How Clean Eatz Enhanced Their Customer Experience Through ShipperHQ and the UPS^® Digital Connections Program

Introduction

Clean Eatz Kitchen: taking the hard work out of healthy eating

Clean Eatz Kitchen delivers meals and snacks directly to their consumers with a focus on offering affordable healthy alternatives.

Clean Eatz Kitchen initially used the native shipping options available on their Shopify-hosted Direct-to-Consumer (D2C) site, which helped them scale in the ecommerce space as their business evolved. However, as Clean Eatz grew, they recognized the need for a shipping partner who could offer their customers more transparent and accurate delivery dates and times.

By utilizing the partnership between ShipperHQ and UPS, Clean Eatz saw the potential to enhance the checkout rates and options for their customers, increase their on-time delivery rate, and simplify their multi-origin fulfillment process.

Challenges

Clean Eatz's delivery transparency and fulfillment challenges

Clean Eatz's main challenges with their D2C site were:

• Inaccurate and vague delivery dates
• Low customer retention due to carrier delivery delays
• Lost profits and increased labor costs due to product resends
• High cart abandonment due to lack of delivery transparency
• Inefficient multi-origin warehouse fulfillment process

Objectives

Why Clean Eatz chose ShipperHQ to offer more transparency to customers

“Prior to using ShipperHQ, our system couldn't accurately give customers an expected delivery date before the customers checked out… Shipping a perishable product, it's very important that our customers know at the time of checkout, when they can expect their order to arrive.”

Since 60.7% of customers are more likely to purchase if they see delivery times in the cart, Clean Eatz knew they needed a better solution that would provide total delivery transparency — especially since they specialize in shipping perishable items to their customers. Clean Eatz also wanted to streamline their fulfillment operations across multiple warehouses to improve their unsuccessful delivery rate numbers and increase customer retention.

Here's why Clean Eatz decided to partner with ShipperHQ:

Clean Eatz determined that ShipperHQ's delivery date logic API was unparalleled when it came to setting delivery expectations for their customers — not to mention they could seamlessly connect their new UPS negotiated rates to the platform.

So, what made ShipperHQ stand out above the rest?

1. With ShipperHQ's delivery date logic, Clean Eatz would implement delivery transparency both internally and for their customers. Customers could choose an exact date and time for their delivery while Clean Eatz would have the ability to set their own cutoff times, blackout dates, and lead times on their end.
2. Clean Eatz could set up shipping rules within ShipperHQ based around their carriers and multiple fulfillment centers accounting for lead and cutoff time by shipping origin location. Not to mention, the ability to create shipping groups for specific products.
3. ShipperHQ's delivery date logic also accounts for the fact that Clean Eatz sells perishable goods. This way, Clean Eatz could set maximum transit times to ensure delivery is made within a certain window to maintain their product's freshness.
4. The multi-origin shipping and dropshipping feature would give Clean Eatz more dynamic lead-time optionality, meaning they could actively change fulfillment operations before orders were shipped out. This would give them the opportunity to set more realistic expectations with their customers, especially when unforeseen supply chain issues cause delays.
5. ShipperHQ makes sure retailers have UPS Ready® solutions through built-in UPS rating and address validation functionality and the UPS® Digital Connections Program, which specifically helps eligible small and medium-sized businesses fund their ShipperHQ solution to enhance their shipping strategies.

The ShipperHQ Solution

Scalability. Adaptability. Flexibility.

“Prior to using ShipperHQ, our system couldn't accurately give customers an expected delivery date before the customers checked out… Shipping a perishable product, it's very important that our customers know at the time of checkout, when they can expect their order to arrive.”

Key features utilized

• Delivery Date & Time
• Multi-Origin & Dropshipping
• Address Validation

Once Clean Eatz began working with ShipperHQ, they were able to implement delivery date and time information directly into their checkout, leading to a decrease in their cart abandonment and drop off numbers.

With ShipperHQ's multi-origin shipping options, Clean Eatz set warehouse fulfillment rules based on a customer's shipping address, making the entire distribution process more streamlined. This not only helped increase the accuracy of their customer's delivery expectations, but also meant they could utilize this more accurate lead-time data to adjust their process when necessary.

Aside from improving their fulfillment process and increasing their cart conversions, Clean Eatz also saw an increase in overall customer retention since perishable deliveries were arriving when expected, giving their clients a better well-rounded experience.

ShipperHQ + UPS = enhancing your shipping strategy

One of Clean Eatz's biggest challenges with delivery transparency was the on-time delivery numbers with their carrier. Since ShipperHQ is a certified UPS Ready® vendor, Clean Eatz can easily access accurate UPS delivery dates/times, and their negotiated UPS rates, directly within ShipperHQ. It's built-in! Clean Eatz connected to a UPS expert to determine whether they qualified for the UPS® Digital Connections Program — a program specifically made for small and medium-size businesses.

Why Clean Eatz made the switch to UPS

Clean Eatz was already using ShipperHQ when they decided to look for a different carrier option as well — one that could offer a more efficient delivery process and a better overall customer experience. They were a great fit for the UPS® Digital Connections Program due to the perishable nature of their products, which meant they needed a checkout and carrier solution that could work together to increase transparency and on-time delivery numbers.

Clean Eatz was previously using FedEx® for their deliveries, but saw their on-time delivery fall into the mid 80% range. They were also experiencing issues with lost and damaged shipments, which simply wasn't going to work for them (or their customers).

Once they made the switch to UPS in 2021 and implemented ShipperHQ, Clean Eatz saw immediate on-time delivery improvements — even seeing it grow into the high 90% range within the year.

Another SHQ + UPS Win

After implementing ShipperHQ and using UPS, Clean Eatz also reduced returns and spoilage by 50% over the last year, resulting in tens of thousands in savings while improving customer experience.

Key Results

Improving customer retention and on-time delivery while saving money

Before ShipperHQ, Clean Eatz was struggling with using Shopify’s native shipping options, which couldn’t give their customers accurate expected delivery dates in their checkout. They were also dealing with an inefficient multi-warehouse shipping process, which was especially problematic given their perishable product offerings.

Once they started using ShipperHQ, Clean Eatz was able to:

• Increase cart conversions by displaying delivery date and time information at checkout
• See better on-time delivery, bringing the unsuccessful delivery rate down 44%
• Increase customer retention by 8% through shipping convenience and transparency
• Reduce labor costs ~$40k in product resends
• Save ~$200k in Costs of Goods Sold reductions from product resends
• Receive dynamic lead time information for a more transparent fulfillment operation

Now, Clean Eatz can plan and ship their items knowing that they can provide their customers with accurate delivery information, as well as utilize the lead-time information to adjust their fulfillment process as needed. With the help of the UPS® Digital Connections Program, they are also set up to grow with more efficiency and support as they scale their business.

Want to know if your business is eligible for the UPS® Digital Connections program? Book a free virtual consultation with an expert today here to find out more!

Are you ready to find a partner that can help you offer more transparency to your customers directly in your checkout, while simplifying your warehouse operations? Then try ShipperHQ for free and come join the shipping revolution!

In the current supply chain environment, the most important thing for us is to set realistic expectations with our customers as to when they are going to get their order and ShipperHQ gives us the tools to do that.

Jason Nista

CEO at Clean Eatz Kitchen