The Link Between Intelligent Shipping Automation & Profitability

Is there anything more fierce than a Bollywood dance-off? Yes indeed! The commerce landscape is incredibly cut-throat. With over 17,000 companies fighting for dominance in the fashion & apparel sector, newer brands are often willing to let profits bleed in their quest to conquer the market and challenge established players. This trend is particularly damaging to the apparel industry, as the goal to stay ahead can negatively impact profitability and brand positioning.

Consider this for a moment: While 8 out of 10 shoppers look for quality when making a purchase, 40% keep an eye on the price, and over 20% expect their shopping to arrive quicker than getting a cup of chai at the local tea shop! Additionally, customers love brands that offer free returns, and close to 60% of online apparel retailers experience 25% returned merchandise.

Here’s a rundown of what customers expect in exchange for their loyalty- speed, incredible delivery and return experiences, competitively priced products to encourage impulse purchasing, and unparalleled product quality. Let’s take a minute and let that sink in.

How can a brand possibly deliver all of this, while staying ahead of the game? How does one avoid being “bled out” and ensure their customer base remains protected from aggressive competitor brands? Here’s how one legacy kidswear brand does it.

The Pitfalls Of Spreadsheets & Courier Tabs

Logistics remains the heart of any business. In B2C shipping, many complex gears at work must run friction-free to ensure smooth operations, much like a perfectly choreographed dance. There is a common misconception that cutting shipping costs can negatively impact delivery experiences and thereby increase customer churn. Spoiler alert: This is simply not true.

Many organisations still use Excel spreadsheets to create and track their shipments. They usually have multiple courier websites open and painstakingly stay on top of any potential delays or errors and manually resolve them. With such primitive efforts still largely at play in pre-dispatch data recording and shipment assigning, the chances of error are incredibly high.

The resulting inefficient allocation, NDRs (non-delivery reports), and RTOs (return-to-origin) translate to expensive logistics capable of bringing even domain giants to their knees in silent prayer. The main culprits behind high shipping costs include returns from a lapse of EDD (expected delivery date) and sub-par carrier allocation.

The Science Behind Accurate EDDs

Hopscotch has partnered with ClickPost for intelligent data-science-based EDD prediction. This innovative functionality pairs business goals with real-time carrier data capture and selection. The date calculated using this formula, broken down by delivery location and chosen carrier, is –90% accurate!

What makes this unique is that it considers the carrier’s historical performance against specific parameters like RTO%, SLA breaches, etc. Much like a seasoned chess player using past games to soundly trounce the opponent. The EDD derived from this process is presented on the PDP (product detail page).

The outcome of this ClickPost + Hopscotch EDD project was evident in an exhilarating conversion surge and the on-time delivery ensured Hopscotch’s customers were happy with their brand experience!

To Optimize Is To Automate

Hopscotch approached Clickpost with the desire to incorporate an optimised automated carrier allocation module into their B2C operations to reduce shipping costs while ensuring the delivery experience they are renowned for, remained unscathed. This was a novel and visionary move, particularly for a brand that has occupied a prime space in kids’ apparel for more than a decade. 

“Hopscotch is undoubtedly one of our trailblazer brands, leading the way in strategy and decisive action. In fact, their bold move to make their core operations better, more powerful, and more efficient, caused such a rush of energy in our pre-dispatch team. And in just three weeks, from initiation- to- implementation, we gave Hopscotch a fully functional configuration that is sure to improve profitability, immediately,” said ClickPost’s cofounder Prashant Gupta.

A Touch Of Allocation Alchemy

With Hopscotch’s SLAs and pricing uploaded onto a state-of-the-art AI-driven carrier allocation product suite, Clickpost began to run simulations. Wholly based on parameters defined by the brand, algorithms, and weightages were established to reflect their priority and strategy. 

To evaluate the maximum possible reduction in shipping costs, while ensuring other key performance areas improved/remained constant, ClickPost ran multiple scenarios to identify the optimum combination for Hopscotch to adopt.

The best possible combination yielded a reduction in RTO rates while saving on shipping costs!

What The Future Holds

Looking at the expected volume of the Indian kid’s apparel market in 2028 projected to hit 16 Bn pieces and a revenue of $26.5 Bn, brands must fine-tune their shipping. This will enable them to access scalability and unlock profitability.

“As we know, AI & ML-driven solutions are the future. Especially as a predictive tool. What humans lose days over, and what organizations need dedicated teams for, intelligent systems are absolutely capable of arriving at a logical, unbiased result. And automation is an added bonus that can help brands reshuffle employees to customer-facing and product-centric teams.

We have seen our solutions help businesses scale quicker, save costs & improve their brand perception in the market. The future is now, and it is time to embrace tech-powered workflows,” said ClickPost’s cofounder Naman Vijay.