Lightburn

I’ve been buying stuff online just about as far back as I can remember. Mostly from well known retailers such as Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Office Depot. Recently though, I’ve been buying more and more from lesser known online retailers. I’ve also started to notice that many of them are using the UPS Quantum View notification emails to communicate back to me the tracking numbers. This is great, I place my orders, I get my tracking number and I’m a happy customer.

The thing that has been bothering me though is that these retailers are missing a great opportunity to get their brands, their products and their offers in front of me one more time. Think about it, how likely are you to open an email from a merchant when it contains the tracking number for an order that you’re eagerly awaiting? If you’re like me (and I think most people are) the odds are somewhere in the neighborhood of let’s say 95% to 100% of the time.

Now how many other emails can you say have that kind of open rate? Order confirmation emails? Nope… Not even close. Based on our research the open rate for an order confirmation email is in the range of 30-50%. Not bad, but it’s not 100%. Why is this? Think about it, you add items to your cart, you see an on screen confirmation of quantity and price and then you buy. Moments later you get the confirmation email, but as we’ve found many people simply file these emails away without even opening them. They already know what they’ve ordered.

So if you’re one of those retailers, why not ditch the UPS Quantum View email and replace it with your own branded and personalized shipment notification email? Use this unique opportunity where you have your customer’s undivided attention not only to provide the tracking information, but to get your brand and future offers in front of them.

We’ve taken this exact approach with our Cooper Safety website, and send all our customers a coupon towards a future purchase. We even use this email to promote new product lines from time to time and I can say that we’ve enjoyed a very healthy return on our efforts.

Give it a try. I think that you will be pleasantly surprised by the results. However, be careful not to over do it! After all, the customer still wants their tracking information.