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Bonjour Millionaire, We work SO HARD to get in front of the right audiences and convince them to buy our products. So, it’s tempting to think our job is complete when they finally hit “buy.” But! The work’s not truly done, until customers:
It breaks my heart when brands drop the ball (or cake) post-purchase. I see this even from great brands that I adore and order from regularly! (I’m a forgiving shopper but I’m rare).  There’s danger when we treat fulfillment like a cursory last step instead of what it really is: a CRITICAL retention lever. Because, when something goes wrong, customers blame you. Not your 3PL. Not FedEx or UPS. Not the superstorm that disrupted shipping. It’s all your brand’s fault! Fair? No. Fixable? YES. First, let’s figure out where things are breaking. 4 PLACES BRANDS FUMBLE FULFILLMENTDo any of these common fulfillment misses apply to you? 1️⃣. Only 25% of DTC brands offer cross-sells at checkout. 2️⃣. Only 12% of DTC brands include free samples in orders. 3️⃣. 33% of orders arrive damaged or in poor condition. 4️⃣. 45% of brands miss critical post-purchase comms These are just 4 of many, many places brands are dropping the ball. Including some of the biggest brands in the world. That means there's a lot of low-hanging fruit waiting for you to snatch up. Their missed opportunities are your actual opportunities. WHY DOES THIS HAPPEN?Brands are optimizing individual touchpoints, instead of designing a seamless end-to-end experience. Going all in on acquisition & cart-level tactics, then underperforming post-checkout. 🙁 If you think your brand needs some post-purchase refining (and, I say this with deep love and respect, it likely does), you have come to the right place.  TIME TO PREP YOUR FIX-IT LISTI have 2 places to start getting your fulfillment game together: 1️⃣: The DTC Delivery Files, 1 of my favorite ways to The files come from the minds at Shipfusion, a 3PL built for high-growth DTC brands. Each edition goes deep on 1 category. Cosmetics.Protein Powder.Coffee.Deodorant. They order from 100s of brands in that 1 category, from household names to buzzy challengers. Then, they catalog the wins and misses at every stage: Checkout. Packaging. Comms. Offers. Returns. All of it. → TL;DR? They act like CUSTOMERS, then report like EXPERTS. 2️⃣: A personalized assessment from these experts. Take this DTC Fulfillment Experience Quiz from Shipfusion and find out where YOUR brand’s post-purchase experience stacks up. It’s data-driven, actionable, free, and something you’ll wish you’d done sooner. How it works:
These are vital to know. They also make your life easier later when putting together a punchlist of fixes. Psst: If you choose door #2, I have a little surprise. More on that later. 🍒 A NOTE ON OVERDELIVERINGEveryone’s trying to do things quicker and cheaper. Brands that go the extra mile to deliver a better experience stand out. In fulfillment, if something goes wrong, it risks your brand. Especially in DTC, when competitors are coming for your neck 24/7 & Amazon feels easier & lower-risk, we must overdeliver. I say that as someone responsible for both DTC and Amazon. And if things are going RIGHT? You need to double down. Are you taking shots when the wind is at your back? Upgrading the experience EVEN IF customers are currently repeating? Are you making it exceptional?? Am I stressing you out? Don’t answer that.  So, how do you get post-purchase right? How do we get AHEAD? We study. Perhaps the DTC Delivery Files. And we act, perhaps with Shipfusion. They’ve studied the good, the bad, and the costly, and figured out where ecomm brands go wrong. They work with ARMRA, and that’s as high volume as it gets (I used to work with them and it’s a hell of a brand with a hell of a lot of orders). They also help brands like Purity Coffee get their orders in order, like when they handled the switch from Purity’s previous big 3PL after 1 too many broken fulfillment promises. Not an option when you ship 10s of 1000s of orders every month. NOW: back to that surprise I mentioned. 🌸 A LITTLE SECRET So. You know the customer experience you’re TRYING to give. There’s 1 truly unbiased and brand-safe way to see if you’re ACTUALLY pulling it off: SECRET SHOPPING. Where an expert acts like a normal customer, purchases, and evaluates you. I have a love/hate relationship with it: As a former restaurant hostess who got written up by a secret shopper for being “too chatty” and going off-script, I’m BUT, as a marketer, I know there’s NO better way to get the real picture. So, I begged a little favor from Shipfusion. And now there’s a cherry on top of this fulfillment sundae, for a select few. 🍒🍨 Shipfusion's offering a free secret shop to 10 DTC brands reading this who take the quiz (and opt-in). It’s a comprehensive, private, custom, and-did-I-mention-free consult from the 3PL/fulfillment partner behind some of the best and most-scaled brands in our industry. If selected, you’ll get a full audit of your: 🛒: Checkout flow and UX 💁♀️: Upsells and merchandising tactics 💥: Fulfillment speed and accuracy 🚚: Shipping and delivery 📦: Packaging and unboxing 🫶: Post-purchase emails/SMS (timing, clarity, effectiveness) Only possible because they’ll literally order from your store and give you a full report AND a video. Truly THE WHOLE PACKAGE. If you will. GET YOUR SHIP TOGETHER1 excellent customer experience has a way of becoming another, and another, and another. But that requires looking at the “BUY NOW” button as the starting line, not the finish. To upgrade in 5 minutes, take the quiz. You’ll see where you stack up, AND where to start fixing. Not to mention, you might be 1 of the 10 selected for a full secret shop + targeted recommendations from Shipfusion. Don’t forget to opt in. Even great brands can always do something better. Please fix. Yours, Ari | |||||||||
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