Vamaship Blog

Return to Origin (RTO) is a hidden cost center in e-commerce that silently erodes profits. For Indian online sellers, especially those offering Cash on Delivery (COD), it's more than just an operational nuisance—it's a critical threat to growth.

The e-commerce landscape in India has grown exponentially, with millions of shoppers embracing the convenience of online purchases. However, despite the rise of digital payments, Cash on Delivery (COD) continues to dominate, accounting for nearly 60% of all e-commerce transactions in the country (KPMG). Offering COD can be a game-changer for e-commerce businesses, especially in a diverse market like India. Let’s explore the key benefits of offering COD shipments for e-commerce sellers.

Congratulations! Your website is live, or your social media shop is set up, and you're excited to begin selling your products online. However, a crucial part of your e-commerce journey that often gets overlooked is shipping. The world of shipping might seem complicated, but with a few basics in place, you’ll be shipping your products across the country in no time.

Logistics costs are a critical component of your e-commerce business that can significantly impact profitability. Understanding and managing these costs effectively is essential to streamline operations, reduce expenses, and improve your bottom line. This guide will break down the key components of logistics costs and show you how Vamaship helps reduce them, making your business more cost-effective and competitive.

Did you know that nearly 40% of online shoppers are more likely to make repeat purchases from brands that offer premium packaging? In e-commerce, packaging is more than just a protective layer around your product. It ensures your products reach customers in perfect condition, enhances the unboxing experience, and serves as a powerful branding tool. Effective packaging can also reduce return rates, improve customer satisfaction, and drive repeat purchases. In this guide, we’ll explore the key aspects of packaging and how you can optimize it to benefit your business.

When it comes to e-commerce in India, getting your deliveries on time and on budget is key. That’s where courier aggregators come in, offering a comprehensive platform for businesses to compare rates and services from various courier partners. This one-stop solution allows you to choose from a variety of courier services, track your packages, and manage it all in one place, making it easier for businesses to ship products to their customers. Here's a look at the top 10 courier aggregators that make shipping easier for businesses in India.

Choosing the right shipping partner is crucial for the success of your e-commerce business. It's not just about getting your products from A to B; it's about finding a service that understands your business and grows with you. Vamaship is that service. We're dedicated to more than logistics; we're here to support your success with top-notch services, unmatched customer support, and smart solutions to cut down on your RTO’s (Return-to-Origin).

There is a lot that goes on in the back offices of e-commerce companies to ensure customers get exactly what they want when they want it. Logistics for e-tailers is a process that begins long before an order is placed. Selecting a courier company is a difficult task that requires numerous considerations. For medium to large industries, multiple courier partners are required that can handle thousands of orders per day.

Well we have been talking about the new normal for quite some time now. But what we have missed discussing is the factor that has made the new normal possible. The pandemic has brought the New Customer into sharp concentration and organizations learned they need to respond rapidly to fulfill the requirements of their new customers. The conventional client that our supply chain systems were intended to serve has changed. The "New Customer," regardless of whether B2B or B2C, has on a very basic level, distinctive approach to settle on buying choices dependent on rules that incorporate near-instant delivery, bespoke products and services, dynamic pricing, and among different elements, a superb client experience.

For seven days the world was held by the unprecedented sight of a monstrous transport vessel that had steered into the banks of the Suez Canal in Egypt. The Ever Given is 400m long (1,312ft) and weighs 200,000 tons, with a maximum limit of 20,000 holders. It was conveying 18,300 holders when it got wedged in the waterway, impeding all delivery traffic.

The year? 2020. There was a dramatic change in the Indian retail industry over the period of the pandemic induced lockdown. Or rather the retail industry was forced to change course in order to simply survive the evolved scenario. As physical stores were shut down owing to the lockdown, eCommerce was the only way retailers could foresee some hope in terms of revenue. What was surprising how easily the Indian consumer adapted to the eCommerce offering and the industry saw record breaking sales. Add to that, demand for contactless home deliveries pushed retailers to adopt omnichannel selling practices and offer innovative delivery options.

Is your brand attempting to see how it needs to change to, endure, however flourish in the present quickly developing eCommerce environment? Online industry was at a point of forceful ascent before the worldwide COVID-19 emergency – and its fame soared during lockdown. Internet shopping practices created during lockdown will harden, bringing about more noteworthy quantities of customers getting more willing to consistently purchase items online in the long haul.

Setting up and running an eCommerce store can be a daunting task. Having to deal with numerous eCommerce startups, we know exactly how taxing the whole process is. Of course website development platforms like Shopify definitely make the task easier. Shopify provides us with a wireframe for the website we want to develop. Now it is upon the developer how intricate the UX/UI are.

When it comes to eCommerce the importance of speed of delivery cannot be emphasised more. After all, your customers’ loyalty depends on it. Recent studies have shown that 87% of online shoppers said that delivery speed is a key factor in their decision to shop with an eCommerce brand again. So much so that 67% online shoppers are ready to pay more than the selling price to get a same-day delivery. Do you see the advantage of delivering your products on time, or even before time?

Today’s retail world has become most challenging from all perspectives, be it the price pressures, market disruptions or dynamic nature of the market. Gone are the days of traditional ways of doing retail business. You can no longer offer unique products, strategic price points or promotions. These can be easily replicated by your competitors. Having said that, you still need to stand out from the crowd and get noticed. Today it is not about the big or loud things. It is about knowing the little things about your customer and personalising your offering accordingly.

Shipping, even regularly, comes with its own sets of challenges. RIght from choosing the carrier to back calculating the dispatch date. There are innumerable things that can go wrong when shipping regular items. We clearly understand the problems you face while shipping heavy weight items. Even if you are planning to ship in bulk or ship regularly, there are things that can go wrong. Heavy weight shipments come with very peculiar problems. We have witnessed many online sellers panic when sending out heavy shipments.

There is no doubt that the dual global crisis has changed the way our world operates. The health pandemic along with the subsequent economic crisis has forced us to evolve in a way we were not ready for. Brands which were quick to adjust to the changing demand, sustained their businesses and so even grew multifold. They reached out quickly to their partners, customers, and suppliers; worked out the new demand; set new expectations accordingly; and found innovative ways of driving revenue. By communicating early and often, these brands were able to focus on developing strategies that allowed them to predict and execute their operations in the new market.

2020 has been full of surprises. The Indian economy had to take a step back and re-evaluate their approach for the year. All the sales and marketing strategies were out of the door. Thanks to the lockdown, India experienced a slowdown like never before. People were forced to stay indoors. Shops and factories, alike, were shut down. While some businesses flourished during the lockdown, the majority were facing foreclosure.

We, as humans, are creatures of habit. We love to be in control of our lives. But COVID-19 has blown away, or rather destroyed, many aspects of our carefully connected daily routines. While the majority of the market faces doom, there are a few businesses that have been blown ahead of their times in the new normal. Of course, one such domain is e-commerce. And add to that the festive season, 2020 may, at last, bring in some hope. As online sellers, how do you gear up to take advantage of this opportunity?

When you're setting up an e-commerce business, identifying the most suitable courier service is one of the most important aspects in ensuring customer satisfaction, optimizing operational cost and scaling your business.

Now that the Government has allowed essential commodities to be shipped through Ecommerce platform, Vamaship is gearing up for the same and it is essential to know how one can get a Curfew Pass to start operations. If your business is related to 'Manufacture, Storage or Transport' of 'Essential Commodity' then you need to make a formal request to your local administration and attach the following documents(Indicative list only).

10th Aug-2015 my first day at Vamaship office as 2nd official employee of Vamaship. I still remember the day when we started. Allwyn the lead programmer of Vamaship was the first person to greet me at the office and Rohit the CTO of Vamaship was the second person, I met at the office. We all were very excited because that was the beginning of Vamaship. We felt like artists given the freedom to create a masterpiece - and that is how Vamaship was started.

10th Aug-2015 my first day at Vamaship office as 2nd official employee of Vamaship. I still remember the day when we started. Allwyn the lead programmer of Vamaship was the first person to greet me at the office and Rohit the CTO of Vamaship was the second person, I met at the office. We all were very excited because that was the beginning of Vamaship. We felt like artists given the freedom to create a masterpiece - and that is how Vamaship was started.

Logistics partners and shipping aggregators commonly include an address line 2 field on their online forms, inviting end users to split address information as they see fit. When presented with two address lines, it’s only natural for customers to separate out room, floor, building in line 1 and rest into the other line. You would say that's common sense right?