Let customers track your packages with warehouse checkins through Route

Review of Route: Shipping Insurance and Visual Tracking App

How many times have you purchased something online and didn’t receive a single update about your order? I know this has happened to me before, and it’s never a fun experience. My immediate reaction is always, “have I just been scammed?” 

Post-purchase communication seems like such a low-hanging fruit for brands to offer a good and memorable customer experience. And yet, not many actually reach out to grab it.

Even on the merchant side, you don’t have control over who’s shipping your packages and how they’re being handled, which is always frustrating when you learn something arrived broken or damaged. Or maybe didn’t even arrive at all.

Let me give you an easy solution to both of these issues. 

I discovered a great app called Route, which works for both merchants and customers alike by offering the transparency of package tracking, and the peace of mind of insurance all within a single tool.

It’s a win-win for both merchants and customers

Route order tracking and shipping insurance is one of those rare tools that offers a win-win scenario. Not only is it free for merchants to use, but it’s an inexpensive tool for customers to purchase. 

Benefits for merchants

Route is great for any merchant who’s interested in:

• Improving their post-purchase customer experience,
• Decreasing customer service inquiries for “where’s my package,”
• Decreasing costs and issues associated with replacing lost or stolen packages. 

But here’s where Route gets really interesting: If something happens in transit—an item is lost, stolen, or damaged—Route pays to replace it. 

Yes, you read that right. Route saves the merchant from replacement costs by paying for the item (if the customer chooses to get insurance).

Considering ​​20% of all products purchased online are returned because of damages, having insurance to cover these items can help save a lot of costs on damages alone. 

Look at it from this scenario: imagine you have a 1% lost or damage replacement rate (essentially 1% revenue shrinkage on your overall margin). With Route, about half of those customers will buy insurance, and you will actually gain a new sale instead of losing an additional product. That’s a 50% reduction in shrinkage and an equivocal boost to sales.

And since customers get regular updates about where their package is, your customer support team deals with fewer tickets about order tracking. Route says merchants see an average decrease of 18% in customer support costs when utilizing their tool.

Honestly, this will be a major timesaver year-round, but especially for holidays like Black Friday and Christmas.

Benefits for customers

Once a customer signs up for Route, they can track multiple packages at once from any store that also uses the app. So if you purchase a candle from one brand and a new shirt from another, both packages will be trackable via Route at the same time.

Also, when you introduce your customers to Route, you’re bringing them value across multiple stores. This is because Route also works as a brand discovery tool where customers can find other retailers on the app by browsing through categories or searching keywords.

While you can’t see the exact road your package is traveling on like you can with an Uber Eats delivery, you do get updates about shipments when they check-in at warehouses on the way. 

This gives a nice post-purchase experience that continues the excitement of buying something as you wait for it to arrive. It also gives customers assurance if they need their order for a special day, like an anniversary or birthday. 

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Installing Route as a merchant

Adding Route to your store depends on if you’re on Shopify Plus, Shopify, or a different platform. 

If you’re on Shopify Plus, there’s a checkout integration available. It’s easy to install, too. With a single line of <div>, it can be launched in under 15 minutes for an experienced developer.

For those on Shopify or another platform, simply:

1. Install the Route app
2. Set up your preferences on the back end, including

• If users will be automatically opted in (I recommend doing this)
• If you’d rather pay for the insurance yourself (I wouldn’t recommend this personally)

    3. Voila! You’re live. If you automatically opt customers in, they can easily see the insurance option added and can remove it with one click if they don’t want it.

The future of order tracking and the customer experience

A good customer experience isn’t just about providing support, it’s about finding ways to provide value, make shopping easy, and delight customers from discovery to post-purchase. That includes how you handle shipping. 

Truthfully, I think the bar for shipping communication is set so low. Really, all it takes is for the brand to take a step back and figure out how to remove friction, and order tracking is a big part of this.

By simply giving customers better access to track their orders, Route helps brands offer a memorable customer experience. This is key for nurturing a long-lasting relationship and building trust so customers are comfortable returning for a repeat purchase.

Yes, order tracking is done via the Route app, but I still see it as an opportunity to connect your brand with your customers. By this, I mean that the customer isn’t just building the relationship with Route—they’re building it with you, the brand, because they’ll appreciate you for connecting them with Route in the first place.

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Final thoughts on Route

Route is a powerful tool to improve how merchants handle shipping communication, and most brands at any growth stage can benefit from it. 

Not only is the app already supporting 1,000s of businesses across all Ecommerce verticals, but they claim businesses using their features see an 11.5% increase in net profit and a 126% increase in customer engagement. 

That’s pretty amazing, and I can’t wait to see where they take this advanced solution in the future.

To find out more about Route, check out their website or download their Shopify app.