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Thursday
Jun202013

5 Tips to Make Your Shipping Process Work in Your Favor 

When you're starting your own business, how you ship out your products is probably one of the last things you think about. You've got a website to build, a marketing plan to create—not to mention either obtaining or making your products.

But if your products are your most prized asset, why wouldn’t you focus on sorting or streamlining the shipping process? It’s arguably the most critical step a small business can take towards securing repeat customers, and with these 5 must-know tips, every e-commerce merchant should be able to do just that.

1. Go Multi-Carrier

Shipping isn't free, but it can get super cheap if you know your way around your carriers. Sticking to a single carrier will ultimately drive up your costs, because each of the "big three" (USPS, UPS, & FedEx) for domestic shipments all have their niches (whether they want to admit it or not). USPS is by far the least expensive for anything under 13 oz. because of First Class Mail. Once you get up to the higher weight ranges, however, that tune can start to change. Unfortunately, there are no set-in-stone categorizations as to which is cheapest at which weights/sizes, so you'll have to play around with these as you start shipping your products or testing beforehand.

2. Know Your Weights

On a similar note, knowing the weights of each of your products is crucial to forecasting how much shipping them is going to cost you. USPS, UPS and FedEx all have three basic criteria for determining the cost of shipping: weight, size, and destination. Buying a USB scale might also help to nearly eliminate any additional charges or refusal of packages when your package is actually being shipped.

3. Standardize your Package Sizes

Having a ton of different sized boxes means you’ll likely need adequate space to store, organize and prep them as well. It can easily turn your storage space into a chaotic box warehouse rather than a product warehouse (even if your "warehouse" happens to be a spare room or your garage). Once you get your rhythm down with picking and packing, limiting package size options will make the entire shipping process go a whole lot faster - not to mention smoother.

4. Make it Unique

There are an infinite number of brown cardboard boxes, so how do you make yours stand out from the crowd? When people get your box of stuff, they should be excited. They've purchased something they’ve wanted or needed and it's finally arrived at their door. Whether it be on the inside (drop in a custom business card or note) or outside (use a specific style of copywriting in your shipments), putting the effort into making your packaging special shows a deeper level of thought about your company.

5. Get Some Help

You can't do it alone. Once you've found your niche, whether it's your product line or your personal contributions to your company, you cannot do everything. Find a scalable solution, one that will be there for you as you grow into multiple channels and increase sales.  Apps such as SumAll eliminate the need for hand calculations and fiddling with Excel. Others, like ShipStation, take away the need to copy and paste your data from your marketplace/shopping cart into your chosen carriers to print your shipping labels.

As you continue to grow your business, you’ll figure out more processes that flow with the specific way that you do business. You’ll find your groove and things will just start to click. You will probably have a few bumps in the road—we all have those. Don’t be afraid of the things that go wrong; fix them, and then get on with your life.

For more tips, tricks, and best practices from the folks over at ShipStation, make sure to head on over to their blog and give it a follow.

This post was contributed by Erika, the social media & content manager for ShipStation. You'll find her on their TwitterFacebookCommunity Forums, and other areas of the ShipStation world. In her free time, she loves video games, her cats, and other generally nerdy things. :)

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