Ship More Efficiently – The Basics

This article will help you drastically decrease the amount of time new online sellers  spend shipping out items.  This guide is geared towards the online selling beginners, but some of you old salts may wish to check out the TIPS throughout the article.

First, let’s break down shipping into its basic steps: packaging, affixing postage, and sending.  Each one of these processes has opportunities for reformation, providing invaluable cost and time saving opportunities!

Packaging

Packaging consists of getting your product ready to ship.  Your products may either already come ready to ship out (consider yourself very lucky) or have to be packaged sometime before or after the sale.  If your products are prepackaged, skip right on down past the chart below.  Now, let’s decide whether your items will be packaged before or after you sell them.  Are many of your items small enough to be bundled together in one box?  Do you wish to offer combined shipping discounts?  This means that you would most likely opt for packaging after the sale.  A customer will buy a few things from you, you go grab them, throw them in the same box, and save on shipping.  These savings can be fully or partially passed on to the customer to encourage them to buy more.  The downside is that you cannot accurately use a shipping calculator because you will not know the size or weight of the shipment.

TIP:  A quick way to approximate fixed shipping for a single item is to prepare the package and then calculate its shipping across the country.  Go to your carrier’s website calculator and use 07030 and 90210 as the start and end points.  We find that, on average, we make enough money to pay for our packaging costs on top of actual shipping.

If you are selling mostly single items to a box, we recommend you package prior to the listing.  This way you can use a shipping calculator to quote your customers in real time.  You can also set a specific markup for all packages.  For instance, if you find that your packaging materials cost about $3.00 per shipment, you can pass this cost on to the buyer by setting a $3.00 markup on calculations.

I have assembled the mentioned benefits (as well as some other important ones) in the table below:

Prior to Listing

Benefits

• Accurate real time shipping calculations
• Allow buyers to choose shipping carrier/speed (calculator allowing)

Shortcomings

• Unsold items still require labor
• Cannot offer combined shipping discounts

After Sale

Benefits

• Offer combined shipping
• Unsold items do not use labor
• Encourage multiple item sales

Shortcomings

• Less accurate shipping calculations

REMEMBER: If you are packaging prior to listing, you will need a scale to input the weight into a shipping calculator (including eBay’s shipping calculator).  I recommend going on eBay and finding a digital scale rated for 70lbs.

Now I’d like to change gears and talk a little bit about the source of your packaging materials.  We have tried a few different suppliers and one easily stands out above the rest: ULINE.  Their service is excellent and their prices are unbeatable.  For instance, we got a case of packaging tape a grade higher than we usually get for less than half the price, and it came with a heavy duty handle dispenser free!  Try to adapt to their most popular boxes.  They always offer the lowest bulk rate for about 30 different sizes no matter what quantity you order.  Call and ask for their catalog.

TIP: Make sure the empty space in your packages is filled with packing peanuts.  This prevents the box from flexing and popping the tape right off.

Okay, we’ve made it through the first section, now lets move on to…

Affixing Postage

This part of shipping is where most beginners get bogged down.  There are actually three tasks to perform for this step.

• Purchase the postage
• Print the postage & mailing info
• Attach postage and mailing info

You may be thinking, “Can’t I just go to the post office and get all of these done in one place?”  Well, yes, but you definitely do not want to.  Just think about packing up your car with boxes, driving to the post office, waiting in line, handing over all the addresses to be processed one by one…..etc.

Here is the setup we usually recommend to beginners:

Carriers:

Using Mostly Fixed shipping under 15 lbs:

USPS

Using mostly Fixed shipping over 15 lbs:

UPS

Using mostly calculated shipping:

BOTH!

First you will need a label printer.  I highly recommend renting one from UPS.  Buying one will run you about $100-$300).  Renting from UPS costs only 2 dollars per week and includes FREE unlimited labels.  The Zebra label printers also have a nasty habit of breaking, and UPS will simply replace it if that happens.  Next you will need a scale.  I recommend going on eBay and finding a digital scale rated for 70lbs.

Now let’s buy and print some postage…

For customers who paid via paypal:

Use Paypal shipping to purchase and print your postage.  It automatically imports their shipping info and purchases the postage from your paypal account.  Paypal shipping works with both USPS and UPS

For customers paying with other methods:

UPS has a desktop program integrated with their shipping service (purchasing and printing postage) called WorldShip.  USPS has a website interface called Click-N-Ship.  Both of these solutions are FREE.

REMEMBER: When shipping with USPS, always purchase delivery confirmation.  You will need it to prevent a buyer from committing mail fraud.  For items over $250, you must purchase signature confirmation from both UPS and USPS to be protected.

The labels you print are adhesive.  Slap them on your package and put it by the door for pickup.

Sending

Now that your package is sitting by the door, let’s get it to its final destination.

Both UPS and USPS will pick your paid packages up right from your workplace or home.  It’s NOT as expensive as you might think. 

If you are going to ship with UPS, get a daily pickup account.  It’s only 7 dollars per week if you spend 50 dollars or more with them that week (otherwise it is only 16 dollars).  A daily pickup account will get you up to 40% off regular UPS rates.  USPS pickups are FREE as long as you schedule each one individually the day before through usps.com.

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Congratulations!  You’re now set up to start shipping like the pros.  Once your sales volume really starts to increase, check out our next guide: Ship More Efficiently – Power Tips.

This guide was created by Adam Morris and Sell Center LLC - Asset Recovery, Ecommerce, and Multi-Venue Specialists.  Do not copy without permission.