How to use fulfilment to build brand loyalty

We see countless plain brown cardboard boxes go out of the door. And these do the job just fine, however, packaging is another opportunity to showcase your brand and stand out from the others.

Offering eco-friendly goods? Your packing materials should be sustainable. Selling luxury items? Orders should arrive carefully wrapped and boxed. If your fulfilment process doesn’t reflect your brand values, customers wonder why.

Some of our fastest-growing clients are leading the way with branded packaging of different colours or innovative new materials. If your packaging makes a good initial impression, this is the first step to getting a repeat customer. Our team especially enjoy picking and packing these orders – imagine how much more excited your customers would be to open these over another brown parcel!

If you’re worried about your parcels standing out to a potential thief in the post, or your customer may not want to draw attention to the product they’ve ordered, you can get boxes that are branded on the inside to give that wow factor once the box is opened.

We all appreciate something personal to us. Using the customer’s name is a nice touch which shows care and effort on every purchase. This doesn’t just have to be an automated email or order confirmation: a handwritten note on nice branded stationery can make a customer feel like effort has been put in. This is something that Vdepot can do for you, so you can continue to add a personal touch to your deliveries even when outsourcing your fulfilment.

Particularly if you are promoting yourself as a growing start-up or a family run company, these personal touches can tie in really well with this idea and make customers feel more connected to your business. And if they make a connection, they will most likely come back!

If appropriate for your product, providing a gift wrapping service can have several benefits:

• Making your customers’ lives easier
• Offering additional value over your competitors
• Showing your brand’s personality through unique stationery

All of these things will of course make your customer more likely to remember you the next time they need a product like yours. And if you use an order fulfilment service like Vdepot, you can maintain this level of care and effort on every order without you having to give up your time or hire more staff!

The efficiency, care and accuracy of the order fulfilment process can make all the difference to the customer experience. If orders arrive later than expected, or contain the wrong items, this can overshadow all the work you’ve put into developing and marketing your products, and deter your hard-earned customer from buying again.

You should never settle for a substandard order fulfilment service. If you’ve reached the point where you cannot dedicate enough time or staff to the growing challenge, or order volumes fluctuate over the course of the year, then it’s time to consider outsourcing your fulfilment.

And of course, it almost goes without saying that offering next day delivery shows you are reactive and can meet their needs. As consumers ourselves, we expect to be able to order most products to arrive for the following day if needed. Typically with a fulfilment house such as Vdepot, orders received before 2pm will be dispatched on the same day. Stating the cut-off time for next-day delivery on your website can also add a bit of urgency with new and existing online customers.

Did you know that 92% of consumers will consider buying from you again if your returns process is easy? Do everything you can to ensure that returning an item is as painless as possible. Fulfilment providers such as Vdepot can manage your returns for you, so that returns are minimum hassle for you as well!

Make sure that your returns policy is clearly stated on your website. For sectors with high return rates, such as clothing, consumer electronics, and beauty products, this can make a significant difference to your likelihood of retaining customers.