One of the most important aspects of running an online clothing business is the coordination of shipping. It’s imperative that you make the process as seamless and painless for your customers as possible. More importantly, you need to handle logistics on your end as well, ensuring you have the necessary infrastructure and budget in place to support customer fulfillment.
There are a few factors you’ll need to consider here, but ultimately, they all boil down to understanding your audience.
First, consider what sort of offer you would find attractive if you were shopping online. What would impress you about a listing? What would inspire you to complete a purchase?
More importantly, what would turn you off from a potential purchase? By adopting the mindset of one of your clothing brand’s customers, you’ll be able to better understand what sort of costs and fulfillment times are acceptable and vice-versa. We’d also advise doing a bit of market research into your audience to help you better understand who they are and what budgetary constraints they’re working with.
You need a shipping rate that’s feasible both for you and for your customers. The goal is to strike the right balance between what your audience can pay and what you yourself can afford. If you price things too high, your customers will likely lose interest before buying; too low, and overhead costs will skyrocket and eat into your bottom line.
To that end, you should also bear in mind where your customer base is located. If most of the people who buy your clothes are in your country of operation, it may be infeasible to offer international shipping except via special requests on a case-by-case basis. Do a bit of research to see where your most interested customers are, and work from that.
It’s also important that you optimize the entire sales process, from the moment a customer adds an item to their cart through to the moment they finalize their purchase. You’ll want to offer multiple payment options, including Paypal, Visa, and Mastercard. We’d also recommend keeping checkout to a single-page, avoiding forced registration, and applying strong security to your payment process.
An optimized fulfillment process, particularly one that’s user-friendly, will not only make your business more memorable but will also help to draw in repeat customers. In this regard, authenticity is a huge draw, and one of the worst things you can do is spring unexpected shipping costs on someone at the last minute or informing them you don’t deliver to their area after they’ve almost completed checkout. Be open and transparent about how much a customer can expect to pay based on their location (and only collect location data with their explicit consent).
Most major ecommerce platforms provide some form of shipping service, complete with estimates, so you can likely find a plugin for whatever you’re using to support your website.
Depending on your situation, it may also be wise to consider free or discounted local shipping. Particularly if you’re targeting a primarily local market, this can be a major draw for potential purchases. Just bear in mind that if your sales are too low, you may not be able to recoup the costs, so there’s an element of risk.
To equalize this, most companies will offer multiple tiers of shipping as well, such as providing free shipping on purchases over a certain threshold or on special sales. Do a bit of shopping around in your own market, and see what sort of offers your competitors are handing out if you’re looking for inspiration.
Last but certainly not least, it’s important to carefully research the various shipping companies and options available to you. Some may provide you with bulk shipping discounts, the savings of which can be passed to your customer. Others may offer more comprehensive shipping insurance, allowing you to cut down on product loss or minimize potential damages.
Given that most clothing isn’t likely to have significant weight variations in packaging, most companies will offer both standard and bulk weights. Shop around, and ask around. Your shipping process should, at the end of the day, be tailored to your unique merchandise and brand.
Lastly, if you’re looking for both design options and fulfillment options, BlueCotton can potentially help with that. We’ve nearly endless customization options, and a range of easy-to-use templates which you can change to suit your specific goals and needs, from bulk orders to fundraisers to personalized gifts. Have a look through our design studio, and see if it clicks with you.