While shipping has always been a critical element for ecommerce sellers, the pandemic has introduced new obstacles and management issues that are affecting shipping globally. Bottlenecks where shipping crates are in a holding pattern at major ports, and COVID-19 restrictions are still in flux. This means that having shipping management software that is accurate and reliable is incredibly important. Ordoro is here to help you manage shipping trends in 2022.
2022 Shipping Rates
January is a good time to review your shipping rates from last year and work on reasonable predictions for this year.
How did we do last year?
The holiday season in 2021 benefited from early ordering and improved logistics. Shippers encouraged consumers to start buying early, which smoothed out a lot of the hiccups caused by COVID-19. Shippers also had the whole year to work on improving logistics, and they successfully reduced the bottlenecks at major shipping centers. While COVID-19 still impacted workers, shippers including the U.S. Postal Service, UPS, FedEx, and DHL worked diligently to get packages to customers.
What to expect in 2022
COVID-19 is still a factor in shipping during 2022. This means that restrictions at ports are still tightening, especially overseas in Hong Kong and China.
Delayed cargo stuck in ports and cross-border points of entry are being charged fees, adding to the cost of containers, cargo vessels, and aircraft transportation. Maintaining enough personnel to move these shipments is still problematic.
Shipping costs are expected to rise. This makes finding optimal domestic pricing crucial for ecommerce sellers. Ordoro’s integrations with shippers can help you keep pricing down while adding convenience and automation to your workflow.
You can implement Ordoro’s multi carrier shipping software and heavily-discounted shipping fees from USPS. Shopify has a quick summary of expected 2022 shipping fees here.
Optimize Your 2022 Shipping Strategy
What is the best way of optimizing your shipping strategy?
With cost increases due to the uptick in shipping costs, how can you absorb the costs and continue to please your customers? A lot depends on your current strategy. If you offer your customers:
Free Shipping
- Continue with free shipping – This means examining your costs carefully, and your profit margin.
- Increase your product pricing – Add the difference to your product pricing. Just remember, regular customers may notice.
- Change to free shipping minimums – This tactic increases your average order totals, which helps offset shipping increases. If orders are below your threshold, you charge customers.
Flat Rate Shipping
- Continue with flat-rate shipping – You’ll need to absorb the change in costs, and how it affects your bottom line.
- Adjust order value ranges – You can change the flat rate on smaller orders and decrease them on larger orders to entice customers to buy more, offsetting your cost increases.
- Increase product prices
- Increase your flat rate shipping price – Increasing this cost may result in more abandoned carts, but you can recover some of them with cart recovery emails.
Calculated Shipping
- Change nothing – If you use a calculated rates provider or app, shipping rates will automatically display the new shipping rates for 2022. This may lead to more shopping cart abandonments since shipping costs are the primary reason people abandon carts.
- Lower your product pricing – This cuts directly into your profit margin, so analyze your bottom line numbers before implementing this action.
2022 Delivery Trends
Shipping is more than transporting goods from you to your customer. The post-purchase experience makes a world of difference.
Customer Post-Purchase Expectations
With developments in shipping management software and technology, customers are setting high expectations for deliveries. You can provide this with:
- Personalizing deliveries
- Unique packaging
- Unforgettable unboxing experience
- Tracking worldwide
- Customer support 24/7
- Having the best shipping insurance
Did you know that 58% of consumers won’t make a future purchase because of a poor post-purchase experience? Your job doesn’t stop with getting the order. Instead, the after-order process is just as important.
High Delivery Expectations
Consumers are paying more attention to the quality of shipping experiences in 2022. This includes communications before and after shipping. In 2022, these expectations will develop into a brand differentiator.
Yet, Shippo’s 2021 State of Shipping survey found that only “22% of survey respondents currently send customers to a branded order tracking page — and only 43% fulfill orders and send customers’ shipping information within 24 hours of their purchase.”
Shoppers Using New Shipping Technology
Porch pirates have become a problem as ecommerce shopping increases. One 2021 survey found that:
Package theft has also become commonplace. Roughly 14% of Americans say they’ve been victims of package theft in the last 12 months, according to a recent survey by Finder. This equates to about 35.5 million Americans and an average value of $156.82 being reported stolen. In total, according to our survey findings, Americans lost about $5.4 billion from package theft over the past 12 months courtesy of porch pirates.
These are powerful reasons for consumers to want more control over their deliveries. New technology is becoming available, allowing consumers to ship to lockers or other secure access locations.
Be Ready for the 2022 Delivery Revolution
The pandemic has taught us how to have almost anything delivered from meals to pharmacy items to work-at-home tech. In fact, services like Door Dash and Ubereats are partnering with retailers for delivery.
Supply Chain in 2022
Way back in 2020, none of us realized that COVID-19 would still have an impact in 2022. In a recent Wall Street Journal article, Derek Leathers, chief executive of truckload carrier Werner Enterprises Inc., reported that he expects contract rates to rise by high single-digit to mid-double-digit percentages throughout 2022.
While shipping fees are expected to level out, this isn’t expected until 2023.
Supply Chain Issues are Not Over
It’s hard to predict which supply chains or components will be affected in 2022. But, to prepare, make sure you have identified multiple vendors for your essential supplies.
Delivery Times are Normalizing in 2022
As we get closer to 2023, supply chains will normalize, either by compensating for obstacles or because problems have been solved. Supply chain disruptions, a shortage of shipping containers, and labor shortages are expected to resolve, increasing shipping capacity.
How Fast Will I Get My Shipment?
Consumers want to know how fast to expect shipments. According to Statista:
65 percent of U.S. consumers expected retailers to provide them with two to three days delivery, a speed goal that 29 percent of U.S. retailers were aiming to reach by 2022.
2022 Supply Chain Challenges
A recent article in Forbes states that successful supply chains will have:
- Resiliency – Rebalancing on-shore, near-shore, and off-shore strategies for manufacturing locations.
- Sustainability – Creating and implementing sustainable supply chain plans.
- Visibility – Focus on improving visibility to collect, consolidate and consume data, and insights in real-time from across the supply chain.
- Technology – Machine learning and AI use collected social media data from people, devices, assets, products, and vehicles across the supply chain to automate decisions and processes.
Shopping Season 2022
Early Holiday Shopping
After the success of early holiday shopping in 2021, we can expect a repeat in 2022.
Will Shopping Be More Painful in 2022?
This remains to be seen, but many consumers spent more in 2020 and 2021 because they were forced to stay at home. New COVID-19 variants and inflation may slow spending.
As of January 2022, US retail ecommerce sales is forecasted to grow 16.1%, reaching $1.06 trillion in 2022.
How Can Ordoro Help with Your Shipping in 2022?
Ordoro’s shipping management software can help you succeed in 2022. As an ecommerce partner, Ordoro can streamline your operations today.
Ordoro’s ecommerce shipping software helps growing merchants operate with the expertise of large-scale corporations, at a fraction of the cost. Optimize your fulfillment workflows with bulk shipping label creation, omnichannel inventory management, automated dropshipping — all in one platform.
Ordoro allows you to focus on growing your business in 2022 and will help you handle the back end operations, like:
- Shipping
- Ordoro is designed with a deliberate focus on optimizing your workflow so you can experience a seamless shipping process that saves you time for other matters.
- Ordoro is integrated with all major shipping carriers and postage providers, giving you access to a variety of shipping methods, services, and more-than-affordable rates.
- Ordoro is your one-stop app for tackling the shipping operations of all your channels, including Amazon and eBay marketplaces, and Shopify and BigCommerce shopping carts.
- Inventory management
- Keep inventory information automatically flowing to and from each of your integrated channels, both sales and supply-side.
- Easily maintain an organized inventory as you kit, link, and market your products–three functions that bring Ordoro’s inventory management to your customer-facing storefronts.
- Better handle supplier relations, flow of product and speed up your workflow with Ordoro. Batch set up suppliers, rapidly restock your inventory, and analyze inventory costs with one app.
- Dropshipping
- Dropshipping and hands-off are two concepts that go hand-in-hand. Ordoro’s dropshipping workflow illustrates that by being as simple as possible.
- Automation
- The process of getting orders out the door and on their way can get tedious. Ordoro’s automated features have your back end. Put our Automation Rules and Shipping Presets to work to get your shipping workflow moving like clockwork.
- Enjoy clear and effortless communication with your suppliers for effective dropshipping. Using auto-rolling and order splitting, Ordoro’s dropshipping automation helps speed up your process by reducing back-and-forth.
- Learn more about:
Do your goals align with these ecommerce trends for 2022?
Are you facing shipping issues with your ecommerce business in 2022? Test drive Ordoro for FREE on our Express plan. Start your 15-Day FREE TRIAL today! Contact us to find ecommerce shipping solutions.
