The convenience of having a diverse range of products delivered directly to our doorsteps has reshaped the retail landscape. In fact, the total number of digital shoppers worldwide grew by roughly one billion between 2019 and 2022. Looking ahead, the yearly growth rate for US ecommerce sales is forecast to average out at 11.3% over the four-year period from 2023 to 2027. Nonetheless, this shift has brought about an emerging challenge to the customer shipping experience: porch piracy.
With the surge in travel during summer months, there is a noticeable increase in package theft. This has led to growing consumer concerns about the security of their deliveries. In a recent survey conducted by UPS Capital Insurance Agency, Inc., a staggering 47% of respondents reported experiencing or hearing about package theft incidents in the past year. Millennials, in particular, have been heavily affected, with an alarming 54% sharing stories of porch piracy incidents. These statistics underscore the pressing need for comprehensive solutions that protect valuable deliveries and enhance the overall customer experience.
Amidst the struggle of businesses to regain control over these shipping threats, predictive analytics emerges as a technological ally, empowering leaders to confidently navigate the complexities of the modern shipping landscape.
Harnessing the Power of Predictive Analytics
At its core, predictive analytics harnesses the power of data – leveraging both historical and real-time data to offer strategic insights that help businesses foresee potential events and outcomes. With this foresight, merchants can make well-informed decisions about their shipping strategies to help deliver a premium customer experience.
One of the most potent applications of predictive analytics lies in its ability to unveil shipping patterns and trends that often remain concealed within the expansive realm of logistical data. By extracting actionable insights from this wealth of information, businesses can fine-tune their shipping strategies, helping to optimize delivery routes and enhance efficiency. The result is a smoother, more seamless shipping process that not only helps improve the customer experience but can also bolster a company’s reputation and bottom line.
Proactive Protection in an Unpredictable World
Predictive insights empower businesses to be proactive rather than reactive to issues after delivery. Picture a scenario where a business identifies a delivery address prone to porch-pirated theft and takes preventative measures before a package even leaves their facility. Through the utilization of artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms, SaaS solutions can help analyze delivery and historical loss data to evaluate historical loss patternsassociated with each delivery address. This assessment produces an address confidence score, indicating the likelihood of a successful delivery to each applicable address. This valuable information empowers merchants to anticipate potential losses.
For example, an address flagged with a mid-range confidence score would suggest an average potential risk for loss in shipping a package to that destination. This result would recommend the merchant should consider adding shipping coverage to the package to protect their customers from against any financial losses relating to package issues in transit. Alternatively, an address flagged with a low confidence score signifies a strong chance of a loss occurring, therefore merchants should consider corrective actions that offer a stronger chain of custody, such as sending the package to an alternate location, i.e., a UPS® Access Point location, or requiring customer signature upon delivery.
These proactive measures extend beyond just increasing package security. They can help to create a world class customer experience, which in turn, helps protect the business’ bottom line. By optimizing shipping strategies, minimizing losses, and enhancing customer satisfaction and confidence, predictive analytics evolves into a dynamic force that merchants can use to propel their business beyond competitors. As merchants make more informed decisions to yield better shipping outcomes, address confidence can serve as a reliable guide for businesses to build brand loyalty and reinforce revenue growth.
