California based merchants with consistent 4.9 shipping DSRs

California based merchants with consistent 4.9 shipping DSRs
Published on ChannelAdvisor Strategy & Support Center (http://ssc.channeladvisor.com)
California based merchants with consistent 4.9 shipping
DSRs
By Ankur Pansari
Created Apr 27 2009 - 1:56pm
Hey, are there any California based merchants that ship UPS Ground or FedEx Ground that have
consistent 4.9 shipping DSRs? Compared to some of my competitors located in Oregon and
Michigan, I think I'm think I'm getting hit by a "coast penalty" because my items take longer to
arrive. I'm currently using UPS Ground but about to move to FedEx Ground. Most of my items are
too large to ship by Priority or anything faster than Ground shipping but I keep getting dinged by
customers on shipping times. On the times that I get above 4.8, I quickly fall back down to 4.75 4.8. I currently have a cut-off of 12pm PST to ship the same day which I'm trying to move to 2PM.
On my other DSRs, I do really well. Also, I've seen that I rank above competitors on eBay when my
Ship-Time DSR hits 4.85 but as soon as it drops below that, I get moved to the second page. I asked
my eBay rep for any best-practices for merchants in my category and he suggested that I call every
customer daily and update them over the phone with tracking information. I told him that I thought
it was ridiculous and he said "You have to be 110% committed to eBay!". Not very helpful so I'm
wondering if there are any scaled solutions that you guys have figured out. Other solutions that I'm
possibly tinkering with are using the FedEx API to automatically "ship" items an hour or so after
purchase and issue a tracking number but the item doesn't enter the FedEx stream until pick up
anyway. I think maybe customers would think that it's happening faster that way. Also, I've heard of
eBay merchants sending customers emails on the date of delivery to indicate that they've left
feedback and to email them if there's any questions / comments. I think I can use a script to do this
also. Thanks guys. Any help appreciated.
‹ Image association not working PLEASE HELP [1]
SKU Activity Report - Clarification › [2]
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Source URL:
http://ssc.channeladvisor.com/forums/california-based-merchants-consistent-49-shipping-dsrs
Links:
[1] http://ssc.channeladvisor.com/forums/image-association-not-working-please-help
[2] http://ssc.channeladvisor.com/forums/sku-activity-report-clarification
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