Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/66147
Shipping continued awnings in the 1940s but transitioned into selling storage units to chains like Woolworths andWT Grant in the 1960s. Today it caters to big box stores as well as residential and international markets via outside sales, a catalog segment and an ecommerce site, revamped just last September to make it a true sales arm. "Originally our intent was to use the site to sell overruns or discontinued decided to redirect our focus when the Internet became more popular. products online," says Kass, "but we " Challenges along the way included coming up with a plan to counter the disproportionate number of accessorials pelting profits. "When we first started,we were get- ting hit left and right with lift gate charges and inside delivery fees, " says Kass."Even though the customer did not ask for a lift gate when the order was E-Commerce Q&A David Limon E-commerce Director for Mission Restaurant Supply that are global, category specific, or product specific. For LTL shipments, we purchased a module that will cal- culate shipping charges for items that are too heavy to go via UPS or that exceed UPS dimensions. Unfortunately neither method is accurate and could use some tweaking. Fortunately our shopping cart provider recently released an updated UPS shipping module that should allow us to offer more accurate rates. Calculating freight on an E-commerce website is a ping cart ties into UPS's data- base for shipments that are UPS'able. Therefore, when a customer's shipping charges are being calculated, the information is sent to UPS and a freight quote is returned within about a sec- ond. Our website allows us to calculate UPS shipping rates late small package charges and LTL rates? David: Currently our shop- N&V: How do you calcu- would manually retype the customer's address into our shipping software, which turned out to be the root of many shipping errors (not to mention costly because of how inefficient the process was). Today, we export the customer's shipping information directly out of our shop- ping cart system and import it directly into our shipping software, cutting the human error factor out of this process. ularly interested in the check-out process. David: In the early years of our online existence, we group effort between your shopping cart system, the carri- er of your choice, whether it's UPS, FedEx, USPS, or an LTL carrier, and lots of hard work inputting the correct data by you. If you have no luck with putting the two in touch with each other to work with you, you may be able to have a custom script written for you. Thanks to the Internet and freelancers, custom coding is not as expensive as it used to be. You can have freelancers bid on your project at rea- sonable rates at such sites like Guru.com, eLance.com, oDesk.com, Freelancer.com, etc. order and is billed properly, have there been any tweaks in your process over the years? Here, I'm partic- N&V: In making sure that the customer gets the right 1 4 FEDA News & Views small orders to stay competitive, which is opening new doors for E-commerce sites, but at the same time causing purchasing personnel to carry an extra load, change procedures and buy smarter. E-commerce giants like Amazon.com and Zappos.com have subconsciously raised the bar for customers shipping expectations. and exciting time to be involved with E-commerce, but this is probably the toughest time as well because the rules for E-commerce are still being written. Since E-com- merce is still evolving, new challenges are a regular occurrence for everyone involved, forcing us all to think way outside of the box. Many manufacturers are being forced to drop ship uct, delivery and billing, what are the challenges in the E-commerce world? David: That is a loaded question! I think this is a fun N&V: Specifically in the areas of ordering the prod- most surprising for businesses that decide to develop an online arm? David: Cost. The cost associated with running a full- N&V: Along the same lines, what do you think is scale E-commerce site will quickly discourage some dealers and cause others to cut back so much that they will never reach their full potential. placed, if the driver had it on the truck, he would use it. Or when he would bring the freight to the back of the truck, the customer would ask him to carry it to the backyard.As a result,we had to renegotiate some rates and take a harder line toward services. " Arrow, a longtime customer of Newgistics', started with placing a dis- claimer on its website and its shipping and handling material. It alerts cus- continued on page 35