In Today’s economy, E-commerce has a significant role to play. In this article, you’ll find shipping tips for small businesses to save you money!
The economy is filled with new businesses trying to stand out from the crowd. However, this can be difficult since small companies tend to have fewer funds. One mistake new e-commerce business owners make is not optimizing the cost of shipping products to customers. This is why spending time developing the shipping program is essential. Have you just opened up a new business? Then read this article to find the best shipping tips for small businesses to save money!
1. Use The Proper Materials
The first step in minimizing the cost of shipping your products is by picking the right materials for your shipping packaging. This ensures that your product reaches the customer in good condition.
If a product reaches the customer in a damaged state, they are likely to ask for a refund. Hence, you will need to spend more on reshipping the item while suffering the loss from the damaged product. Therefore, choosing the right shipping materials is one of the best shipping tips for small businesses to save you money.
Furthermore, you can use additional protection tools such as bubble wraps and custom packaging tape. Custom packing tape can be made with different materials than regular tape and so, can provide more security. So, to make sure your product’s packaging is secure and sturdy, you can use custom packing tape with your brand logo. This is an excellent way to market your brand.
2. Calculate the Perfect Size for Packages
Calculating the size of packages you need for your product is essential for cutting shipping costs for small businesses. This will help brighten your business’s future by making it more cost-efficient.
If you figure out the exact size you need, you can reduce the waste generated from too big packages for the product. Furthermore, you can use a polybag instead of a shipping box for products that don’t need extreme protection.
If a package is too large for the product, it might also damage it during shipping as it might bounce around inside. The dimensional weight of your product and packaging will also vary on the shipping, so consider this beforehand.
3. Utilize Free Shipping Supplies
To find success as a new entrepreneur, you need to effectively utilize all resources available to you. This includes the free shipping supplies you might receive from the shipping companies. This is one of the essential shipping tips for small businesses to save money.
A lot of carrier companies provide free boxes for shipping. You can have the boxes delivered to your doorsteps and can print out labels on the box. You can also add promotional inserts inside the packaging. Furthermore, you can use these boxes in bulk, significantly decreasing your shipping costs.
4. The Delivery Timing
As a small business, you are bound to constantly compete to satisfy and gain customers in whatever way possible. You need to find the perfect delivery timing for your shipping strategy.
Free shipping can often appeal to customers and will make them order more from your business. However, this does not mean that you will leave out the profit made from the shipping. Instead, you can raise the overall prices for the products. Keep in mind that this is only possible when you are not competing on low rates.
Additionally, you can offer premium, faster delivery services to customers willing to pay for it. Ensuring that the delivery is always on time is also vital as it goes a long way in creating brand loyalty.
5. Consider Hiring Profitable Shipping Services
Printing out and filling orders from your customers can be time-consuming and ineffective. You can hire a fulfillment firm to get this done for you. Letting specialized companies handle these tasks can help you grow. This allows your workers to focus on the more important jobs.
You can negotiate for a discount on shipping rates and supplies as well. Using a distributed shipping fulfillment strategy can also help as it will lower costs since you will be storing products in different areas and in doing so, will make it easier to reach customers.
Additionally, you should check out several different shipping services companies as you need to choose one in line with your shipping strategies. This is also important for reducing costs on shipment, so try to find an inexpensive service that can offer additional benefits to your business.
6. Optimize the Shipping Experience
One of the essential shipping tips for small businesses that will save you money is to satisfy your customer with the whole experience. You can find help from your shipping platform or decide to implement shipping software into the process.
Using this software will give customers a much smoother experience when shopping online. You can also set up rules and conditions. You can also contract with a software company and see if they can help you save money while providing useful benefits.
Another thing to consider is the returns. Customers tend to return products often in the e-commerce industry. If you optimize this process correctly, it can save you a lot of money. You should inform the customer of the entire process to make it easy for them to do it. This helps create a positive image for the brand in the eyes of the customers
Lastly, you should optimize the contact with shipping carriers. This will help you get discounts depending on the shipping volume. As you put work into the process, you should find several ways to lower costs, so contract optimization is vital for small businesses.
Conclusion
We hope that this article has helped with these shipping tips for small businesses to save you money. It is not easy for small businesses to survive in the market, and so they have to find proper solutions that will help save them money in the shipping process. The more money you save here, the more money you can use on the other vital sectors of your business, and so your goals of growth and maximizing profits will soon seem achievable! Good Luck!
FAQs
How Can a Small Business Calculate Shipping Costs?
You can achieve this by weighing the product and using a shipping calculator. Some shipping firms will give you different methods based on volume as well.
How Much do Businesses Spend on Shipping?
Businesses tend to spend around $338 per month on shipping. This varies depending on the company’s size. Small companies spend about $239 per month.
