Understanding and managing empty boxes can significantly enhance your delivery process's efficiency. Let's dive into what an empty box is, why it's important to remove them from Active Orders, and a step-by-step guide on how to do so.
What is an Empty Box?
An empty box, often referred to as a 'build your own box', 'fill your boots box', 'you choose box', or 'empty basket', is a core item in many subscription services. These boxes offer customers the flexibility to select their preferred items for each delivery. E.g. a customer might choose an empty box so they have the control over what they add into their box each week, rather than receiving a set box curated by you. Empty boxes are treated as standard orders, meaning they can be subscribed to and included in Active Orders. Because a customer can subscribe to an empty box they will be included in Active Orders even when a customer hasn't actually added any items into their empty box that week.
Why Remove Empty Boxes?
Processing an empty box like any other order can lead to unnecessary complications in your delivery system:
Delivery Inefficiency: Delivery rounds will include stops for delivering empty boxes, which is impractical and a waste of resources.
Confusing Communications: Customers might receive order confirmation emails for an empty box, leading to confusion.
Wasted Resources: Generating labels and manifests for empty deliveries is an unnecessary use of resources.
Extra Costs: Some shops apply an empty box fee. If an empty box is left in the system and not removed, you may end up charging for something that was never intended for delivery.
👉 For this reason, it’s very important to remove empty boxes promptly. Doing so prevents unnecessary fees, avoids wasted time, and keeps your service running smoothly.
When to Remove Empty Boxes
To avoid these issues, it's advisable to remove empty boxes from an Active Order immediately after closing the orders. This proactive step helps in three key ways:
Prevents Routing Delays: Removing empty boxes quickly ensures that your routing system, such as Google Maps, doesn't need to recalculate routes, avoiding delays in the delivery process.
Eliminates Confusing Customer Communications: By removing empty boxes before sending out confirmation emails, you prevent customers from receiving notifications about the delivery of an empty box.
Avoids Empty Box Fees – You won’t charge your customer for an order that contains nothing.
How to Remove Empty Boxes
Follow these steps to efficiently remove empty boxes from your delivery system:
Navigate to Core Products: After closing the orders, go to the Core Products section at the top of the Active Orders page.
Access Actions: Find the Custom Box (or your specific term for the build-your-own box) and click on 'Actions' next to it. A prompt will appear, asking if you want to delete orders containing only this product.
Confirm Deletion: Click on the prompt to proceed with deleting only the empty boxes. If a box contains other products or is paired with another core item, it will not be deleted.
Notification of Deletion: After confirming the deletion, a green notification will display the number of empty boxes removed.
Conclusion
Managing empty boxes in your delivery system is crucial for maintaining efficiency, preventing unnecessary costs, and ensuring customer satisfaction. By promptly removing these from your active orders, you:
Streamline your delivery process
Save resources
Avoid confusing communications
Prevent empty box fees
Always aim to keep your delivery system as efficient, cost-effective, and customer-friendly as possible.