Generating Insights on E-Commerce Shipping Data Using Tableau Charts
E-commerce is the buying and selling of goods and services, or the transmitting of funds or data, over an electronic network, primarily the internet. These business transactions occur either as business-to-business (B2B), business-to-consumer (B2C), or consumer-to-consumer.
In the last decade, widespread use of e-commerce platforms such as Amazon and eBay has contributed to substantial growth in online retail. In 2019, e-commerce accounted for 16.0% of total retail sales. In 2020, the COVID pandemic has shifted e-commerce maybe more than any other time in history. Traditional retail sales declined but e-commerce has seen about 129% year-over-year growth in U.S. and Canadian orders as of April 2020, with an impressive 146% growth in all online retail orders.
Across the world, people are shifting buying habits and the lockdown has even hit boomers by forcing them to shop online; some for the first time. Although COVID has been a traumatic experience for everybody in the world, surprisingly it has accelerated the e-commerce industry’s growth and more businesses are joining the e-commerce business revolution than ever before.
The benefits of e-commerce include its around-the-clock availability, speed of access, wide availability of goods and services for the consumer, and easy accessibility. While the perceived disadvantages of e-commerce include sometimes limited customer service, consumers not being able to see or touch a product before purchase, and the wait time for product shipping. A few examples of e-commerce marketplace platforms include Amazon, Jumia, Konga, eBay, Alibaba, etc.
I began this analysis with the goals to discover key insights from the company’s customer database and study the customers. Also, I incline to understand the company’s product, costs of products, and how the products are rated. Lastly, to know the mode of shipment, the wait time for the product to reach its destination and how this affects customer rating and the growth of the company as well as understand any areas that may need improvement.
In this article, we will perform basic visualization with Tableau charts to explore and study the electronic company’s customer database. The data used in this article was sourced from kaggle. Firstly, let’s explore the gender distribution of the customers in the electronic company.
From the visualization above, we see that customer gender appears to be evenly distributed with about 50.41% female and 49.59% male customers.
From the visualization above, 59.67% (6563) of the electronics product didn’t reach their destination on time. Delayed delivery can be a result of several reasons such as processing time, mode of shipment, and traveling distance of packages. An individual can also influence the timing and avoid a late delivery from an E-commerce company. An easy way to do that is to opt for the fastest shipping option! Often, online sellers will offer their customers a free shipping option, which is usually the slowest delivery method.
The mode of shipment used by the company to make delivery of their packages is flight, road, and ship transportation means. Use the chart below to explore the distribution of shipment mode.
We see that the highest shipment mode is with use of Ship(67.84%), followed by Flight(16.16%) and Road has the least percentage(16%) of product transit. Ship transportation is cheap and suitable for transporting heavy items and non-perishable goods. Considering the company specializes in electronic products we see why ship transportation is preferred by the company. We can assume the products transported through road and air transport are high-value and fragile products. Since the weight of how our products can determine the mode of shipment, let’s explore the distribution of shipment mode with the weight of the products. From the visualization below, we can denote that the transportation of heavy electronic products is mostly done by ship thus supporting our claim above.
Now let’s explore how shipment mode affects delivery
From the chart above, all the 3 mode of shipment has a higher number of products not delivered on time compared to those that got delivered on time. Although delivery delay might not solely be because of the shipment mode it should also be considered and review by the company.
Also, we see that the company is transit most of its shipment by ship hence it needs to focus more on ways to avoid delivery using this mode efficiently to increase overall average profit and boost the growth of the company.
Assuming that all rating 3 and above are considered nice by the company i.e positive customer response, and rating 2 and below are considered negative customer response. Out of total orders, 60% of the data has a positive response while 40% of the data has a negative response.
The chart above is showing the effects of delivery on customer rating. About 60% of the customers are experiencing delayed delivery which is matching the overall average rating to delayed delivery of the entire product. Rating 2 and below is matching with the overall average of product delivered on time hence we can say that the slower the product gets delivered the lower the customer rating.
Not all customers with products delivered on time gave a positive response because rating is not only determined by the delivery but by other different reasons such as incorrect order, damaged package, high payment for shipping, etc.
How often customers made calls for inquiry on the shipment; Is customer query being answered?
From the chart above, we see that an average customer calls about 3 or 4 times on shipping inquiry. Also, the customers with delayed delivery made more calls to customer care compared to customers whose packages got delivered on time. This show that costumers query are not been answered therefore they called customer care more than once.
The company needs to compare this to the expected number of calls and industrial average to determine if these call rates are within the normal and acceptable level. Else, there is a need to review the process to identify the gaps in the shipping process that makes customers have to call so much to enquire about their shipments.
Product importance is products categorized by the company based on value using parameters such as low, medium, and high. From the Fig1 chart, we can see the distribution of product importance with low-value product (5297) being the highest followed by medium-value product (4754) and the least is high-value product (948).
Let’s use Fig2 to explore the relationship between delivery and product importance. All the products irrespective of the importance level has higher delivery delay compared to products delivered on time. The company needs to review its policy and focus on ways to increase the overall average of product delivery. Fig3 shows the statistics of customers rating the high-value products, the customer gave 59.39% positive response and 40.61% negative response for the high-value products.
Distribution of Product Costs
To explore the cost distribution of products in the electronic E-commerce company, check the chart below
From the chart above, the maximum cost of products in the electronic company is 300.7$, minimum cost of products is 87.3$ and the average cost of products is 210$. We can denote that price that falls below average are affordable products while price above average are expensive products.
Summary
1. About 60% of products delivered are delayed by the company
2. The company mostly makes use of ship transportation means to deliver packages.
3. The customers query are not been answered therefore they call customer care on an average of 4 times to inquiry about shipment.
To conclude, the company needs to review its shipping policy to increase the total average of products delivered on time. Some of the product/order(s) properties to consider are;
- Product size and weight: What’s the difference in size and weight from your smallest, lightest to your largest, heaviest products? With this, the company can determine the most effective and favorable shipping means.
- Shipping destinations: Where are you shipping to — domestic or international? This is also important for the mode of shipment and order of urgency.
- Shipping options: What type of shipping? Free shipping or Paid shipping. If paid, the category of customers picking this option should be treated with urgency and their packages should be sent out as soon as possible using the most effective mode of shipment. If free shipping, the customers should be given a stipulated duration of time it will take their product to get delivered to avoid customers calling to inquiry about shipment.
To view the complete interactive dashboard visualisation on Tableau, check my Tableau Profile. Thanks for Reading!!
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Resources
https://www.bigcommerce.com/blog/ecommerce-shipping/#ecommerce-shipping-strategy-goals
