Why Offering Ship to Multiple Addresses Is Crucial for Print Providers

Summary: With the rising number of online shoppers and more print buyers placing orders to multiple locations, print providers need a seamless way to manage deliveries. A ‘ship to multiple addresses’ feature streamlines the process, minimizes order complexities and enhances user convenience. Let’s explore how it can maximize both operational efficiency and user’s print buying experience.

Imagine a business owner wants to place an order of print products for an upcoming promotional event. Instead of one location, the order needs to be delivered to fifty different addresses – each with different quantities of products. The clock is ticking, and they want these orders to be placed and delivered quickly.

This is where the ‘ship to multiple addresses’ feature becomes a game-changer. By leveraging this feature included in a powerful print order management software, the business owner can avoid order duplicity and quickly place the order.

As per reports, 60% of users are more likely to purchase again from an ecommerce store that understands their requirements and preferences. By solving this huge problem of allowing multiple shipments at once, printers can increase the online ordering convenience for print purchasers.

Let’s delve deeper into how ‘ship to multiple addresses’ feature can be helpful in today’s fast-paced world.

What Is 'Ship to Multiple Addresses'?

The ‘ship to multiple addresses' feature allows consumers to ship their print products to multiple locations in a single order. This feature provides greater flexibility for print shoppers and better control over the status of orders for printers.

For example, a B2B business owner wants to place orders for multiple print buyers. Rather than creating separate orders for each printing client, the business owner can place a single order with multiple shipments.

Watch How the Easy-to-Use Feature of ‘Ship to Multiple Address’ Can Have a Bigger Impact on Your Print Business

Why 'Ship to Multiple Addresses' is Necessary for Businesses

The ‘ship to multiple addresses’ feature can benefit print businesses in a multitude of ways, enabling printers to achieve maximum profits. Let’s see how this capability makes it possible.

1. Increases the Cart Value

Allowing print buyers to ship multiple items to different locations in a single order encourages them to place larger orders, thereby increasing the cart value. For instance, businesses that want to send products to their branch offices, business partners or end users, can consolidate the products in a single order and ship them to multiple locations.

2. Better Inventory Management for Multiple Locations

An innovative B2B storefront with the ‘ship to multiple locations’ feature can allow to plan the shipments effectively and have a smoother supply chain, enabling you to prevent overstocking and avoid stockouts. For example, a B2B print provider can directly ship the required quantity of products to different warehouses or retail locations, ensuring lower shipping costs, less delays in the distribution chain and enabling managed inventory levels.

3. Streamlines Project-Based Deliveries

As this feature allows to specify the quantities, and the types of materials required at each location, it is highly beneficial when managing project-based deliveries like nationwide marketing campaigns or product launches. For instance, a marketing agency managing a promotional campaign for a brand with 50 items in their shopping cart can split the order and send 20 items to Address 1, 20 items to Address 2, and 10 items to Address 3.

4. Simplifies Cross-Border Shipping

With the capability to deliver products to multiple destinations in a single order, this feature can tackle the challenges involved in fulfilling cross-border orders and enable print providers to effortlessly cater to international clients. The split shipping feature enables print providers to streamline logistics, eliminate the requirement of separate transactions for each country, and ensure accurate and timely deliveries across borders.

5. Increased Decentralization

As print businesses expand geographically, they often have regional offices or franchises at multiple locations. This decentralization necessitates the direct delivery of the required print materials to ensure consistent branding across all locations and minimal disruptions in the workflow.

6. Growth of Subscription-Based Models

This feature is highly beneficial for businesses offering subscription-based models, as it helps streamline recurring orders across multiple locations. For example, a fast-food chain franchisor that offers branded cups for different franchise networks as a subscription service.

7. Increased Customized and Bulk Orders

Many organizations require large quantities of customized prints like T-shirts, pens and mugs to be shipped directly to multiple locations for events, conferences, or marketing campaigns. This demand for timely and efficient deliveries drives businesses to embrace the ‘ship to multiple address’ feature.

8. Expansion of Global and Regional Supply Chains

As businesses increasingly operate on a global scale and expand their supply chains across multiple countries, the demand for shipping to multiple locations is booming. With multi-address shipping, businesses can ensure seamless coordination across teams and timely delivery of products to various destinations.

Why Enable 'Ship to Multiple Addresses' for Print Buyers

The robust functionality of ‘ship to multiple addresses’ simplifies the online ordering experience for printing clients. Enabling this powerful capability for print purchasers can make them come back to you for more purchases. Let’s have a sneak peek into why this feature is essential for them.

1. Create Shipments as per Convenience

It provides print shopper with the flexibility of deciding the address to which their products should be shipped, eliminating the need to place separate orders and saving time for print provider and print buyers. For example, a printing client wanting to receive 36 visiting cards to 4 office branches in different cities can place one order and specify how many cards should go to each branch.

2. Faster Order Delivery

This capability speeds up the order delivery time by eliminating the need for redistribution from a warehouse or main office and sending the items to one single location. Let’s say, a B2B business planning a new campaign and wanting marketing materials at stores located in different places can receive the items directly to each store, without waiting for the head office to unpack and resend it to the stores.

3. Meet Consumer Expectations

In this digitally evolving world where print consumers prioritize convenience, utilizing a high-tech B2C storefront that enables print buyers to send personalized products to multiple recipients can enhance customer satisfaction and loyalty. For instance, enabling users to send festive cards to friends and family members at different locations in a single order.

How to Make the Most Out of the 'Ship to Multiple Addresses' Feature

Here are some recommendations for effectively utilizing the 'ship to multiple print destinations' feature to boost customer engagement and improve the performance of your print ecommerce storefront.

1. Utilize Payment and Shipping Gateway Integration

If you are a B2C print provider and want to cater to print consumers who require shipments to different locations, leverage the integration of reliable payment and shipping systems. By doing this, you can reduce the risk of cart abandonment and increase customer satisfaction.

2. Promote the Split Shipping Feature on Your Website

Promote this feature on your website, ensuring your print product buyers can become aware of it in the early stages of their shopping journey. Display the existence of this feature via banners on the homepage or product page and encourage customers to utilize it.

3. Offer Checkout Options Based on Your Business Model

If you cater to only B2C businesses, you can offer ‘ship to a different address’ feature and standard checkout method for your print purchasers. On the other hand, if you cater to B2B clients or resellers, then you can modify its visibility as a primary option in the shopping cart page.

4. Allow to Split the Product Quantities

Business owners can have the flexibility to enable or disable the option of splitting the product quantities. This feature allows print consumers to split bulk items and ship them to multiple locations of their choice, all within a single order.

How Does OnPrintShop’s 'Ship to Multiple Addresses' Feature Work?

OnPrintShop’s ‘ship to multiple addresses’ feature is a simple yet powerful tool that can be easily enabled for print shoppers to use. Let’s see how this feature works.

1. Easy Order Placement

This feature allows users to select the multiple-address option during the checkout process and send products to different addresses. For instance, if an online shopper has 7 items in their cart, they can ship 3 items to Address 1 and 4 items to Address 2.

2. Assign Items to Specific Addresses

Print buyers can choose specific products to be assigned at selected addresses or split the product quantities between multiple locations. This flexibility enables quick ordering for clients, eliminating the hassle of placing multiple orders for each shipment.

3. Review and Confirm Details

Once the items to be shipped and the required quantity are selected, the printing client can review the selected setting on the right side of the screen. At this review stage, users can modify or delete the created shipments and proceed to place the final order.

4. Dynamic Shipping Charges

With OnPrintShop’s precise cost estimating capability, print customers can view a complete breakdown of the shipping costs which includes quantity of items and the selected destination. You can also offer coupons or discounts to regular print product buyers for bulk purchases and maintain customer relationships.

5. Track Shipments Efficiently

On successfully placing an order, print shoppers can track the status of each shipment and get real-time updates on its delivery. Also, admins of the storefront can manage the labels, packaging and shipment details from the backend to ensure seamless order processing and effective tracking.

Key TakeawaysWith the ‘ship to multiple addresses’ feature, print providers can enhance the overall shopping experience of your print ecommerce website. A modern order management software for print providers with the capability of multiple-address shipping can increase the convenience of online ordering for your print purchasers.It can streamline their online ordering journey by eliminating the hassle of ordering multiple times for every new shipment.Moreover, in today’s dynamic business environment, having this feature in your web to print storefront can be a boon for franchise owners, corporate buyers, ecommerce print providers, and online shoppers.If you haven’t explored how this feature works yet and want to know how it can maximize your sales, request a demo with OnPrintShop today and get a personalized demo for your print business growth.