If your ecommerce brand ships to international customers, duties and taxes will definitely affect total shipping charges. Surcharges are basically all the miscellaneous expenses that come with shipping your products.

Although delivery surcharges can really vary, the most common examples include:. While these fees are usually pretty affordable, they can add up quickly. With so many factors affecting the cost of delivery, is it even possible to achieve low cost shipping while maintaining shipping speed?

The short answer is, yes—with the help of the five methods listed below, you can cut costs and still guarantee fast shipping times. For starters, you should try to reduce your package dimensions as much as you can. Doing so decreases the weight and lessens the amount of packing materials you need to add to the box which is a win-win for reducing your costs.

Even better, you can opt to ship in a bag rather than a box. Speaking of your packing materials, this is another area where you can cut down on costs.

By identifying the smallest reasonable packaging filler you need, you can save money on the cost of those materials and the cost for the shipping itself. In fact, air pillows add almost no weight to freight shipments. It might require a bit of digging, but there are volume discounts and special packages out there that combine hybrid services from multiple partners carriers, warehouses, etc.

This way, you can save money while also streamlining your fulfillment services and shipping workflows. Alternatively, your company can also search for discounted shipping supplies. Large shipping carriers, like UPS and FedEx, will often provide discounted or free packaging materials to small business owners.

Unfortunately, too many retailers stick with the first shipping carrier they come across. You can do this rate shopping with all major carriers for all service levels and special service requests—like Saturday Delivery and Hold at Location, for example.

You can either visit their local offices and speak with them in-person, or call them up to talk through your total costs. Last, but not least, working with a third-party logistics 3PL company can reduce your shipping costs in a big way.

For many reasons, teaming up with a 3PL is the best way to achieve cost savings while also preserving your shipping speed. And because 3PLs ship from multiple warehouses and fulfillment centers, you can reduce the distance orders are traveling and shrink costs as a result. Partnering with a 3PL saves you on shipping insurance.

The insurance with a 3PL is much cheaper than buying your own—and in some cases, it even cuts the price in half , and will help you to avoid insurtech regulatory issues. The primary benefits of working with a 3PL are:. All in all, 3PLs help with everything from order fulfillment and logistics to quality control services.

Due to their wide-ranging skill set, 3PLs do a ton of work on your behalf so you can focus more on growing your business—like expanding your sales channels or developing new products.

Optimizing packaging is crucial to reduce shipping expenses. Start by using appropriately sized packaging to avoid dimensional weight charges, opting for lightweight materials to minimize overall weight without compromising protection.

Utilize flat-rate options when applicable and fill empty spaces in packages to prevent excess dimensions. Customized packaging tailored to your product's size, considering reusable or eco-friendly materials, can significantly cut costs.

Consolidating shipments, comparing packaging material prices, negotiating with suppliers for optimized packaging, and staying updated on carrier policies are additional strategies to find the cheapest way to manage shipments.

Effectively managing returns to decrease shipping expenditures involves implementing clear return policies and providing prepaid labels selectively, consolidating returns where possible, and establishing processes like RMAs to control and streamline returns.

Optimize return packaging, analyze return patterns to address recurring issues, and consider local partnerships or centers to consolidate returns geographically. Continuous assessment of product quality and prompt handling of returns are vital to reducing unnecessary return shipments and associated shipping expenses.

Again, it comes to simplicity and not having to do any calculations. Often, busy shippers will simply choose a single carrier strategy and negotiate a reasonable rate. While a single carrier strategy is a time-saver, using multiple shipping carriers offers a number of benefits of its own.

Shipping zones are the geographical areas that various carriers ship to. For example, there are nine USPS shipping zones. The more zones your package crosses in transit, the more you're charged for shipping.

Major carriers allow you to enter your zip code of origin and destination to determine the number of zones your package will be crossing — which you can use to calculate your shipping rates USPS Zones Pages UPS Zones Pages FedEx Zone Pages.

If you do this and see that most of your orders are coming from across the country, you may want to consider using a fulfillment center that's closer to your customers to reduce the number of zones your product crosses and the amount you spend on shipping.

This is a good point to conclude with our lucky shipping tip A third-party logistics 3PL partner such as The Fulfillment Lab can also save you a bundle, offering low-cost shipping for small businesses!

When you work with us, we will ship your product from one of our locations that are closest to your customer to avoid excess zone charges and pass some of our negotiated carrier shipping discounts on to you.

Check out our blog, 10 Reasons to Use a Fulfillment Center for Your Ecommerce Shipping , and then contact us to learn more. Select Language 简体中文 English Français Deutsch Português Español. Login Book Meeting Contact Us. Software Proprietary Software International Shipping Dynamic Integrations Solutions Fulfillment Marketing Customized Packaging On-Demand Service Discovery Kitting Service eCommerce Warehousing Warehouse Management Software Partners Business Partners Affiliate Partners Resources Brief: Disaster Recovery Brief: Warehouse Kitting eBook: Global Fulfillment eBook: Warehouse Management eBook: Unboxing Experience eBook: Increase Revenue eBook: CX Metrics Blog Contact Us.

Print Postage at Home You may know that shipping labels can be printed at home, but did you know you can also print postage at home?

Use Third-Party Insurance One way UPS, FedEx, and other carriers make their money is by overcharging customers for insurance costs. Watch Your Dimensional Weight Applying dimensional weight to shipments is fairly new for carriers, and many small businesses don't know what it's all about. Increase the Price of Your Product Are you offering free shipping and finding it to be too expensive?

Consider a Multi-Carrier Strategy Often, busy shippers will simply choose a single carrier strategy and negotiate a reasonable rate. More Negotiation Power. Chances are you are an online buyer as well as a seller, so use that double status to save money. Be sure to remove the old shipping labels first or cover them with your own — this will speed the delivery and help you avoid any unnecessary delays.

Saving on packaging makes for more eco-friendly shipping. Whether you are running a small business or just selling the occasional yard sale find on eBay, keeping your online shipping costs low is good for your bottom line. When you offer free shipping to attract more customers, every dollar you spend on boxes, packing materials and postage is one less dollar of profit.

If you pass your shipping costs on to your customers, you can bet buyers are weighing the cost of shipping when deciding whether or not to buy. Reducing shipping costs will have a domino effect across your company. Any way you slice it, lower shipping costs is good for business, and the ways to reduce shipping rates detailed above will help you trim those expenses and make the most of your business without the parcel shipping costs of your ecommerce shipping getting in the way of your success.

Recent Posts no title June 8, How to Solve Major Chall July 13, Everything You Need to K June 29, Warehouses in Dubai: All April 15, When you want to attract the most customers, offering free shipping is a smart move, but keep in mind that the shipping costs you incur will be coming directly out of your profits.

Lighten up your packing materials. Make the most of flat-rate online shipping. Do not be afraid to negotiate.

Prepay shipping to save money on shipping labels Factor in all fees Work with providers

Reduced shipping charges - Use the “right” packaging Prepay shipping to save money on shipping labels Factor in all fees Work with providers

Since they are shipping products not just for a single company, but often hundreds, they have the volume to bring shipping costs down quite a bit. If they are well established, they will likely also leverage historically good relationships with shipping carriers as well.

If you want to offer your customers free shipping, make sure to set a minimum purchase amount as a threshold for that bonus.

Any order that does not meet that free-shipping threshold would mean the purchaser will pay for shipping. The main way this can increase profits is by incentivizing your customers to add additional purchases to their order so that they qualify for free shipping. The big carriers USPS, FedEx, and UPS are not your only choices.

There are smaller regional carriers who might be willing to offer discounted rates, or throw in value-added services such as insurance or tracking for free. The drawback is that they often have limited delivery networks. Insurance is often necessary to protect your business from any loss or damage that might occur during the shipping process.

Most shipping carriers offer their own insurance either as a stand-alone charge, or included as part of a product offering such as flat rate shipping or priority mail. There are third-party companies who provide insurance that can often be cheaper than what the the major providers quote.

Shop around to see if you can lower that cost. Shipping involves so many supplies:boxes and envelopes of all sizes, padded envelopes, bubble wrap, tape, labels, and much more. When you put all of those together it can take a sizeable chunk out of your bottom line.

Consider buying them in bulk—most companies offer discounts based on volume orders. Partnering with a 3PL to outsource your order fulfillment can offer significant cost savings in the long run. It will likely save you time and effort that you can put into other aspects of your business, like marketing, fundraising, or innovation.

A 3PL is a whole company of experts who know shipping best and have well established relationships with most carriers that can provide further cost reductions. Reducing shipping costs may seem like a big challenge, but the reality is there are many methods available that can help bring them down.

From small savings to volume discounts, they all add up and can wind up boosting your profit margin significantly.

Instead, purchase plain, traditional packing materials such as boxes, bubble wrap, air pillows, and more in bulk to cut your shipping costs.

One way UPS, FedEx, and other carriers make their money is by overcharging customers for insurance costs. That can save you almost half! Applying dimensional weight to shipments is fairly new for carriers, and many small businesses don't know what it's all about.

Here's how it began. About five years ago, carriers noticed they were losing money on large — yet light — items. These large items took up a lot of space on their trucks, but netted them little money. Carriers have more than 75 special charges, such as fuel surcharges, signature fees, and weekend delivery fees.

Are you offering free shipping and finding it to be too expensive? Up the price of your product and continue to offer free shipping! This may seem counterproductive, but remember customers like the simple pricing structure of a free shipping model.

They may not notice that the product costs more. Again, it comes to simplicity and not having to do any calculations. Often, busy shippers will simply choose a single carrier strategy and negotiate a reasonable rate.

While a single carrier strategy is a time-saver, using multiple shipping carriers offers a number of benefits of its own. Shipping zones are the geographical areas that various carriers ship to.

For example, there are nine USPS shipping zones. The more zones your package crosses in transit, the more you're charged for shipping. Major carriers allow you to enter your zip code of origin and destination to determine the number of zones your package will be crossing — which you can use to calculate your shipping rates USPS Zones Pages UPS Zones Pages FedEx Zone Pages.

If you do this and see that most of your orders are coming from across the country, you may want to consider using a fulfillment center that's closer to your customers to reduce the number of zones your product crosses and the amount you spend on shipping.

This is a good point to conclude with our lucky shipping tip This will not just help you in cost savings but also in building a long-term relationship with a shipping carrier.

Shipping costs are based on a package's actual or dimensional weight. Dimensional DIM or volumetric weight is a pricing technique used by carriers to determine the cost of shipping a package based on its volume rather than on its actual weight.

The higher the actual volumetric weight of a package, the more money you will pay for shipping. If you can cut down the volumetric weight of a package and save a few cents for each one, it can result in significant cost savings over several hundred packages.

Most carriers arrive at the DIM weight by calculating the cubic size of a package by multiplying its length, width, and height. You can use this great online calculator to calculate it yourself.

Here are a few methods:. Use corrugated boxes The shipping process requires packaging that can protect your products from the elements as well as mishandling. Corrugated cardboard boxes are a good option for packaging as they are lightweight and versatile.

Specially designed for shipping and widely used by eCommerce businesses, corrugated cardboard boxes also protect fragile products from damage.

Comparatively, traditional cardboard boxes are thicker and heavier. Custom packaging You can use custom packaging that is made for the kind of product you are shipping instead of using standard packaging for all products.

If you have products that sell a lot, you should create custom packaging that fits the size and dimensions of the product perfectly. This will help you save money on packaging and shipping over time.

SIOC packaging Ships in own container SIOC packaging saves the cost of the extra box, labour, and packing material. SIOC essentially means that a product is shipped in its original packaging without an additional box added on top of it.

The shipping labels are put on the original box itself. This is helpful in reducing both costs and waste. Since shipping prices depend on the weight and volume, you could explore options like poly mailers or padded envelopes for your products.

This will bring down the volumetric weight of the products and reduce shipping costs. These also need fewer packing supplies like bubble wrap. If you are concerned about the environmental impact of poly mailers, you can opt for something that is eco-friendly, biodegradable, or reusable.

Want to reduce your environmental footprint? Learn about eco-friendly packaging in this blog. Protective packing material is essential to secure your products from damage during transit.

However, not all packing material is the same. You can use lightweight packing materials like packing paper, foam inserts, air pillows, or bubble wrap in order to cut down the weight of your package.

Sometimes insurance provided by the shipping company is expensive compared to third-party providers. Going with a third-party insurer could help you reduce shipping costs significantly, especially on high-value products. Shipping companies levy a surcharge or prices generally shoot up during peak holiday season like Christmas, Halloween, or New Year's.

One way to ship early is to encourage your customers to buy early. You could run promotions and campaigns before the holiday season, and communicate to the customers that they need to buy early to receive their orders well in time.

This will help you keep your shipping costs in check and you could possibly avoid using the more costly expedited shipping. Some shipping companies charge an additional fee if your package exceeds their size regulations.

To reduce online shipping costs, look for lightweight protective materials like air pillows and bubble wrap; the less your package weighs, the less it will cost 10 Ways to Reduce Shipping Costs · 1. Negotiate with Several Carriers · 2. Weigh Packages and Shave Dimensions · 3. Use Packages Given by Your Effective ways of reducing shipping costs · 1. Don't settle on the first carrier you find · 2. Reduce the weight of your package · 3. Not all: Reduced shipping charges

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