Today we publish a Coronavirus Ecommerce Checklist, courtesy of GFS, detailing small changes you can make to your shipments to ease the delivery of outgoing sales. This is especially important for Amazon merchants who habitually use FBA but have now had inbound shipments to Amazon distribution centres paused until the second week of April.
Some of these changes may not be possible on marketplaces if they don’t have all the available options, and some changes merely mean adding a note to labels to give couriers as much leeway as possible to get items delivered. Others may involve doing a little extra work, for instance if you don’t already automatically pass customer telephone numbers and email addresses to couriers it’s time to start doing so in order that they can provide in-flight delivery options and notifications of when deliveries will take place.
“At GFS we are taking the COVID-19 outbreak very seriously and, in this period of uncertainty, we want to help you limit any disruption to your business as much as possible.
We have been working very closely with our carriers to understand the impact of COVID-19 on delivery services both in the UK and around the world. As a result, we have put together this checklist of things you can do right now to ensure you can continue to provide a service to your customers, that in some cases may be much-needed, as well as protect your business, and most importantly, keep your staff and your customers safe.”
– Bobbie Ttooulis, Group Marketing Director, GFS
Coronavirus Ecommerce Checklist
- Switch on all in-flight delivery options to give customers control of delivery
- Offer a leave safe option so customers can still accept deliveries without needing to open the front door
- If a parcel can be posted through the letterbox, fill in the special instruction field with a comment such as “ok to post though letter box”
- If a parcel is too large for the letterbox, advise customers that they can leave a note by their front door with instructions for the driver
- Advise customers to download carrier apps so they can update their delivery preferences and upload a photo of their preferred safe place location
- Go multi-carrier – to ensure you have a back-up plan if one carrier is unable to deliver
- Consider carriers that can deliver to parcel lockers
- Tell your delivery provider what hygiene practises are required onsite to protect your team
- Check your carriers have instructed drivers to use hand gels/sanitisers prior to delivery
- Check your couriers have been briefed to leave a parcel without a signature if verbally agreed with the customer
- Offer a nominated day or timeslot option (eg AM) to increase greater chance of first- time delivery success
If you have any further concerns around how COVID-19 might impact deliveries, please do not hesitate to contact GFS and they will do everything they can to help.
