The holiday shipping season is officially upon us. The turkeys have all been carved and consumed, the cranberry sauce has been discarded and now the countdown to Christmas is on. For businesses, big and small, that means scrambling around and making sure that all products, ordered online and off, are packed properly and set to ship before the candles are lit and the cookies are paired with milk.
It’s a busy time, but it doesn’t have to be stressful. In fact, it can be rather fruitful – more so than usual actually. All you have to do is shake your belly like a bowl full of jelly and follow our six tips for shipping smarter this holiday season. (Who knows? You might even find some time to knock back a couple of cartons of eggnog in the process.)
1. Stock up on Supplies
Presents aren’t presents unless they’re wrapped in fancy paper. That’s a fact. And packages can’t be shipped unless they’re placed inside envelopes or set securely within the right-sized boxes. That’s why it’s important to have everything you need to ship and send off your products before those products are actually purchased. Because the last thing you want is to run out of supplies when you’ve got 2,000 items ordered and ready to ship.
Also, if you’re worried about overstocking, don’t be. Boxes, labels, pens, tape and the like are just as useful in May, June and July. (Unless of course you go with that elf-patterned packing tape or those red-and-green packing peanuts. If that’s the case, then your customers might be having a very merry Christmas all year round.)
2. Pre-Pack as Much as You Can, as Often as You Can
If you’ve done your homework, or if you’ve been in business for a while, you probably have a ballpark estimate of how many packages you’re looking to ship before Christmas Eve. (If you don’t, that’s okay too.
Either way, in the days leading up, and during the downtime in-between, it’s worth it to use all those preordered supplies to pre-pack as many packages as you can. That way, when the orders come in, the boxes, labels, tape and literature are all wrapped up and ready for delivery. All you need is the product and the address and you’re really to roll.
Speaking of addresses…
3. Double Check All Addresses
Even jolly old Saint Nick himself makes lists and checks them twice. (And he’s made of magic!) You should do the same. Not only will double checking all outgoing addresses prevent packages from being dropped off at the wrong doorstep, delivered late – or worse, like not at all – but some carrier services will even charge you an “address correction fee” for addresses that are egregiously misspelled or nonexistent. (And that’s the type of charity you’d rather avoid this time of the year. Trust us.)
4. Be Aware of Carrier Guarantees and Policy Changes
This tip is especially important post 2013. This time two years ago, FedEx and UPS were being thrown under the sleigh for “ruining Christmas” because they were unable to make good on promises offered by online retailers – some of which guaranteed free shipping on all orders made before midnight of December 23.
What resulted was a lot of packages being delivered to doorsteps closer to New Year’s Eve than Christmas Eve and some of the worst PR that FedEx and UPS has ever seen. (Just Google “UPS ruined Christmas” and you’ll see what I mean.
Because of that fiasco, you can bet all the candy canes in the world that the two parcel-peddling giants won’t ever let that happen again, which is why it’s important, now more than ever, to reread year-end policies and guarantees to ensure that you’re promising everything you can to your customers.
Need some actual shipping dates and deadlines? Check out this nifty infographic…
5. Keep an Eye on Your Rates
It’s a good rule of thumb to keep a keen eye on shipping logistics all throughout the year, but it’s especially important to do so during the holiday season.
You might be able to get away with shipping things via air when they could easily be shipped via ground, or you might be okay using premium services unnecessarily, but such practices during a time when more than the average number of packages are being shipped from your facilities is ill-advised. (Unless, of course, you don’t mind throwing away money like ripped wrapping paper.)
Our advice? Shop around. Compare rates. (Or we can do it for you.)
6. Protect Your Packages
Want to hear a staggering set of numbers? USPS is planning on shipping over 15 billion pieces of mail this holiday season – 15 billion! With a b! – 30 million packages of which will be doled out on December 23rd alone. That’s a lot of packages. (And it doesn’t include the numbers projected for the top two carriers in the country.)
Chances are, with such staggering numbers, a large portion of packages will be lost, stolen or damaged on their way from A to B. That’s why it’s important to consider contacting a third party vendor and getting any shipment that’s over $100 in value officially insured. (Shameless plug: Click here to visit Betachon’s Shipping Insurance page.) Otherwise, if your packages fall off the back of the sleigh, or are taken off by someone on the naughty list, or if Santa drops them on his way to the door, you might not be able to recoup anything but a bag of lumpy coal as a result.
Founded in 2008, Betachon is a family-owned, family-operated business that offers freight-auditing services for any company looking to save big when they ship – from Arizona all the way to Israel!