How to Achieve Affordable Nationwide 2-Day UPS Ground Shipping

1 to 2-Day Delivery Is the Expectation

It’s no secret that fast shipping is a growing consumer expectation — and thanks to the Amazon effect, consumers are defining “fast” as 1-2 days. In fact, a recent consumer survey revealed that 42% of shoppers expect to see a 2-day shipping option for every purchase they make online. That means that 2-day delivery is no longer a luxury service expected from large retailers. Merchants of all sizes must offer fast shipping options to compete.

LS2 Helmets, the United States’ fastest-growing motorcycle helmet brand, discovered that they were losing opportunities for sales at brick-and-mortar locations because their fulfillment network couldn’t compete with ecommerce shipping promises. They realized that they needed a solution that would help them keep up with growing customer expectations for delivery without hurting their margins.

Why Most SMBs Don’t Offer 2-Day Shipping

According a recent merchant survey, 75% of merchants know that offering 2-day shipping will make them more competitive, but only 60% actually offer it. Most merchants indicated that cost was their main obstacle to offering 2-day shipping to their customers, with 33% citing the prohibitive cost of next-day air shipments.

For merchants that are shipping orders from a single location (such as an office or local warehouse), air shipping methods might be the fastest way to reach customers on the other side of the country. However, this might not be a cost-effective option to leverage long-term. Ground shipments, on the other hand, are much more affordable. However, a merchant fulfilling from a single fulfillment center on the West coast, for example, may take up to 6 days to deliver to a customer on the East coast via ground.

So then, given that air delivery is probably too expensive and standard ground delivery is often too slow, how can merchants create a distribution network that guarantees 1-2-day delivery speeds for the entire U.S. without having to pay expensive shipping fees?

‍Ware2Go’s 2-Day Ground Network

Most small to mid-sized merchants looking to outsource their fulfillment start with a 3PL. However, 3PLs are typically regional providers, and in order to establish a nationwide footprint, many small to mid-sized merchants end up cobbling together multiple 3PL’s, complicating their supply chain and fulfillment operations. O2 Recovery found that in order to simplify their supply chain, they needed to streamline their fulfillment with Ware2Go.

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Ware2Go provides on-demand warehousing and fulfillment that guarantees 1-2-day UPS ground delivery speeds across the entire U.S. at very affordable rates. Ware2Go’s solution uses the following strategies to build a custom network to help merchants reach all of their best customers with affordable 1- to 2-day ground shipping.

• Building a Custom Network. Ware2Go’s free network analysis tool, NetworkVu, enables merchants to sync their ecommerce shopping cart or upload their own sales and shipping data to see recommendations of where to place their warehouses to best achieve nationwide 2-day ground shipping.
• Strategically Allocating Warehouse Space. Based on their NetworkVu analysis, Ware2Go will position our merchants’ inventory in the warehouses that can provide the most effective coverage. Typically, merchants that require 1-2-day delivery across the entire U.S. will need to position inventory in three warehouses. But because Ware2Go offers pay-as-you-go storage space with monthly fees, the costs of leveraging these facilities are very low.
• Managing the Entire Fulfillment Process. Once merchants’ inventory is positioned in our warehouses, Ware2Go manages the entire fulfillment across any ecommerce, wholesale, or marketplace channel. Our state-of-the art Warehouse Management System (WMS), FulfillmentVu, integrates directly with digital sales channels to automate as many processes as possible.
• Providing Guaranteed 1-2-Day Ground Delivery. As a UPS company, we’re able to provide our merchants with preferred UPS pickup and guaranteed ground delivery times through the most reliable carrier in the US.
• Visibility, Control, and Flexibility. Ware2Go’s integrated Warehouse Management System (WMS), Transportation Management System (TMS), and Order Management System (OMS) gives merchants full visibility into order and fulfillment statuses, on-time fulfillment metrics, and inventory levels across all of their warehouse locations and sales channels. And because the entire model is “on-demand”, merchants can adjust their usage of our services at any time in-line with their seasonality or the shifting needs of their business.

How Aloha Leveraged Nationwide Ground Shipping

When plant-based protein brand, Aloha, decided to scale their direct to consumer sales, they used Ware2Go’s network analysis tool, NetworkVu, to build an ecommerce fulfillment network. NetworkVu recommended a three-warehouse network, which enabled Aloha to reach 98% of their customers with 2-day ground shipping. They found that offering 2-day shipping on their ecommerce site not only improved customer satisfaction but actually grew their top-line revenue.

Today’s ecommerce consumers are highly influenced by what Google Shopping calls “The Power of Now” when making purchasing decisions online. In fact, a recent survey revealed that 65% of merchants saw increased cart conversions of up to 25% when they offered 2-day shipping at checkout. Additionally, 22% of merchants reported that offering 2-day shipping helped them beat out their competitors. Ultimately, between re-vamping their ecommerce website and offering affordable 2-day shipping to their customers via their ground network, Aloha has seen a 250% increase in D2C revenue.

Build Your Own Nationwide 2-Day Ground Network

Thinking about building a 2-day ground network for your business but not sure where to start? Ware2Go’s network analysis tool, NetworkVu, uses your own shipping data to show you exactly where you should be stocking inventory to lower time in transit (TNT) to affordably meet your customers’ 1- to 2-day shipping expectations. Manually upload your own order data or connect your Shopify or BigCommerce shopping cart via the NetworkVu app.