The Main Challenges of the Expedition Business
The demand for faster, efficient and traceable delivery is growing and competition is fierce when it comes to long-distance shipping. Such a situation poses several challenges for the shipping business.
Especially for those who are entering the world of marketing and even those who are experiencing the transition from conventional services to modern services.
The Industry Is Very Competitive
There is no thought as to who Royal Mail, DHL, FedEx and several others dominate the courier services market globally. This is a giant player with an extensive network that leverages all the power of powerful technology to benefit. Competing with this giant is a David vs Goliath battle. Beheading these giants is not easy, especially since all of these companies already have better trust, capital, and technology than businesses that have just been started.
Market Demand
Another challenge for shipping businesses is reading market data to better understand demand. With today’s increasingly rapid changes, knowing what the market wants is a challenge for the shipping business. With market dynamics changing drastically, staying up-to-date with data requires extra effort to deliver what customers are looking for.
Increasing Staffing Needs
Some shipping companies rely heavily on strict manual processes which can result in increased staffing requirements with many loopholes. Despite training and efforts to standardize processes, the nature of the business will always lead to some or the other manual hitch. This can even result in the employee being busy with a large number of unexpected workloads. On the other hand, there will be times when few people are unemployed and others may be too involved. Balancing the team becomes important or staff needs continue to increase. And even during the holidays when demand increases and special discount sales, delivery requests are higher than expected. Get busy, messy and chaotic to manage every order that needs to be fulfilled.
Keeping Customers Aware of Their Packages
The expedition business is getting more dynamic over time. Customers want to be aware of the whereabouts of their packages from time to time. And because they now have good information, the question of loyalty does not arise. Choosing a courier service that provides them with information is one of the top priorities.
That is why success in a highly competitive market will require courier companies to stay connected with their customers. Failing to do so could result in losing customers to competitors, especially those using real-time remote delivery software. One of the reasons why this challenge is so common is because of the nature of the business that courier companies handle around the world. There is uncertainty about whether the package was sent or not. Conventional shipping businesses maintain manual records of package receipts which may reflect poor delivery coordination and collection discrepancies. Moreover, apart from wasting manual labor time, it leaves a weak audit trail for submissions.