Finding a suitable shipping plan can be very challenging for any business. Here are a few tips to help you finalise a cost effective shipping strategy:
Sign up with FedEx/UPS
Create an account with either shipping
carrier. Or with both. The shipping carrier will collect your
packages and deliver it. They will also give a delivery guarantee
with each shipment. You can track the package until delivery and also
get delivery confirmation once the package has reached its
destination. If you have accounts with both the major players, FedEx
and UPS, you can check for the cheaper rate for the same service and
destination and go ahead with the one who offers a better rate.
Negotiate
Like with all
business deals, talk it out with the shipping company representative.
Before you invite him over for a conversation, have data ready:
number of packages, frequency, destinations, frequent destinations,
time frame within which you expect the package to reach the
destination etc. if you have these data ready, you can negotiate a
better deal with FedEx/UPS. As part of this first step, sign up for a
late shipment refund collection software. This is an automated
process that can help you retrieve shipping costs of shipments that
fail to honour the delivery guarantee.
Keep it simple, small and light
Shipping carriers charge you on the
basis of dimensional weight. So, the size of your packaged box
matters more than the actual weight of the package. So, it is prudent
to keep the size of the package small. Use just the optimum amount of
packaging material, cushions, bags and fillers to make sure your
product remains safe during transit and delivery. Buy your boxes with
this in mind.
Shipping Prices
Are you going to offer Free Shipping?
Are you choosing flat rates for shipping? Or, are you going to charge
the customer exactly what the shipping carrier charges you? Come to a
conclusion on this. Here’s a list of factors that would help you
decide: Free shipping is a big USP. Customers love to get the product
delivered for free. So, if you can offer competitive rates and offer
free shipping, go ahead with this. If you offer flat rates, you need
to make sure that shipping rates are affordable and convenient to
both you and the customers. the flat rate is something that needs to
be arrived upon after studying the business for a long time and using
the historical data to predict future sales and shipments.
Insurance and Tracking
What do you sell or ship? Tee shirts?
Or fine jewellery? If it’s a tee shirt that you are shipping,
forget the insurance part. Do you sell depending on what you’re
selling and its value, shipping insurance and tracking can on the
other hand, if you are shipping valuable merchandise, make sure you
get insurance for the shipment. Track it periodically and make sure
it has reached the destination safely. If you are shipping it
overseas, you need proper customs documentation. Address those
issues.