Fast shipping means a lot to customers, especially when they are making a purchase directly from a Shopify store rather than an online marketplace like Amazon, Flipkart, or Myntra.

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In today's digital space, 1 out of 3 shoppers will choose one ecommerce brand over the other due to better shipping options. While 79% of shoppers consider free 2-day shipping important when it comes to online shopping.

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As a Shopify business owner, it's imperative to offer 2-day shipping on your Shopify store to ensure D2C (direct-to-consumer) success. For that, you need to match the lightning-fast shipping speeds of Amazon.

However, it will be more crucial to afford the Amazon-like shipping speed.

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In this blog, you’ll learn what is 2-day shipping, the benefits of 2-day shipping, and how Shopify business owners affordably offer 2-day shipping.

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What is 2-day shipping?

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2-day shipping is the process of sending online orders from the fulfilment centre to the customer's doorstep within 2 days. In simple terms, two-day shipping is a fulfilment standard where the time taken between a customer placing an order and receiving that order is 2 days or less.

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In ecommerce, offering 2-day shipping is an ideal practice for ecommerce sellers to ensure that online orders are delivered to customers with a quick turnaround time (TAT).

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Benefits of offering 2-day shipping on your Shopify store

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Here are some advantages of offering 2-day shipping to your customers on your Shopify store:

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1. Match the speed of online marketplaces

In order to compete with online marketplaces, you must match the shipping speeds of Amazon, Flipkart, and other major marketplaces. This will enable you to generate direct sales, avoid marketplace fees, and grow a distinctive brand.

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2. Meet customer expectations

Customers want fast shipping as a part of their customer experience. In such an age of instant gratification, offering two-day shipping can lead to a positive customer experience. In turn, this can result in better customer reviews and recommendations.

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3. Increase product visibility

The hardest yet most important task while building your Shopify store is to get shoppers to see your website and know about your brand. Here 2-day shipping comes into play. You can increase your visibility with 2-day shipping through SEO (search engine optimisation), Google shopping ads, and session length.

• SEO: You can target fast-shipping-related keywords to attract organic traffic, such as, “Tote bag with fast shipping”
• Shopping ads: You can add fast shipping tags to your Google, Facebook, and Instagram shopping ads to make them stand out from other ads
• Session length: You can increase the time shoppers spend on your website and improve your search engine ranking by eliminating a major reason for cart abandonment, i.e. slow delivery

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4. Reduce shopping cart abandonment

Customers around the world don’t see online shopping as a chore—but as an experience. The more you invest in that experience, the more you can stay ahead of the competition. 2-day shipping enhances the pre-purchase experience of customers, reduces shopping cart abandonment, and increases conversion rates.

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5. Improve customer loyalty

Customer experience lies beyond the 'buy' button. To ensure that customers don't spend much time waiting for their orders than using your products—2-day shipping is a must. It enhances the post-purchase experience by reducing the wait time of customers, delighting them, and driving repeat purchases.

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How 2-day shipping works?

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1. Advertised as a delivery option

Firstly, you need to advertise 2-day shipping on your Shopify store, product pages, or the checkout page. This will enable you to draw the attention of your customers.

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2. Assigned to optimised delivery routes

As a customer places an order on your Shopify store, the order will be assigned to the fulfilment centre that is the closest to your customer location with available inventory.

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3. Order is picked and packed

The order will be picked and packed using suitable packaging and within strict timelines.

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4. Collected by the shipping carrier

Your shipping carrier collects the order from the fulfilment centre to ship it to the shipping destination, i.e. customer location using the appropriate mode of transportation. Depending on the amount of time left, the order is shipped via air or ground shipping.

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5. Order is delivered

The order is out for delivery when it reaches the customer location and the customer receives the order within two days of placing it!

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It all sounds very impressive, doesn't it! However, offering 2-day shipping can turn out to be very expensive for your Shopify store. Here are a few strategies to minimise shipping costs while offering fast shipping speed.

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How to affordably offer 2-day shipping on a Shopify store?

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1. Opt for the best order fulfilment option

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You have three options when it comes to Shopify order fulfilment—in-house fulfilment, dropshipping, or outsource order fulfilment to a 3PL (third-party logistics) provider.

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At first glance, in-house fulfilment can appear to be the best option to minimise costs. But, it is usually a bad idea— there are hidden order fulfilment costs that can significantly increase your total business operations cost. However, you should stick to in-house fulfilment, if you have limited daily order volume, highly specialised online business or you receive custom orders.

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Dropshipping is a much more hands-off approach in which you must consider all the pros and cons of dropshipping. It generally means that you have no control over the supply chain, quality of the products delivered to your customers, or the shipping speed.

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On the other hand, outsourcing order fulfilment to a 3PL (third-party logistics) provider can help ecommerce businesses maintain a seamless order fulfilment process. 3PL providers provide the most efficient and cost-effective way of order fulfilment. You can keep up with the continuously changing ecommerce ecosystem and enhance customer experience by just focusing on your core business and the rest is taken care of by the 3PL.

Moreover, when it comes to ecommerce order fulfilment, there’s no such thing as one-size-fits-all. You should align your strategy with your unique business needs and preferences.

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2. Distribute your inventory

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Fulfilling your Shopify orders from multiple locations is the best way to increase the shipping speed. For that, you need fulfilment centres (FCs) across India covering all the zones, i.e. North, East, South and West. You can split your inventory and store them closer to your customers to reduce transit times and achieve 2-day delivery—while saving on shipping cost significantly.

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Eshopbox has a distributed network of fulfilment centres spread across India, enabling you to provide 2-day shipping without worrying about your customer's location.

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3. Speed up the order processing

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When you receive an order on your Shopify store, you need to make sure that it is assigned to the picking team as soon as possible. The pickers can then perform order processing—picking and packing with secure packing materials to protect your products in transit.

You can also automate traditional warehouse operations by using powerful technology, including barcode scanners, conveyor belts, intelligent robots, and more. This can help you to reduce the workload and the time spent picking, packing and shipping Shopify orders.

Such streamlined order processing will help you save on time and money. Most importantly, orders are marked ‘ready-to-ship’ and collected by the shipping partner to ensure 2-day delivery.

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Eshopbox ensures on-time order processing while extending the branded experience through the order fulfilment process. You can achieve 2-day shipping by enabling priority pick and pack for orders that require faster turnarounds.

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4. Use expedited courier services

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After quick order processing, you need express delivery by a courier service. For that, you have to tie up with national carriers that have a proven track record. However, it can get expensive—it’s unlikely for you to get access to discounts and negotiated shipping rates for fastest delivery options due to low order volumes.

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Eshopbox has strong tie-ups with national and local courier companies. This means, you can get access to discounted rates to provide 2-day shipping while minimising shipping expenses by taking advantage of bulk delivery discounts.

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5. Set minimum spend requirements for fast shipping

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52% of shoppers add extra products to their shopping cart to meet a minimum purchase threshold for free and fast shipping. You can use this to your advantage! You can set a minimum spend threshold for availing free and 2-day shipping. For instance, Free 2-day shipping on all orders above INR 2000.

This will help boost your average order volume (AOV) to offset offering free shipping and covering the cost. You can also provide product kits—pre-built kits and custom combos, upsells and memberships to attract customers and ultimately, reduce the average shipping cost.

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6. Improve customer lifetime value (CLTV)

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‍According to research, the cost of acquiring new customers is 5X that of retaining an existing customer. You can recover the cost of getting a sale by encouraging more sales from existing customers. You can introduce loyalty programs and subscriptions to drive more purchases, increase the customer lifetime value (CLTV), and cover the cost of offering 2-day shipping.

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Wrapping up

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2-day shipping is a standard that’s fast becoming the minimum expectation for D2C customers. While online marketplaces have already excelled in it, Shopify stores are yet to embrace it. So, it’s worth your time to start figuring out how to best make it a reality for your Shopify store. Delivering online orders within two days requires an efficient, streamlined order fulfilment process. Without it, shipping will become very expensive. Luckily, with a tech-enabled 3PL Shopify business owners can offer 2-day shipping through fast order processing, negotiated shipping rates and ideal inventory distribution.