If shipping and handling is one of your profit centers, you already know that this can be an expensive and time-consuming aspect of your business operations. Try these tips:Mind your Inventory By keeping sufficient inventory on hand, you'll avoid
high expenses associated with making a second mailing to cover back-ordered items. Your customers will be happier, too.
Select a Shipping Carrier Before choosing a shipping carrier, do a price and feature comparison. Remember to check out your postal service as well as courier companies. Different shipping companies have different pricing schemes. It might be to your benefit to use more than one service, depending on nature of shipments.
Pricing options can be confusing. The physical characteristics of your products will influence shipping costs. When doing your comparisons, consider issues such as minimum and maximum weights, package dimensions and package density.
Be sure to ask about refund policies for late deliveries, setup fees and discounts for frequent shippers or for memberships in various organizations.
Shipping Documentation You will need a good system in place to keep track of shipping documentation. Ask your shipping service what documents and forms they can provide.
If you're doing shipping in-house, be sure your shipping management software can be integrated into your database. If you're planning to out-source your shipping, you might look for a service company that allows you to download your information into its database. You'll have strength of a corporate database but without cost.
Know your True Costs Be very familiar with true costs of shipping and handling. Analyze weight, size and dollar amounts of an average size order. Add in costs for packaging, labor and shipping carriers or couriers. When you have a picture of costs associated with an average order, create a chart of costs of orders of various sizes. Finally, build a buffer into your estimate. Be mindful of what your customers will be willing to pay, however. Higher than average S&H rates will result in customers taking their business elsewhere.
Insurance Shipping companies typically offer insurance options. You will want to consider value of your shipment to be certain that you use best insurance coverage for your needs. It's also a good idea to ask about various forms of protective packaging materials that are available.
