A spreadsheet of three hundred addresses
In October, a firm wants gin gift boxes for clients, each with a personalised label and a note. They send a spreadsheet: names, addresses in various formats, some missing postcodes, a column of messages. Another firm wants a hundred bottles delivered to one office with engraved names. Your team, already busy with Christmas web orders, copies addresses into the courier's site one by one.
A few parcels come back as undeliverable, a label has a spelling mistake, and one client asks where their gifts are when half the recipients have not received them.
Why corporate orders are hard
Corporate orders are large, custom and time-critical, and they arrive at the busiest time of year. The recipient data comes from the client in whatever state it is in. Personalisation needs proofs and approval. Each parcel needs its own label and message. The webshop is not built for any of this, so it is handled by hand.
- Address lists arrive in inconsistent formats.
- Personalised label proofs are approved by email.
- Gift messages are copied by hand.
- Courier labels are created one at a time.
- Clients ask for updates on delivery.
What the manual approach costs
Days of staff time at the peak of the season. Returned parcels and redeliveries from bad addresses. Personalisation mistakes that are expensive to fix. Unhappy corporate clients who do not come back next year. And your own web orders delayed because the team is buried in one big order.
Corporate gifting can be good business for a distillery, with larger orders and clients who come back every year. It only stays good if the handling does not swallow the margin, and at the moment the handling is the part nobody has costed.
A corporate order flow from quote to dispatch
- A corporate enquiry form gathers products, quantities, personalisation, delivery method and deadline, and produces a quote for approval.
- Once approved, the client uploads recipients to a template, or sends their spreadsheet, which we map into it.
- Addresses are checked against a postcode lookup, and problems are sent back to the client to fix before anything ships.
- Personalisation is merged into label or engraving proofs, which the client approves online, recorded with date and name.
- Gift messages are printed from the list onto cards, matched to parcels.
- Courier labels are created in batches through the courier's API, with tracking numbers recorded per recipient.
- The client gets a dispatch report and tracking links, and the invoice is drafted in Xero.
| Step | Before | After |
|---|---|---|
| Quote | Email back and forth | Form and approval |
| Addresses | Copied by hand | Uploaded and checked |
| Personalisation | Proofs by email | Online approval, recorded |
| Courier labels | One at a time | Batch through the courier |
| Client updates | Replies to emails | Dispatch report with tracking |
Corporate season without the backlog
Address problems are fixed before dispatch, by the client. Personalisation is approved in writing. Labels print in batches. Clients get tracking without asking. Your team deals with the order in a fraction of the handling, leaving time for Christmas web orders. And next year, repeat clients can re-order from last year's list.
Does corporate season look like this for you?
- Corporate address lists are copied into the courier site by hand.
- Personalised proofs are approved by email.
- Parcels come back from bad addresses.
- Clients chase for delivery updates.
- Web orders slow down when a corporate order lands.