Shipping Products can prove to be a significant hassle that involves sorting through postal rates, address labels, and different carriers. Many women entrepreneurs will also agree that most large, as well as small companies, often incur significant costs due to inconvenient delays when it comes to shipping their finished products, raw materials, and equipment or components.
Consequently, most businesses and companies are always trying to find ways to have their finished products, raw materials, and equipment or components shipped faster in a bid to minimize costs and meet customer needs. So what are some of the strategies business owners can implement to get their products shipped faster?
Here are a few suggestions to women business owners:
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Minimize Your Options
Source: thebalancecareers
If you’re looking for ways to get your products shipped faster, it’s best to limit the number of shipping options you are offering. This helps to ensure that your inventory will be ready to go a lot faster. In an ideal setting, you would offer one option alone, even if it means offering incredibly fast shipping and higher prices. Of course, you may not want to opt for such an extreme approach, but it’s best to keep your shipping options as limited as possible.
Discover your client`s order completion rate
Source: mckinsey
Keeping your customers happy on their way to their order is a battle worth fighting. But what goes into a great shipping history? You’ve got to go one better than a 90% ship completion rate — you’ve got to stay on top of what happens at every step of your shipment process.
Read on to see how you can do it. First, set a target percentage for how often your customers will complete their purchases. In the case of order fulfillment, the number is anywhere from 50% to 90% — not an exact percentage, but a ballpark estimate. Many sites have set targets higher. The more accurate, the better, especially if you plan to contract with vendors. Second, provide a unique offering that enables customers to recognize the value of the purchase. If it’s a high-value service, offer it in a unique way. Don’t rely on last-day-of-the-month pricing.
Increase your transparency
Source: microsoft
How can you communicate how long your products are expected to last? Is your product life-cycle plan public? Think about every single option you have, including initial delivery, replacement/repair, warranty, recycling and more, and talk about how you are doing in each.
Keep Learning
Source: medium
The Internet keeps evolving; it never stops. Although it is difficult to stay abreast of all the new tools and techniques, it is important to learn as much as possible so you will be able to increase your efficiency and deliver consistently high-quality products.
As we know, shipping is the most time-consuming and costly portion of doing business. If there’s something you can do to cut down on the delays that are bound to occur with your business, keep your eyes open. Read everything you can about shipping. Know your options and see what may be available to you!
Automate the fulfillment Process
Source: sdsgl
If your business is shipping products without using an automated fulfillment process, then you are wasting too much money and time. Use an automated fulfillment process that handles the shipment of physical products, automating fulfillment services and notifying customers about shipments, and updating clients whenever stock id low. This approach works best for e-commerce businesses.
Group Shipments
Source: ft
Clearly, state in your shipping terms the specific days which you ship products. Such an approach allows you to group shipments in one shipping container and saves time and money as well as repeated trips to your shipping carrier. And if you need one, make sure to check out Gap Containers.
Cargo Management
Source: cds-net
Don’t just count the number of packages your freight carrier brings in, count their weight and size. This will help you set your fixed cost per mile based on the volume of cargo going through your service.
Schedule Billing
Source: itlize
Schedule your shipments into your Amazon account (if you are selling on Amazon) just as you would for other clients.
This is ideal for packing many shipments in a single container for multi-day transport.
Track Shipping Charges
Source: dropified
Keep track of all your shipping charges. You can import your shipping details from your Amazon Payments(if you are selling on Amazon) or to a spreadsheet in Google Sheets. You can then make reminders and deadlines to ship to avoid missing your shipping deadlines.
Use Free Packaging Supplies
Source: shopify
If you have an in-house shipping department, then it’s high time you start taking advantage of the free packaging supplies that major shipping companies offer. You can place orders on virtually all your shipping boxes, components, labels, and packing material directly from their website. This will ensure you enjoy a small saving for each item shipped and the process will be a lot faster.
Combine Shipping and Packaging
Source: dealsplus
You can consider using a company that offers both shipping and packaging for its clients. Some companies will even do everything from the warehouse right to the customer. Most of these shipping companies are very professional and will ensure the end product looks awesome with the packaging they provide.
Ship It Next Day
Source: born2invest
You will also have more business. If you can ship overnight, that’s great for a larger client and also a reliable service. According to Forbes, there are a variety of companies that offer services such as overnight shipping, storing and moving, package handling and distribution, thereby making shipping super fast and efficient
Consider Drop Shipping
Source: educationviews
Instead of holding your products in stock and incurring costs for holding inventory and other associated overhead costs, your wholesaler or manufacturer can ship the products directly to customers. Drop shipping can help you save a lot in money and time, but it’s not ideal for small start-ups.
The place of faster shipping in today’s fast-moving global economy cannot be overemphasized. Every businesswoman wants their customers to get their products fast, at a reduced cost, and the business wants the money fast too. This way ensures both the business and the customer go home with a win!
