Here’s a statistic for you:  73% of online shoppers expect quick and affordable deliveries.

Customers are calling for faster deliveries at cheaper prices. If you ask them which one they prefer first though, most of them say that they’re willing to pay more to get faster deliveries.

A report by iPrice found that deliveries are still a pain point for customers and businesses when it comes to e-commerce shopping in the South East Asian region.

On average, transit times for deliveries were around 3 days. The longer it took for items to be delivered, the more dissatisfaction levels increased. The flipside was also true, when delivery times were faster, customers and businesses were happier. 

Take Malaysia for example. Customers in Malaysia are the most dissatisfied in the South East Asian region.

Why?

The study found that delivery services in Malaysia take on average 5 days in transit – 2 days longer than the regional average. 

It’s good to assume that your customers are feeling the same pain points, and have the same expectations, because, let’s face it wouldn’t you expect the same thing too? Wouldn’t you want your parcel to arrive faster? 

As technologies and systems (like the ones discussed at the start of the article) improve, it’s predicted that delivery speeds will increase. Even now, services such as next-day or even same day delivery are possible. 

In the future, it’s predicted that for some locations, customers can expect to receive their purchases within the same hour from the moment they completed their transaction. It’ll be like ordering a food delivery. It probably won’t be there in 30 minutes or less, though.. (Or maybe it may).

That’s not to say, however, that you will need to be able to do that for your business to survive. Rather, it’s something to strive for. 

If you can go the extra mile and do all you can to process your customer’s orders faster, it shows initiative and prioritization from your end. Furthermore, if you can find the best solutions to deliver the best results for your business and your customers, it’ll only reinforce a positive image for your brand.  

Still need convincing on the importance of delivery speeds? Here are some of the benefits linked to being able to make faster deliveries:

• Increased Likelihood of Repeat Purchase – by being able to deliver your parcels fast, you’re showing your customer that you’re fast and reliable. Doing that increases the likelihood that they’ll have you in mind when they intend to make an online purchase. This is the foundation of how loyal customers are built – and loyal customers tend to make up a large portion of a business’s revenue.

• Improved Brand Reputation – relating back to the point above, if you’re able to consistently deliver fast and reliable service, you’ll begin to build up a reputation of being a business centered around prioritizing your customers. 

Therefore, it’s important for businesses to find solutions that cater to customers expectations of deliveries.

Another forecasted improvement is that shipment and tracking systems will continue to improve. As of writing, most deliveries are tracked on a ‘departure/arrived’ status; courier companies will pick-up or deliver the parcels and then update their status into a system. 

In the coming future, it’s likely that technology to track the live location of parcels via GPS will be made available.

While this doesn’t necessarily mean that your deliveries will be done faster, this ability to ‘live’ track does give you and your customer a solution to the ever constant thought of ‘where is my parcel?’ – which can help to alleviate some of the stresses when sending and receiving parcels.

Speaking of alleviating stresses, here are some common practice etiquette that you definitely should never forget doing when delivering to your customers are: