Delivery to a residential address may be a little tricky and a common question many eCommerce business owners have is, ‘What if I need to make a home delivery?”. Here are 5 ways to make home deliveries successful.
How to make a residential delivery for your online business
The world of eCommerce has made online purchases extremely easy. To ensure a great buying experience, a shipping strategy must be put in place to make sure customers receive the product they purchased in the time frame shown during the checkout process. Delivery to a residential home address may be a little tricky and a common question many eCommerce business owners have is, ‘What if I need to make a home delivery?”.
For your online store, you can offer a shipping policy where you will decide the courier or you can let your customer choose their preferred courier when it comes time to selecting a shipping method. Regardless of which shipping solution for your online store, all couriers have adapted some kind of home delivery service as they know that most people are away at work or unavailable to receive the package.
In many areas, the driver will try to make a home delivery at the end of the day. If the receiver is unavailable, couriers have simplified the package pickup process where they have a network of pickup locations for the customer to retrieve the package whether it is in the evenings or during the weekend.
Here are 5 ways to make home deliveries successful for your eCommerce business:
- Make sure you have a full and valid address, including a suite/apartment number, and a valid phone number.
- Indicate delivery instructions if your customer left you any (ex: leave in garage if no answer).
- Require a signature upon delivery if your shipment is high value or if you do not want the package left at the door without a proof of delivery. Click here to learn more about signature for deliveries.
- DHL still permits a signature required shipment. However, to keep the driver and recipient safe, the driver will write the recipient’s on their handheld device. Couriers like Fedex have temporarily suspended the signature required option. The only exception would be adult signature required (ASR) shipments where they will still request a physical signature and a government-issued photo ID. For more information, click here).
- Indicate the consignee’s e-mail address so they receive the tracking notifications.
- You can offer to have the package sent to your customer’s business address.
FlagShip offers different options for your eCommerce shipping. Contact us at 866-320-8383 or e-mail us at support@flagshipcompany.com for more details and learn how we can make shipping easy!