E-Commerce is growing more rapidly than ever all around the world and is projected to continue growth in the coming years. To keep up with competition, businesses that haven’t previously taken part in online sales are moving into the sector.
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How to Manage Ecommerce Shipping
Consider Your Carriers
In some instances, it may be beneficial to use one carrier over another. Consider factors such as shipping to residential vs. commercial locations, size of package, and weight of contents. USPS, UPS and FedEx all have different advantages. USPS is often the best for small items going to a residential address. UPS and FedEx are preferred for businesses and large parcels.
Nix the “Packaging for Presentation”
Days of packages within packages and extra fluffy presentation are over; or at least they should be. In cutting DIM weight costs, companies should review their interior packaging strategies as much as the exterior and adjust if needed.
Re-think Product Mix
Ecommerce businesses frequently use promotions that include free product with a minimum purchase. While this seems like a reasonable marketing tactic, it could be detrimental to your bottom line when it comes to the shipping cost. Consider this scenario:
A company adds a free complimentary gift with an order. One product this company sells goes into a 6″ x 5″ x 5″ box, for dim weight of less than one pound. But, one of the free items is almost 9″ long, requiring a larger box, which pushes the dim weight to 2 pounds- a considerable difference that adds up quickly. This could cause drastic changes in the way a business promotes, ships, and packages product.
Optimize Your Dim Weight
When shipping high volumes of product, it’s crucial to take special consideration in packaging. While product should arrive intact and at top quality, there’s a trend of wasteful shipping when it comes to the ecommerce sector. On average, ecommerce shippers use just 65% of box capacity! That is a huge margin of padding, void fill, and just plain wasted space. Right-sizing packages could make a huge impact on the shipping costs at the majority of ecommerce businesses.
Associated Packaging’s Dim Weight Solutions can
transform businesses’ packaging habits and shipping costs. We’d be happy to find a solution that’s right for your company.