How to Overcome the Logistical Challenges of eCommerce

Published on: 11 January 2019 Last Updated on: 08 August 2019

If you want your online business to really take off in 2019, you’re going to need to plan ahead for the logistical challenges presented. There are numerous issues eCommerce companies face in terms of logistics; particularly as the business grows. So, if you want to overcome the challenges within the industry, here you’ll discover some of the best tips and advice you can follow.

Ensure you’re providing the right delivery options:

One challenge eCommerce businesses face today is the increase in delivery demand. This poses two potential problems. Firstly, it means your business needs to ensure its goods are delivered quickly and safely to its customers. Secondly, it means you need to be offering a variety of delivery options in order to keep customers happy.

Customers today want a variety of delivery options available. This could include same day, next day and special delivery options. If you aren’t offering a variety of delivery methods, you could be missing out on a lot of potential business.

Avoiding inventory issues:

Inventory issues pose a major challenge for eCommerce. As online shopping continues to rise, it’s more important than ever before for retail companies to keep tabs on their stock levels. You’ll need to pay attention to both inventory location, as well as accuracy.

Knowing where everything is located will improve efficiency within the warehouse, while also ensuring you don’t invest in a stock that you don’t actually need. Similarly, ensuring you have full visibility of your stock levels in real time will help you to prevent running out of stock and disappointing your customers.

You can purchase inventory software which automatically tracks stock levels and shows where the stock is. This is definitely worth investing in if you want to improve your logistics in 2019.

Providing a reliable delivery service:

We mentioned earlier that there were two challenges with delivery in today’s eCommerce sector. One of which was ensuring your parcels arrive quickly and safely. There are hundreds of delivery companies to choose from these days and not all of them offer a good, reliable service. Therefore, you’re going to want to ensure you choose a courier service you can rely on.

Take your time to compare the different couriers and see what their reputation is. You should be able to find plenty of online reviews to help you make the best decision.

The above are just some of the main logistical challenge’s eCommerce businesses face today. As online shopping is expected to grow even further in 2019, getting on top of your logistics operations and ensuring they are as efficient as possible, is going to help ensure you keep up with demand.

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Digital Marketing: Utilize Facebook to Support Your Hospitality Business

When it comes to marketing your business in the digital world, you just cannot overlook the role of Facebook in connecting you with your targeted audience. By learning to use Facebook correctly, you can help your hospitality business go places. Many people are of the view that Facebook may not be a good addition to your digital marketing strategy when you want to promote your hotel or hospitality business, but that is not true. A study has found that there has been a 41.1% increase in the number of Facebook users between the ages of 35 years and 54 years. The same study noticed an increase of up to 32.6% in the number of Facebook users who are between 24 and 34 years of age. Both of these age groups are more likely to travel and pick your hotel if you could connect with them through Facebook. Now, it is important to mention that if you do not know how to use Facebook for sales and hotel marketing, you will be better off working with an experienced digital marketing company. However, if you have time and think you can take care of the campaign, you should pay attention to the following points which have been provided by Internet Marketing firm Web20ranker : Be Sure to Optimize Your Facebook Presence : Do not think that you will automatically get likes and new friends just because you have set up a Facebook page for your business. It is important to optimize your presence first. This way, people are more likely to find you and then connect with you. For this, you should add categories to your page to make your business type clear and then give local information along with sharing a good description of everything. Do not forget to upload exciting images of your location and hotel to grab people's attention. Your 'About Us' page should also share valuable and accurate information. It also makes sense to add keywords to your Facebook pages, just like you optimize your website for your primary keywords. Taking this step would prepare your page for the graph search, which is a semantic search engine. Take an Initiative to Engage Your Fans : You should do your research to identify your target audience. Your first target should be people who may have already visited your property and stayed there for a while. Their posts will serve as a "social proof" for your prospective guests. To get good results, start investing in those people when they are in your hotel. Give them some incentive to like your page – an incentive could be as little as free internet access for a limited time. Understand that your hotel business benefits from Facebook only when you encourage your guests and visitors to share their experience and valuable content. Similarly, you should share photos of local attractions and upload pictures of food to attract people. Promotional posts do not have high engagement rates, but you can still throw some offers once in a while to get good results. Take Advantage of Paid Advertising Options : Getting good exposure through 'free' ways of optimizing your Facebook page is a challenging task, especially after new algorithmic changes that keep news fees from being populated with brand messages. The good thing is that you can use paid advertising options to enhance the visibility of your posts and boost engagement. When done correctly, it also helps expand your fan base. Through paid advertising, you can use options to find guests on Facebook using their email IDs that you may have collected when they were staying in your hotel. Once you have located those people, you can target them using Facebook ads. Certain paid features also allow you to gain access to friends of fans, which will help broaden your fan base. Utilize Facebook as a Sales Channel : While people do not primarily use Facebook to plan trips, it still serves as an important marketing and sales channel. People can utilize Graph Search, Nearby Places, and Reviews to make up their minds about selecting your property on their next trip. However, to make it produce the desired results, you should also measure performance regularly. The number of likes certainly tells you something about the popularity of your business, but comments are even more important. Your star rating will also play a role here. If after making every effort, things are not getting better. You may need to work with a digital marketing company to maintain a well-managed presence on Facebook. Be sure to do your research to let the most experienced marketing company take charge of your Facebook marketing campaign! Read Also : 5 Steps On How To Market Your Business Using Social Media Using Social Media To Promote Start-Up Businesses Social Media Marketing Role In Technology

Questions to Ask Before a Data Center Relocation

Since many businesses are adopting developments in technology, we’ve seen a spike in the number of companies and organizations that need IT relocation services. Embracing technological innovations and streamlining IT infrastructure go hand-in-hand because you cannot facilitate a proper IT upgrade without the appropriate hardware. Even if you’re not incorporating major technological changes at the moment; your IT environment’s operational lifespan is one that keeps evolving. You’re bound to need a data center migration at some point. How do you get your data from point A to point B without losing, or interfering with anything? This is the question that it all boils down to. You need an IT organization that has the technical know-how to not only secure your data but also help you increase operational efficiency. Embracing new technologies is supposed to make your business more competitive and highly available. What are the Challenges you’re Likely to Face? Since this is a huge undertaking, you should be aware of all the challenges you will encounter. These hurdles will pose a difficulty if you don’t carefully plan for this transition. Moving Workloads Different workloads require different deployment procedures. Some workloads will be best handled with a hybrid IT approach, some work best in the cloud, while others should only be on-premise moves. Migrating Applications You need to have a clear understanding of the applications you’re moving to. This will help you know which applications depend on others and how to ensure this is not interfered with. You need a catalog of all applications and the risks involved in relocating them. Migrating Data and Machines Don’t forget to monitor, support, and manage all your data during the relocation. You will need reliable IT Relocation Services to ensure everything is in order before, during, and after the move. What are the Best Practices for Data Center Relocation? The next question to ask yourself is the best practices you should use for successful data center relocation. This is an overwhelming project, so it’s best to use a tried and tested procedure. Regardless of the reason behind your data move, the right strategy and proper implementation will ensure you reduce your downtime as much as possible. IT teams come in handy because they know what they’re dealing with and how each application should be handled. For a smooth migration, each step should be geared towards avoiding possible hurdles and proceeding with caution. Here is a four-point checklist to help you ensure nothing goes a miss; Identify migration scope What will you be moving to? This is a crucial starting point because it identifies what is in your current IT environment. Before you begin the move, ensure you have an updated checklist of everything that needs to be moved. This will give you an easy time tracking items throughout the relocation process. Assess platform stability How old is your equipment? Is it likely to malfunction in transport? The health and stability of your platform determine the best way to transport the equipment. Define criticality of data Make sure you’re aware of all the data assets in your possession. The last thing you want to happen is to misplace pieces of data during the move. Know your network An in-depth understanding of your network will save you from confusion on the D-day. Even if you want to seek IT relocation services, you must first map out your network. How can you speed up the entire process? Understand that there will be downtime to be caused by migration Before you start the relocation process, understand that your business will suffer significant downtime. Have an accurate estimation of downtime and find ways to minimize it as much as possible. The method you choose for the migration should allow you to set up the new data center in the shortest time possible, without interfering with anything. Establish how best to Accomplish your Move Once you know how much downtime to expect, the next step is to formulate a relocation methodology. Will you adopt a forklift process where one item will be moved at a time, or do you prefer swing migration that requires utmost uptime? The volumes of data you have and the platforms they’re on will be huge determining factors here. Consider a partner Lastly, consider hiring an IT relocation partner to help you with the move. If your company doesn’t have an adequate internal resource for the relocation, this is the best option. Executing a successful data center relocation needs professional expertise you can get when you hire IT relocation services. Choosing a third-party relocation partner takes the pressure off you and your team. The process will be much easier when you’re getting help from experts. Conclusion As an enterprise that needs IT asset relocation, you need to hire specialists with the right strategy to mitigate all risks involved. The consolidation of data centers is a sensitive undertaking that can easily go wrong. A professional will know how to prevent any disruptions before they even happen. Before you start the migration, ensure you understand your network and every application therein to avoid confusion during the relocation. Read Also: Six Steps to a Successful Office Move Important Things to Transport during a Relocation Factors To Consider While Preparing For A Move 7 Helpful Tips During an Emergency Moving Process

Strategies For Preventing Workplace Injuries Proactively

No company is immune to the danger of employee injury on the job. Injuries may and will occur if your business has employees, regardless of sector. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, over 2.8 million nonfatal occupational injuries and illnesses were reported by private industry employers in 2017. These injuries have a direct impact on the employer's bottom line, with OSHA projecting total payouts for direct workers' compensation expenses to be close to $1 billion per week the same year. Workplace injuries reduce organizational productivity and raise operational expenses, eroding hard-earned earnings. However, there is a silver lining to this dismal data on worker injuries: most injuries are completely avoidable. Implementing proactive methods to address warning signals before an incident occurs is one of the most effective ways to reduce workers' compensation expenses. This post will look at techniques that any business may take to assist keep workers safe and reducing worker injury expenses. Related Reads: Claim your compensation after getting injured at the workplace. Observe and Pay Attention Observing and listening to employees is one of the most effective techniques for injury intervention. Fatigue, discomfort, and pain can all be warning signs that a job accident is on the way. Businesses should foster an open communication culture free of fear of punishment and encourage workers to discuss how they physically feel while doing their regular job tasks. If an employee expresses discomfort in any manner connected to job duties, an assessment should be conducted. Ergonomics, equipment safety, lighting, task demands, and work process flow should all be taken into account when identifying why there is pain and how to alleviate it. Observation and communication may be a fantastic method to decrease the chance of hazards, avoid future workplace injuries, and increase overall productivity. Ignorance is Not Bliss Employee education is critical in the early detection and prevention of workplace injuries. Employees should be made aware of any warning indications that their bodies are giving them before it is too late. Symptoms such as weariness and pain indicate that a procedure has to be evaluated in order to prevent additional negative impacts on the employee. When it comes to workplace accident prevention, business leaders should implement a regular instructional program. These programs should contain instruction on detecting injury warning signs, reducing injuries, and communicating early injury warning signals to management for evaluation. Ignorant is not bliss when it comes to workplace injuries; it is just ignorance. Removing Hazards Eliminates Risk "Be mindful of your surroundings!" Most individuals have heard this advice in some form or another throughout their lives. This guidance is especially useful when it comes to identifying workplace risks as an early injury prevention approach. Hazard assessments enable management to study, analyze, and evaluate the whole work environment of workers to guarantee that dangers do not contribute to future accidents. Accident prevention is critical to keeping people safe and reducing workplace dangers. Employees who operate with heavy machinery regularly (e.g., drills, the saws) will benefit from equipment protections that eliminate dangers that might result in significant accidents. Fewer risks in an employee's working environment imply a lower risk of workplace injuries. Provide Safety Equipment Personal protective equipment is required and should be enforced throughout hiring, meetings, and on-the-spot monitoring. Take the time to teach staff how to wear goggles, face protection, gloves, hard hats, safety shoes, and earplugs or earmuffs appropriately. Many factories and other entities operate with hazardous or poisonous compounds, and accidents from contact with these chemicals are not uncommon. Accidental spills represent a substantial risk to both employees and companies; even little leaks may be hazardous. Organizations should take proactive hazmat strategies to reduce risk while providing all the necessary safety tools like custom enclosure box to safeguard your electrical system from chemical incidents. Up-to-date personal protection equipment and cleaning resources can also assist employees to avoid harm. Material Handling Although it may appear to be a broad category, merely handling and storing goods and equipment is one of the most prevalent causes of workplace injury, accounting for 32% of all workers' compensation claims. Improper storage or handling procedures in factories and warehouses can harm employees and incur extra expenditures for companies. Avoid these dangerous scenarios by removing the threat before it appears: stack and wrap things, storing larger, heavier objects at the bottom and lighter items at the top. To assist prevent back injuries, stringent regulations requiring workers to pair up while lifting loads weighing more than 40 pounds must be implemented. Similarly, leave adequate space between pallets and shelving units so that employees and lift equipment may reach items without the chance of an accident. Employers should also upgrade to the most recent lift technology, which can reduce the impact of continual stress on the body from lifting and carrying large items. Consistent instruction inappropriate body mechanics will assist to establish the culture of a pain-free workplace. Conclusion Workplace injuries are simply terrible for both individuals and businesses. Early preventive efforts can have a substantial impact on productivity and the bottom line. The primary objective of any organization's safety program should be to keep its employees safe and healthy. Early preventive methods provide staff with the skills they need to keep organizations moving ahead rather than sitting on the sidelines. We can assist reduce the huge workers' compensation costs that affect businesses all over the country on an annual basis by implementing a few easy techniques. Read Also: 7 Misconceptions About Workers’ Compensation to Debunk Can an Employee Claim for a Personal Injury When Working From Home?

How to Overcome the Logistical Challenges of eCommerce

Ensure you’re providing the right delivery options:

Avoiding inventory issues:

Providing a reliable delivery service:

How to Choose Insurance When Launching Your HHA Business

What are the best business opportunities for 2019?

Tags

Content Rally

Content Rally wrapped around an online publication where you can publish your own intellectuals. It is a publishing platform designed to make great stories by content creators. This is your era, your place to be online. So come forward share your views, thoughts and ideas via Content Rally.

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Digital Marketing: Utilize Facebook to Support Your Hospitality Business

Questions to Ask Before a Data Center Relocation

Strategies For Preventing Workplace Injuries Proactively

How to Overcome the Logistical Challenges of eCommerce

Ensure you’re providing the right delivery options:

Avoiding inventory issues:

Providing a reliable delivery service:

Share this Article

How to Choose Insurance When Launching Your HHA Business

What are the best business opportunities for 2019?

Tags

Content Rally wrapped around an online publication where you can publish your own intellectuals. It is a publishing platform designed to make great stories by content creators. This is your era, your place to be online. So come forward share your views, thoughts and ideas via Content Rally.

Leave a Reply

Popular

Follow Us

Recent

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