This time I spoke with three commerce veterans who share their experience transforming how small- and medium-sized businesses offer an Amazon-like shipping/delivery experiences and compete with ecommerce giants:  Raphael Neff, owner of ChessHouse.com; Akhilesh Srivastava, founder and CEO of Fenix Commerce; and Vince Cavasin, head of marketing for Fenix.

In this episode, we discuss:

• How Fenix “democratizes Amazon features for the masses” and helps mid-market retailers differentiate themselves with a better delivery and fulfillment experience
• Why delivery considerations/options should appear on product pages and not just in checkout, since delivery is a major purchase consideration
  • ChessHouse.com has experienced a 37% improvement in conversion rate, much of which Raphael attributes to Fenix
• Overall, Fenix customers average:
  • 14% improvement in end-to-end conversion (shopper on product page who submits an order)
  • 38% improvement in cart abandonment rates
  • 21% increase in shipping revenue
  • Large decrease in pre-purchase inquiries to customer service
• The importance of not only presenting enticing free shipping thresholds but also offering “reasonable” shipping upgrades for speedy service
  • Up to 40% of retailers using Fenix see customers paying for Fenix-calculated, enhanced low-cost shipping, even when a free option is available
  • A firm delivery date is attractive versus an ambiguous range “5-7 business days”
  • Testing various price points – while also considering internal delivery costs – is key to finding the sweet spot with your customers
• How Fenix uses machine learning to augment data available from the retailer to determine the probability of shipping dates being accurate
  • The retailer has control of many parameters, based on weather events and seasonality and similar factors
  • It takes about 1 year of data to get accurate predictions
• Ways Fenix can provide additional data about actual performance, which often drives operational improvement and improves bottom-line results
• Why Fenix takes a consultative, collaborative approach with each retailer to ensure Fenix is leveraged for maximum impact