ARTA Estimates: Avoid Surprise Costs and Streamline Fulfillment

Unexpected shipping costs at checkout can negatively affect sales due to buyer drop-off. ARTA’s Estimates widget solves this problem by enabling sellers to display estimated fulfillment costs during the product discovery phase. The widget provides buyers with all-in, up-front cost insights, minimizing surprise, improving trust, and reducing shopping cart abandonment.

Ecommerce shipping solution: ARTA Estimates

ARTA Estimates is a mobile-responsive widget that lets our clients display shipping estimates to their buyers during the product discovery phase. Our clients use ARTA Estimates to remove friction in both online and offline sales, making for smooth, simple transactions and a better customer experience.

Buyer and seller benefits to transparent fulfillment pricing

Leland Little Auctions integrates ARTA Estimates into its website’s product pages, showing buyers estimated shipping costs before bidding or purchasing. By displaying the all-in costs upfront, buyers and sellers alike benefit from increased transparency, reducing drop-offs further down the conversion funnel. 

Further, ARTA Estimates removes the need for sellers to source pre-sale shipping quotes, cutting out this time-consuming task without the guarantee of a sale. Leland Little leverages ARTA Estimates in conjunction with other ARTA solutions to provide a streamlined, best-in-class buying experience.

“It became clear that we needed to provide our customers with a custom-tailored, seamless shipping experience when purchasing objects from our gallery. Arta has provided this service for our clients – from white glove to parcel, express service to standard shipping – our customers can customize the service level of any category of object, from a marble sculpture to a singular gemstone.”

– Leland Little, President, Leland Little Auctions

Quick and powerful fulfillment cost calculator

Some businesses opt to build their own fulfillment cost calculator. ARTA Estimates and our wider solutions eliminate the need for this through our estimates, guaranteed quotes, and end-to-end fulfillment services. Your clients will see their shipping estimates up-front, avoiding surprises, minimizing drop-off, and strengthening purchase follow-through.

What goes into fulfillment costs?

Comprehensive fulfillment pricing considers and accounts for multiple factors to create an accurate reflection of cost. The following are a few examples of fulfillment factors most sellers have to consider when estimating their costs.

Service setup

Fulfillment providers often charge an initial setup fee to establish a company with the services they need. This cost could be static or dependent on the size and complexity of the business.

Inventory receiving and storage

Logistics service providers typically charge for receiving and storing your inventory. These costs could increase or decrease depending on your transactions, or how long your inventory remains in the holding facility.

Order packing and fulfillment

Assembly, packaging, and dispatch are all costs that may be included in order fulfillment. Higher transactions could be priced per unit or equate to better discounts.

Item size and weight

Shipping costs are highly variable dependent on size, weight, and volume. Heavier packages are likely to cost more than smaller, lightweight boxes. However, high volumes of shipments could also earn you discounts.

Shipping costs

Many providers try their best to consolidate shipments for better pricing, however, this isn’t always ideal for highly-variable, high value goods. The fulfillment costs are typically informed by the cost to ship orders to clients, which might include expedited delivery, white-glove handling, customs facilitation, and mode of transport.

7 Benefits to ARTA Estimates

Simple setup to save you time

Installation is simple. Clients can opt for a full API customization, leverage our ARTA-hosted solutions, or a combination of both.

API customization allows for a seamless integration and branded experience for buyers, however this option requires more development resources. Clients looking to get to market quickly often benefit from our ARTA-hosted products, for a more plug-and-play solution. ARTA Estimates can be accessed both ways.

Quick shipping costs for greater efficiency

Our widget presents non-bookable up-front shipping options for buyers in under two seconds, which can be customizable depending on your integration type. Your buyers can view their desired item with a shipping option included to display one set all-in-one price, or as an additional cost. 

Easy order processing for optimized output

ARTA Estimates optimizes staff effort and time. With no need to source carrier quotes or negotiate pricing, staff can focus more on transaction volume and customer experience. When ARTA Estimates is paired with ARTA Quotes, clients can view costs and create immediate bookings for ease and efficiency.

Device and app connectivity for peace of mind

ARTA Estimates works across a wide variety of devices, letting buyers view estimates on their smart phone, tablet, or computer. This flexibility provides clients peace of mind, knowing buyers are informed of costs up-front regardles of the port from which they’re accessing their website.

International reach to scale your business

Our widget lets our clients display shipping costs all over in the world. ARTA Estimates enables you to expand your reach and leverage our locked-in premium rates through our wide network of global carriers. This lets you optimize your fulfillment process while expanding your business worldwide without additional overhead costs.

Track orders for better customer service

When paired with ARTA Tracking, your customers can be updated at each major milestone throughout the fulfillment journey. We offer this communication and transaprency to help our clients improve their customer experience and reduce queries to free up valuable time to focus on scaling their business.

Centralized processes for peak fulfillment

ARTA Estimates ties in seamlessly with all ARTA solutions letting you optimize and automate the entire fulfillment process. A single integration enables clients to easily leverage shipping costs, instant quotes, tracking, and checkout functionality.

Try ARTA Estimates through our demos

To see how ARTA Estimates might appear on your site, you can preview common layout and presentation configurations on our ARTA Estimates demo site. 

To learn more about how ARTA Estimates can help support your business through displayed fulfillment services pricing, please reach out.