What Shopify Shipping Solutions Are Available For NZ Online Stores?
If you are running an online store on Shopify, getting your shipping sorted should be one of your top priorities.
After all, you can’t have a successful business and satisfied customers if you don’t have a safe and efficient way to send your products out!
Luckily, there are some excellent Shopify shipping solutions for stores based in New Zealand. These tools allow you to streamline the whole process of shipping - from checkout to delivery.
Whether you are just starting your Shopify business or are looking to scale up your shipping, these systems have you covered. So, let’s talk shipping!
What Shopify Shipping Solutions Are Available For NZ Online Stores?
Time To Review Your Shipping Strategy
For many Shopify businesses, shipping is somewhat of an afterthought at the beginning. The focus is on your store, your products, and your marketing, and the shipping is far less sexy.
But as you begin to grow, you will appreciate just how much of a chore it can be to send your products off to customers. Done manually, it sucks up a lot of your time. And if you don’t have the costs sorted, it can suck up a lot of money, too!
If you don’t have a solid shipping strategy (say that three times fast!), it’s time to create one. Getting your products out to customers quickly is all part of the customer experience, and a happy customer is more likely to be a repeat customer.
On top of that, the shipping process provides you with a valuable opportunity to build relationships with your customers and grow your branding.
Key Shipping Considerations
Even if you are only shipping a few items a week, take time now to think about how you can streamline your shipping before you need to scale up.
Here are some key things to consider when planning your Shopify shipping strategy:
- Checkout process – how to provide clarity and safety when offering shipping
- Convenience – how can you automate things to make the admin side easier – e.g. checking addresses, printing labels, sending delivery notifications.
- Speed – how long does it take for your product to reach the customer?
- Cost – are you giving (and receiving) value for money?
- Choice – are you providing your customers with different options to choose from?
- Returns – how are you managing return shipping?
Manual Fulfilment vs Automation
Most businesses start by shipping everything manually. This means double-checking delivery addresses plus printing and attaching labels one by one. While this is achievable on a small scale, it’s still not the best use of your time. With a manual fulfilment process, there’s more chance of errors and delayed deliveries – and forget about scaling!
On the other hand, automation utilises technology to take the data from Shopify and transfer it automatically to your shipping company. It’s done by tools that integrate with your Shopify dashboard.
Automation also provides a superior post-purchase experience for your customers. Instead of sending a generic tracking link that sends people to a courier website, you can customise the entire post-purchase customer journey.
Automation tools allow you to send updates and notifications at each stage of delivery. Even better, these notification emails or pages can be branded to your business, strengthening your brand and growing that customer relationship.
It’s never too early to consider automation when shipping. Automation tools save you time and money, reduce errors, and are infinitely scalable.
So, what are these tools exactly? Let’s look at the two most popular Shopify shipping solutions used in New Zealand, Starshipit and eShip.
Starshipit And eShip
Starshipit and eShip are integrated shipping and tracking tools that work perfectly with Shopify.
Although there are similarities, these tools aren’t identical. Here are the key differences.
- Courier companies – eShip is run exclusively with NZ Post, while Starshipit uses a wide range of courier companies (including NZ Post)
- eShip doesn’t have offer live rates at checkout, but Starshipit does.
- eShip can’t be used with Shopify UI, while Starshipit can.
- eShip is free, and Starshipit is priced starting from $40 per month.
Both these tools provide the opportunity to offer a range of delivery options and prices at checkout, streamline your delivery admin within Shopify, brand your notifications, and provide superior service to your customers, whether you’re delivering within New Zealand or internationally.
If you aren’t sure which Shopify shipping option is right for your business, then get in touch with us here at Creative Web Designs. We can explore your needs, recommend the right option for you, and even get it set up for you too. Reach out to us today.