- Hello Customer - Log in or Register!
An issue for sellers using big e-commerce platforms is the loss of control over the customer connection. This isn't trivial because the relationship with the customer is something that smaller businesses excel at and need to as a matter of survival.
What happens on the platforms, rather than your own website, is the commoditization of your product. It joins the millions of products in the platforms' online showroom.
More problematic is that the big platforms keep customer data in the process of selling, fulfillment and payment. Your product arrives at its final destination in an unmarked box or one bearing the name of the platform. Your product may have all the brand recognition of chopped liver.
The upside is that buyers almost anywhere in the world can find you in a crowd. And you need not be bothered with the logistics legerdemain required to deliver the goods. This is not trivial. Though it gets easier with experience, figuring out everything is not a walk in the free trade zone and scaling is limited when it's you, your spouse and some loyal employees.
E-commerce may be your sole business model. More likely you are managing multiple selling channels and have only recently become excited by the prospects of cross border trade, which according to some estimates will involve 130 million buyers in the next few years.
What more is there than your own website and/or the ubiquitous platforms? Fear not. There are more options, no doubt with more on the way before you can say "drop ship," and hopefully there’s more hip than drop.
i-Parcel to the rescue?
One solution is i-Parcel, a recent acquisition of UPS, the logistics giant. You can integrate it on your website with or without the UPS logo. I-parcel manages the shopping cart, calculates landed costs for the customer to whatever country they live in, figures, out the lowest cost shipping, prepares all customs documents, collects the money in whatever currency the buyer prefers, and even translates the checkout page into multiple languages.
I-Parcel takes a scrape but let's you know what it is so you can add it to the cost of goods for pricing purposes. They will also handle returns, which is a major requirement of customers and a pain point for you if you have to make your own arrangements.
Your goods go to a handful of shipping centers in the U.S. and one in the UK, which is nicely located to serve customers in the EU. The centers do not have the capability of holding inventory for sellers, but a UPS spokesperson told us they will look at that if there's demand.
The embrace of services like i-Parcel can potentially address some overseas buyers’ aversion to buying online from small sellers in faraway places. You may recall that a FedEx survey of consumers around the world indicated a strong preference for purchasing from the mega e-commerce platforms because of trust and reliability concerns.
With brands like UPS sitting atop your website, buyers may be less fearful of purchasing that clever device from an inventor in Montana that zaps a certain kind of honey bee-killing mite in their flower garden.
As always, shop around for the best deal. Service providers will be compatible with WPG because you are on our platform and we send the customer to you and your site. What happens after that is up to you. You know what they want: clear photos and description of products; easy to understand pricing and payment options; a choice of transit times; data security; simply worded returns policy.
Providing this in one automated solution is one big reason why smaller companies can rocket to the front of the cross border e-commerce pack, just in time to see sales quadruple in the next few years.
Best of all you have the customer data and you own that relationship. Do your magic and enjoy the rewards.
| Product Model | Inside Diameter | Outside Diameter | Thickness |
| BK2020C NTN | 20 | 26 | 20 |
| HK2020C NTN | 20 | 26 | 20 |