If your company relies on shipping, either to customers or from suppliers, it no doubt plays a substantial role in how your company does business. It probably also plays a big role in how much revenue you bring in. While shipping may be necessary, that doesn’t mean all the overhead that comes with it is too. Consider adopting the following methods for ensuring that your business model stands, just without so many costs attached to it.
Assess What You’re Paying For
This is an especially helpful tip for companies that have been in business for a long time. You may have signed parcel agreements back before you knew what you were doing, before you could afford other options, or before other options presented themselves. So it’s always worth revisiting it to confirm it still makes sense to keep it active.
The rate you’re paying could be based on characteristics of the package itself. Different handling charges could apply depending on how a supplier is transporting it. Plus, there are usually a number of different duties and taxes you need to consider.
Many suppliers out there may be issuing incentives, too, as a way of keeping customers from defecting. You’ll want to look into this as there’s a chance you were simply never offered this benefit and are missing out unnecessarily. Also, look for suppliers who do offer better deals and/or incentives and bring them to your current supplier’s attention.
Research Your Current Shipping Practices
It’s just as important to turn the lens on your own shipping practices too. The way you move products to customers or businesses you supply may be eating into your revenue. If you are shipping internationally, there are countless ways you could be getting hit with costs along the way. Sometimes, it might just mean that the customs procedures are slowing your supply chain down and a longer, roundabout one would actually save you time and money.
Collect Data
The only way to really handle the above two methods is by collecting massive amounts of data. This data should cover several years of business, assuming that will provide relevant examples (e.g. if you only began shipping internationally recently, the years prior to this change may not be very helpful).
If you don’t have sufficient data for research purposes, start developing it now by following the above two methods as closely as possible and then setting benchmarks going forward that your company can stop and assess things at.
Adopt Better Software
The easiest way to make sure that you always have the option to reduce overhead where your shipping practice is concerned is simply by having quality multichannel retailer software at your disposal.
This type of software can do a number of different things for your company. However, chief amongst them is that it can provide you with and help break down the above analytics for you. That’s how your company can look for places they’re spending too much and areas where they could improve in terms of shipping times.
Multichannel retailer software also makes it possible to measure the effectiveness of new options you may take on in terms of suppliers, supply chains, countries you ship through, etc. Without this option to your benefit, you’ll have a hard time applying objective measurements.
Negotiate
Once you have the right software working for you and the data you need, you should feel confident in negotiation with the relevant companies. Shipping and supply companies exist in large quantities these days, meaning you can afford to be picky, so long as you’ve done the necessary legwork.
Just because you’ve been handling the shipping component of your company a certain way for so many years doesn’t mean there aren’t other options worth considering. Follow the above advice and you can make the MOST® out of them.
Source:
https://multichannelmerchant.com/opsandfulfillment/world-class-strategies-for-sourcing-global-parcel-rates-and-contracts-23062014/
