In today’s global economy, companies are obtaining materials from and sending products to points farther away than ever before. Consequently, most businesses have seen their freight costs increase significantly in recent years. If your company hasn’t experienced that rise, you’re lucky.
Either way, lowering your freight expense benefits your company. Money not spent on shipping can be earmarked for something else or simply used to strengthen your bottom line.
How To Spend Less on Shipping
Whether you’re able to reduce your freight costs significantly or only by a little, it all adds up. And the changes you make pay dividends today and keep doing so going forward.
Use these nine tips to help you save money on shipping:
- Ship larger loads less frequently. Whether you have a shipping provider or transport your own goods and materials, there is an expense associated with preparing shipments that you pay on top of the cost to move the assets from here to there. Transporting larger loads less frequently means lower prep costs. To make this change, you’ll have to work with your customers to ensure they can accept more goods less frequently, but the time required to hammer out the logistics is worth it.
- Ship at off-peak times. Not surprisingly, shipping companies tend to charge more during peak times. The high-volume days vary based on industry, location and other factors, but often they are Tuesday through Thursday. Regardless, if you ship at off times, you’ll save money.
- Plan ahead and inform your shipping company. The more lead time you can give a shipping company, the better they can coordinate their resources. They don’t want trucks sitting idle anywhere for any significant time. If you help them avoid that scenario, they may charge you less.
- Develop and maintain relationships with shipping partners. While you want to stay alert for opportunities to get significantly lower rates, you shouldn’t “jump ship” just because you identify small savings in…
