Web Accessible Product Delivery/Tracking Systems

Small business can manage its product delivery online.

Industry trends and customers requirements. Within the past decade, organizations and companies have paid more attention to enhancing their customer service. The customer service environment has become more and more competitive and dynamic (Carlson 28.) Employing more sophisticated applications, such as online product demonstration, ordering, delivery, and order tracking, distinguishes best practices for small businesses. Normally, consumers view a company with a web-site as one that is more customer-oriented, informative, high-tech, and more likely to stay in the business longer.
A new trend in the service sector, online purchasing has steadily increased over the past several years in terms of unit volume, dollar volume, and as a percent of total sales. (Mamcu M. Levenbrug, 2006) With the boost of online selling, the need for online customer services has also increased accordingly. "If an organization has a presence on the Internet and is selling products or supplying information, customers expect to get service through the same channel" (Carlson, 2000). Today's customers require information about products and services, their availability, pricing and ordering, payment, order tracking, acquisition and delivery, as well as post-sales support.

Advantages of initiating web accessible product delivery systems. These days business intelligence is no longer simply referred to as "management information systems" or MIS. Companies seeking real-time business information and enterprise resource planning (ERP) are requesting better production reporting, quality and logistics data. Among these industry sectors, logistics is the one that was quick to pick up on the benefits of business intelligence. Logistics providers such as UPS continue to improve on their delivery tracking capability. The visibility into the movement of goods provided by UPS is vital to shippers/retailers that cooperate with this carrier, making them more competitive in their business realm by providing more convenience to their end customers (Bartholomew 41.)
According to a survey conducted for UPS, successful fulfillment and delivery of internet shoppers' orders are highly influential in building repeat business. Customers are more likely to patronize retailers who offer shipping visibility, rates and selection online ("Consumers" 19.) According to another survey conducted to 4,000 small and medium-sized enterprises in West Michigan (Levenburg 355,) initiating web accessible product delivery systems, including online product delivery and online order tracking, can bring advantages such as:

Increased sales;

Reduced administrative costs;

Reduced direct costs to create products or services;

Reduced shipping costs;

Increased net profit.

It is partially because with more consumers directly connecting with the shipments through the internet, retail sellers and customer service operators are able to spend less time on managing booking, tracking and the tracing of orders. They can therefore spend more time working with customers on business solutions