If your shipping plan is not well developed, you may end up paying more for shipment and losing a lot of your profits. As such, service delivery in your business can be affected, causing you to lose some critical customers, and if your company does not request larger shipments, it can be hard for you to hire a logistics provider. Below are some of the ways you can save money with shipping.
Matching Your Delivery Requirements and Shipment Fees
After selecting the products you want to import for your business, it is essential that you work with a business specialist to match your services and carrier fees with some shipping requirements. For instance, you might think of matching them up with delivery time and transportation.
Most business specialists say that matching delivery requirements and shipment fees can save up to 40% of the expenses you spend on shipping. One crucial element you can discuss with a specialist can be when to ship a product by air or ground. As such, you can find that fees can be saved by matching up the requirements.
Using a Postage Meter
A postage meter can be crucial for your shipment activities as it weighs your packages and determines the charge for the shipment. It also prints the labels for your shipment. Such a tool can be of help to you since it eliminates the need to involve mailers to approximate the shipment weight and purchase more postage. Also, you will be able to eradicate middle man services that make your business incur more cost on shipments.
Establishing Shipment Charge-Back Policies
When conducting business, it is essential to let your customers know when they are required to pay for a shipment and when the business will cover the cost. For instance, a four-day parcel can be the standard level of a service paid for by the company. However, other charges, such as a one-day shipping, can be paid for by the customer. It is essential to set these policies and inform your sales department and customers as this makes running your business smooth and well outlined.
Tracking the Performance of Your Carrier Choice
Depending on the carrier you use, it is wise to keep a scorecard that evaluates the performance of the carrier service and the cost incurred on shipments. Some of the service factors that might be involved include delivery, customers’ responses, pick-up time, and transit times. On the other hand, cost factors may consist of service level costs, miscellaneous fees, and baseline by shipment weight or distance. These might be challenging factors for your business to deal with, so it would be wise if you involved your carrier service. This way, you will get time to assess and resolve failures in cost performance and the type of service offered by the carrier.
Understand When to Consolidate
When buying or sending shipments between 150 pounds and 20,000 pounds, which is referred to as Less Than Truckload weight, consider investing in a freight consolidation service. In such cases, a freight consolidation service will help combine your shipments with other shipments to create a full load. Otherwise, you might be dealing with High Bulk Sea Freight while the consolidation service will be essential for you to know the costs you are going to save.
Compared to bulk sea freight, less than truckload shipment costs are higher. This is because the shipment has to be consolidated to a full shipment; however, if your business has a bulk sea freight full truckload shipment, it will be easy for your carrier to load the truck and save the time and cost involved in consolidation.
When shipping products, it is advisable that you do not rely on the carrier data, since it is derived from the carrier, and poll vendors and clientele receiving your shipments. Developing these good shipping practices will help you save on money on shipment products. By following our tips, expressed in this article, you now have the tools to save money on your shipment.
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