If you are a small E-commerce business, you probably know the struggle of having to compete with big online retailers when it comes to your shipping costs.
While oil prices are rising steadily year by year, so are the costs of delivery for retailers and courier services providers. This creates issues for companies that want to stay competitive and not suffer the financial loss from cutting their production prices or from compromising on the delivery service quality…
In an ideal scenario, your shipping costs will be minimal and customer experience won’t be affected by the quality of the service provided. As a responsible courier company, we want to make sure we’re addressing these problems and helping our E-commerce partners make informed decisions that will boost their business and retain all their loyal client base in Ireland and across the globe.
Since we know a lot about shipping, we have some advice for you on optimizing delivery costs if you’re finding it hard to compete with larger retailers undercutting your price offerings by much or a little.
Zendfast Tips:
Learn your shipping basics
The most fundamental step to optimizing your delivery cost is understanding where your shipping costs come from bit by bit. Businesses often happen to overspend on courier services charging for collection and delivery, or added labor fees – unspecified and miscommunicated at the start of their cooperation. It’s important to read your contract agreement carefully in the beginning and make sure that you are given accurate estimates that reflect the market prices for the type of courier service provided. Another pricing factor that retailers also miss out on is the export and import fees they agree to when they ship internationally. Our best advice here is to keep an eye on the terms and conditions you subscribe to before you start to lose customers due to high delivery fees across Ireland or beyond.
Reduce package weight
Optimization of parcel size and weight might sound like an obvious thing to do if you want to reduce costs, but we know from experience that there’s often room for improvement! Weight is literally money so every extra gram can make a significant difference to your total shipping spendings. One way to optimize your parcels is by using lightweight packaging such as corrugated boxes instead of the traditional cardboard ones. There is a wide range of new materials on the market that can give you a tightly packed item, which won’t add much to your shipping cost apart from the bare minimum. You can also watch out for custom packaging options that may require a small initial investment to design, but eventually, work out perfectly for your products and delivery service.
Local deliveries
One of the major trends that we saw during the COVID-19 pandemic is people shopping locally and choosing independent businesses to meet their basic needs. Small online retailers saw a boom in that sense as more people were choosing local products and services instead of overpriced and undervalued offerings by large online stores based abroad. Doing business locally and choosing national providers is always a profitable strategy since the costs are usually adapted to the local standard of living and market prices.
Final words
If you are a small E-commerce business and you are new to the marketplace, you are probably well familiar with the strains of high shipping costs on your already low-profit margins…This is why we think is important to understand where your delivery costs come from precisely, and find the best ways to optimize these costs by finding more affordable alternatives, boosting both your profits and competitiveness to others!