The Top 7 Rules to Save on Shipping Cost!

Due to the COVID-19 and other factors, the charge from all major couriers (express shipping companies like UPS, FedEx, DHL . . . etc.), shipment service provider and logistics companies (mainly providing sea shipping service) have been rising drastically throughout the past 12 months. The fee will be expected to be getting higher and higher by next few months during the peak seasons. Worse still, more increase in the fees are expected in early 2022 until end of next year.

The rising of the shipping cost is a global issue and problem; thereupon, we totally have no control over that. As many of our current customers are local store and online store businesses, eplasticbag.com have tried our best to check with some facts and data, we believe we can provide some advices that may help our buyers minimizing the rising shipment charges.

Here below are ten tips that can help you to combat the rising costs of small package shipping:

1. Sourcing from one single location or locations as nearby as possible

The very first cost saving tip is that you should consolidate your sourcing from same location or locations that are nearby to each other. You probably have your product produced or/and sourced from a factory in the Far East, say, China, then you should source the packaging box and shipping material (eg, poly mailer) from the same province or city too. So once all the product orders are completed, you can easily gather all of them into one place with faster time and lower local transportation fee. Then you can arrange the shipment all the products together to save cost.

2. Buying in Bulk

Let's do a simple math and project your sales ahead. Plan ahead by ordering and buying in bulk. This will allow you to take advantage of fewer shipping charge. This will certainly save on both your administration and shipping costs as well as a reduction on the purchased product costs.

3. Negotiate with Multiple Carriers

All shipping companies have pricing schedules based on volume and weight: The more you ship, the lower your rate. We know small start-up businesses often don't realise they also may have negotiating power too. If you ship large numbers of packages, compare prices and try to persuade carriers to offer lower rates.

4. Minimize the Usage of Packaging

Plan well ahead and choose to use only the needed packaging that can suit your need. Minimise the use of unnecessary packaging and you can save every dollar while shipping your order out

5. Use Lighter Shipping and Packaging Material

We believe that in most case, you are shipping your customer's order via third party service instead of yourselves. This of course will incur a shipping and handling charge. If you are online businesses, your customers will surely come from all over the world and international shipment fee is relatively higher too. In such light, you must carefully plan the usage of your packaging and shipping bag. Follow lighter and yet still sturdy material like plastic can be a good choice. Feel free to consult our packaging specialist with more than 50 years of experience for details here.

6. Considering using Custom Packaging & Bag

Packaging is important as it represent your brand and product. It is very worth in investing on that as it can render higher customer's satisfaction and in return, higher customer's loyalty, high chance of repeated order and lower return rate. But most small businesses do not use custom designed, custom printed and custom sized packaging and bag because of the relatively high start-up fee, MOQ and higher per unit price.

However, if you can consider firstly the every benefit you can gain from custom packaging we mentioned above, plus, that if you can have your own designed and sized packaging bag, in the long run, you can for sure make every dollar spent worthy. Custom packaging will better suit your product in image, size and design and so, you will have a well-fit packaging that represent your company. As the packaging is well-made to fit and suit your product and need, you can choose the best thickness and size, thus, you will eventually spend less on shipping fee. This is of great importance especially during this period of time when shipping fee is on the rise.

7. Leveraging our 50+ Year of Experience & Expertise

ePlasticBag.com has been established since the year 1966. We have more than half a century in producing and printing packaging bag, shopping bag, poly mailer and much more. Consult with us to see what else we can do to help reduce your costs in all the stages of your operations. With proper planning and our desire to have customers to thrive, big things can happen. Contact your ePlasticBag.com packaging specialist today and be amazed just how much savings we can provide at sales@eplasticbag.com.