5 Reasons to Sync Order Tracking Information to PayPal

Acquiring a new customer is more expensive than ever thanks to everyone and their mother opening a digital store. Because of this fairly new competitive landscape, consumers have more options and are willing to hightail at the first whiff of inconvenience.

The only safe stores are those worth billions with last names like Bezos and Walton. And trust me: They're only making it worse for smaller players. More and more consumers are kicking their legs up and expecting everything to be delivered to their front door (often on the same day).

But all is not lost. 

You can stay competitive by shifting your focus from customer acquisition to customer experience and synchronizing your store orders with payment platforms like PayPal. This allows you to improve cash flow, extend customer lifetime value and increase brand loyalty, which we'll discuss right now.

Table of Content

• Improve cash flow
• Reduce complaints
• Improve customer experience
• Boost sales
• Meet customer expectation  

1. Improve cash flow

If your complaint rate is over 1%, PayPal puts your account on reserve, which is a euphemism for holding your money hostage and watching you kick, scream, and squeal like a baby pig.

And trust me. You don't want to be hit with a reserve, there's no telling when you'll get off. According to PayPal, "you might never be able to fully remove a reserve from your account."

You don't have to search far and wide to find the devastating effects that an account reserve can have on your cash flow.  

A rolling reserve is a reserve where we hold a percentage of each transaction you receive each day and then release it later on a scheduled basis. This is the most common type of reserve.”

—PayPal

Take this recent Reddit thread, for example, which discussed how one dropshipping company was put on a rolling reserve due to chargebacks.

Over six months, PayPal held hostage a sustainable sum of cash.

"$116k in limbo is crippling our operations, and I can't go another 6 months with this handicap to cash flow," says nutterbutter125. 

Bummer.

And legend has it: nutterbutter is still on a rolling reserve till this very day.

You want to be rolling around in cash, not a reserve. Right?

So provide an excellent shipping experience, especially if you're a dropshipping company.

Disputes and chargebacks occur for many reasons, but one major reason is due to bad shipping. In fact, 84% of customers won't return after one bad shipping experience.  

If you have limited control over shipping speed and quality control, synchronizing order tracking is a great way to compensate and enhance your customer experience. By providing accurate data at every stage of the shipping process, you’re more likely to decrease disputes and chargebacks and avoid the dreaded reserve.  

2. Reduce customer complaints  

By automating your order tracking system with accurate shipping information, your business can reduce customer complaints, improve costs, and focus on other service areas. You'll have more satisfied customers and your service team will love you for it.

In 2021, Ounass, a luxury online retail store, made the shift from manual to automatic order shipping. After a few short months, customer service calls related to order tracking issues dropped from 46% to 4%.

Here's what their order tracking looked like before and after making the switch.

Manuj Goasin, User Experience Designer at Ounass says, "Providing customers with accurate shipping information and tracking updates lets them know that they can trust and depend on Ounass, both of which are crucial to customer retention. It is a powerful way to improve the customer’s shopping experience."

As soon as your customer places an order, always give them the option to track their order, so they can receive frequent updates (such as shipping, delivery, dates, and delays).

3. Improve customer experience

When a customer receives a tracking notification, it puts their mind at ease. Why?

In the 2021 Package Theft Annual Report, Security found that over 49 million Americans have experienced at least one package stolen in the past year. Gabe Turner, the Chief Editor at Security, recommends that people check tracking information if a package comes up missing.

Now that's one pretty darn good reason to explain why Americans obsessively track over orders. Ignore that fact, your customer retention rate goes in the gutter, negatively affecting your bottom line.

Consider this: A recent study by OptmoRoute found that 87.4% of shoppers prefer real-time order tracking, as it made their buying experience more enjoyable. What's more? 59.3% of shoppers admitted that order tracking has a positive impact on brand loyalty.

Improve customer experience as soon as the order is placed, as Andre Chan, Co-Founder of Aftership says, "Retailers should invest heavily on post-purchase experiences to increase customer engagement."

"Instead of sending customers to third-party websites for tracking, it is crucial to keep customers coming back to your store to track what they are doing while there."

4. Boost sales

D2C brands are spending more on customer acquisition, but the customer lifetime value is steadily declining and getting worse.  

When there's a low barrier to entry, a steady market supply, and a high return on investment, that's a recipe for digital saturation, as Taylor Peterson, Director at Food Fight Studios says, "With the influx of D2C brands (and their inevitable competitors) playing fast and loose in the digital ad space, more dollars are needed to compete for the same impressions."

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The solution is simple: Raise customer lifetime value above customer acquisition cost. Okay, but how?

One overlooked way is to Trojan horse your tracking notification to sneak in some marketing material.    

For example, email open rates are between 10%–20% while tracking notifications get 50%–80%.

This gives you the perfect opportunity to engage your customer, promote other products, and showcase who you are.

The idea is to prime your customer for the next step, as Yaw Aning, co-founder of Malomo says, "On your tracking page, display hype reels of new and upcoming products. Or feature your live social media feed, which is often a goldmine of interactivity."

5. Meet customer expectation

A recent survey by Alix Partners found that delivery speed expectation is higher than ever, mostly due to Amazon spoiling consumers rotten with free two day, one day, and even same-day delivery options.

This illustration by SaleCycle perfectly demonstrates how delivery time expectation has steadily gotten shorter—particularly with Prime members.

But all is not lost. You can still meet expectations in other areas, as Paul Birkhead, CEO at Eniture Technology says, "Even if you can't afford Amazon-level shipping options, providing an exceptional experience is often enough to make up for it."

Birkhead says that 20% of shoppers don't trust estimated delivery dates. To help build trust, customers want to accurately track orders and receive automatic alerts each time a package is in transition. Checking those two boxes are easy ways to satisfy customers without relying on shipping speed. 

It's true: Look at Etsy, for example. Delivery often takes over a week, and they never offer free shipping, but they're still a juggernaut in the e-commerce arena.

Conclusion

Now you know why synchronizing your store order to PayPal can be beneficial to your company's growth. What to do next?

Easy. Sync your Shopify orders to PayPal. Improving order tracking is the easiest upgrade any store owner can make. 

Remember: Alert customers at every stage of the journey and leverage notification open rates. Nailing the order tracking experience gives customers the confidence to do business with you again and again. 

What reasons do you have for syncing orders to PayPal?

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