With online retailers offering consumers faster shipping speeds, it can be difficult for new businesses to remain competitive. Consumers have come to expect their products immediately. If you cannot provide that, they will choose another shipment process. These strategies can help you evaluate and eventually, improve the rate at which you ship products.
Offer expedited freight at the cost of the customer
Fast shipping can be expensive. You have to cover the costs of the expedited trucking or aerospace logistics to get the product there quicker, sometimes overnight. While fast shipping is important to some customers, it is not to every customer. One way to meet the needs of those customers that require faster shipping services is to offer expedited trucking, at the cost of the customer. You can still offer reduced or free shipping on normal ship times and an expedited cost for those that require something much faster than you normally use.
Incorporate expedited shipping in product costs
Depending on the initial cost of your product, you could also combine expedited shipping costs into the cost of your product. You advertise the goods cost with free shipping. This could make it more difficult to compete with other similar businesses on product costs, but you won?t have to worry about increased shipping costs. The ability to do this will really depend on the average cost of product sold. Smaller products might be harder to increase to meet shipping costs. Larger priced items, however, like machinery transport services are easier to tack additional costs to.
Expedite shipping for limited products
Additionally, some products are more cost efficient to ship at a faster speed. Smaller products can be transported by air travel and in LTL shipping processes. Machinery transport services are heavier and require expedited trucking transportation, which is often more expensive to ship. Studies show that shipping loads are increasing in weight, making this a good expedited option. In 2013, trucking transported nearly 15 billion tons of cargo. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that by 2040, that number is expected to increase to 18.79 billion tons. Businesses can pick and choose which products are worth it to offer expedited services.
Negotiate high volume deals with transport services
The reason that large online retailers can offer expedited shipping for a reduced fee is that they are shipping extremely large volumes of goods. If you are able to scale your product deliveries to a similar level, you can then negotiate the same shipping deals. Even taking the initial shipping costs out of pocket for things like machinery transport services can pay off in the long run, if they lead to reduced expedited shipping costs. Nearly 12 million trucks, rail cars, locomotives, and vessels move goods over the transportation network. This means that there are many opportunities for shipment cost negotiations, even for the machinery transport services.
Operate alternative shipping methods
In addition to considering alternative shipping routes like plane travel, locomotive travel, and carrier travel, the business can also negotiate shipping methods. One of the most common solutions today is LTL shipping. This is the process of employing trucks with less than truckload shipments. Depending on the value and size of the load, it can be worth it to use LTL shipping to negotiate more cost effective methods.
U.S. ecommerce revenue is about $423.3 billion and is steadily climbing. Whether it is full truckload, less than truckload (LTL), or parcel, carriers are being forced to adjust to changes in the retail industry. Larger businesses are setting the way and the expectations of the consumer are regularly changing. Fortunately, there are many ways for the traditional business to keep up with these constant business changes.
