3 Professional Shipping Secrets That Will Save Your eCommerce Business a Ton of Money

Ship much? If you have an eCommerce business you do. Shipping packages is essential when running and eCommerce store. But let's be honest, Shipping is tricky! When shipping a package, you need to think about actual weight, dimensional weight, balloon rates, oversize fees, additional service fees, residential fees, Delivery Area Surcharges and so much more. If your company ships multiple size, shape and weight items, you should never just use one shipping carrier or service as a "one size fits all" solution. Your leaving money on the table if you are. No one shipping carrier is the best, or cheapest at everything, or every size and weight package.

#1: If you are shipping anything weighing less than a pound, use USPS First Class Mail! A one ounce package with tracking to a commercial OR residential address, costs approx. $2.60 to ship to an address in the same town or across the country is the same price (Commercial Base Pricing through Stamps.com or another online postage program, Pricing at the post office may be slightly higher). The USPS is now allowing First Class Mail weights of up to 15.99 ounces. A package weighing 15.99 ounces (just under one pound) will cost about $3.65 to ship, to any residential or commercial address in the United States, including Alaska and Hawaii. Here is a link to a great chart showing First Class pricing for all weights from 1 ounce to 15.99 ounces. Stamps.com First Class Rate Chart

#2: Always compare shipping rates for every package you ship using multiple shipping carriers. We have better rates with FedEx, not UPS (You may have better rates with UPS), and the USPS has multiple services that the others do not. So for every order we ship, we compare FedEx Ground, FedEx Home Delivery, FedEx Smartpost, USPS First Class, USPS Parcel Select, USPS Flat Rate Boxes, USPS Regional Rate Boxes & USPS Priority Mail to find the best shipping rate for that shipment. Also, if our customer purchased two or more of the same item, we also compare the cost to ship multiple products in the same box, or strap multiple boxes together, which more often than not, will save a ton of money. (Remember, especially when shipping to a residential address, there are residential address fees per package. So more items in fewer packages will cost less more times than not!)