration for sending a parcel is to make certain the goods inside are packaged correctly. You can never be too careful when it comes to this as inadequately wrapped parcels can leave you liable for any damage incurred during transit.

Firstly, ensure that outer containers are sturdy and can easily hold the weight of the goods inside. There should be no movement inside for the item to move around, especially for delicate items such as glassware or ceramics. Fill out the container with bubble wrap or polystyrene chips to prevent movement. Seal the parcel securely and apply tape across all edges and openings, criss-crossing the whole box if possible.

When you are satisfied the package is safe to send, you also need to be meticulous with the outer labelling. Again, this is your responsibility to get right. Some companies cover their labels with transparent sheets so that wet conditions don’t affect the writing. Write a return address on the parcel also in case anything goes wrong.

Use a Dependable Courier

There are numerous professional courier services available in the UK. They will pick up items from the required address and deliver them to any location all over the world. Of course, sending packages internationally will cost a higher amount and require more preparation on your part.

The larger and heavier your parcel, the more expensive it will be to send. There are limits for sending goods in the UK however; a package cannot weigh more than 30kg and have a length of over 1.5 metres. If you are looking to send items above these measurements, then check if the courier can provide a special service for you.

Courier services are essential for many companies. They will be able to offer you an affordable service, often with same-day delivery if booked early enough. Research and compare all the different couriers online to find the best deal for your business.

Use an Insurance Policy

Courier services will be using their own insurance policy to protect themselves from unexpected circumstances. When you use one of these companies, your goods will usually fall into this policy and be insured up to the value of around £50. However, you must be certain that this is the case by reading the terms and conditions.

For expensive or fragile items, using insurance provides you with a peace of mind when the package is out of your hands. If the value of the goods is above £50 then spending that bit more on insurance guarantees protection against damage or lost items.

Insurance companies will investigate any claims thoroughly and an inadequately wrapped or labelled parcel will often nullify any claim; extra care is needed when preparing your package to make sure this doesn’t happen.

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Tag: shipping

Grow your business with international shipping

Business Parcel Delivery: 3 Top Tips