Editor’s note: This is a guest post written by A.J. Hernandez, Founder at SkyPostal.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, total worldwide air traffic in June of 2020 was down 42% from June of 2019. Also, because of the pandemic, total worldwide ecommerce volume for 2020 is expected to be a full third higher than for 2019. These two trends are on a collision course, and if the retail industry doesn’t address this issue, there are going to be a lot of disappointed faces and unhappy customers during the holidays this year—especially in Latin America.
A lot of new unhappy customers. In Brazil, Latin America’s largest country, ecommerce sales increased 98.74% in April of this year from April of 2019. By the end of the year in Latin America overall, total digital buyer count is expected to reach 191.7 million people, or 38.4% of the region’s population aged 14 and older.
A lot of merchants who are new to this market may not realize that the holiday season doesn’t work the same way in Latin America as it does in the U.S. For example, December 24th, known as Noche Buena, is when many Latin Americans typically exchange gifts and celebrate with family. El Dia de los Reyes, also known as Three Kings’ Day or Epiphany, January 6, is when many Latin American families give gifts to their families.
During this 13-day holiday period, many businesses—including postal and customs operations—reduce their roster of on-duty personnel and adopt shortened office hours. Which means delivery will take longer. Meanwhile, all these new online shoppers will be expecting the sort of delivery times they’ve become accustomed to over the past few months.
Peak season really begins in October and really takes off after Black Friday and Cyber-Monday going right into the New Year. This year Black Friday occurs on the November 27th and Cyber-Monday on November 30th – this leaves a shorter shopping window than in years past when Thanksgiving was earlier in the month.
At SkyPostal, we’re doing everything we can to speed things along and keep things moving. We’re blocking air cargo space—which we have to pay for no matter what—that we don’t even have cargo for yet. We’re looking at alternative routing. We cannot take the chance, especially to a country like Brazil, that we can’t get lift.
And we tell our clients, if you want to get this thing delivered by the 25th, you got to get it to us by such-and-such a date. If you do, we can pretty much guarantee you’ll get it delivered by Christmas. But if you don’t, there are no guarantees.
Just to make it all more exciting, for years now, merchants—and shoppers—have been waiting until later and later in the year to start ordering. I think that’s going to come back and bite some people this year.
If you’re an eCommerce merchant, you should encourage your customers to do their shopping early. Use price incentives, hot product releases, whatever you’ve got. Manage shopper’s expectations about how quickly their orders will reach them. If you do, the payoff in happy faces at the holiday table—and happy repeat customers on your website—will be huge.
SkyPostal is the new standard for shipping and delivery into Latin America. We provide a reliable, secure, and cost-effective parcel delivery service, enabling our customers to sell abroad without the headaches associated with international delivery. What we do is simple: we handle all issues related to the international import of your customer’s goods, so you don’t have to.
If you need to get something from where it is to somewhere in Latin America, in other words, we can help. Securely. At a reasonable price. And with an absolute minimum in aggravation.
To set up a shipment—or for a list of our services, along with rates and average transit times, get in touch with us today!