Making Small Business Shipping Cheaper in the Holidays (and Beyond!)
For Small eCommerce Business Owners, Shipping is Part of the Job – But it Ain’t Cheap
As an eCommerce store or boutique owner, shipping is part of the job. You can’t avoid it and you have to eat the cost. And these days, shipping ain’t cheap for small business owners.
Rising shipping costs are a problem. With carriers upping their rates each year, it becomes more and more difficult to keep costs down. On top of that, there’s the “Amazon effect”. Customers now expect fast and free shipping. Or at least, very inexpensive shipping. If you’re a small business owner that ships from home, this is hard to match. Because, for you, it quickly becomes very expensive.
It can feel like you’re stuck between a rock and a hard place. But fear not. Here are a host of ways you can cheapen your small business shipping.
How to Make Your Small Business Shipping Cheaper
Apply lightweight packing practices
This one is really easy. If you want to cheapen your shipping for your small business, become a packing ninja. Use lightweight packing practices.
If your packaging is heavier or has a larger dimensional weight, that will add $ to the shipping cost. Large boxes with heavier packing material will add weight to your packaging. Plus, bigger boxes mean bigger dimensional weight. And if you’re using a large box for a small item, you’re essentially paying for air.
Use custom packaging that’s a better fit to your items to reduce shipping costs. You’ll no longer be paying for that extra dimensional weight. Or the weight added by packing material you’re using to keep your items still and secure.
You can also reduce the actual weight of your materials to make your small businesses shipping cheaper. Corrugated boxes are a great and lighter alternative to cardboard. Whilst air pillows, packing paper, bubble wrap and foam inserts can keep items snug and reduce weight. They’re also lighter packaging materials.
Ditch the boxes, switch to poly mailers
A lot of our live selling community at Ship.com are small clothing boutique owners. Most ship their beautiful clothing products from home. So, this tip is for them. And also for you, if you sell clothing.
Ditch boxes, switch to poly mailers. This is going to save you money, as the dimensions are smaller. You’re also not going to need materials like bubble wrap and tape. And that’ll further cheapen your small business shipping.
Choose cheaper materials
The unboxing experience is all the rage at the moment. It’s a fantastic way to make your customers feel special. Also, if they post an unboxing video and you have awesome packaging – great! That’s going to attract more potential customers.
However, branded boxes and fancy packaging aren’t cheap options for your small businesses shipping. If you don’t have the budget or it’s eating into your shipping costs, you may have to consider cheaper options.
Additionally, to cut costs on shipping materials, you can buy in bulk. It does initially seem like a huge hit to the purse. Although you will save dollars on a per-unit basis.
Take advantage of free supplies
Speaking of cheaper shipping materials for small businesses, did you know you can get FREE shipping supplies? And that you can get them delivered to your door?
I know, right? Free supplies to add to your home shipping station – win!
You can visit the USPS store online to order free boxes and envelopes. They’re usually delivered in boxes of 10 or 25. If your post office is nearby, you can drop in and pick up your free supplies.
And it’s not just USPS. Other carriers like UPS offer free packaging.
Be an eco-friendly shipper – recycle and reuse!
Want to know something awesome? You can be a shipping eco-warrior and cheapen your small eCommerce business shipping. How? By reusing shipping materials.
Whether it’s materials from old orders or packaging picked up at a recycling center, use it! Of course, if it’s still in good condition. You still want your customers to have a nice unboxing experience. And you don’t want items lost in transit due to shoddy packaging.
Start arranging free home pick-ups
I bet you most business owners wouldn’t factor gas into their shipping costs. But the truth is, if you’re regularly driving to the post office to drop-off shipments, gas is a cost!
If this is your situation – there’s good news. You can schedule home pick-ups through USPS for free! Not only can this make small business shipping cheaper, but it’s also a huge time saver.
Want to know something even better? You can schedule these home pick-ups through ShipOrder in just 2-clicks …
Use a Shipping Platform
Lastly, using a shipping platform like ShipOrder is a great way to cut costs. It also makes shipping way less complicated and time-consuming. Of course, we’ve just mentioned that you can arrange home pick-ups. But that’s just one of many ways that ShipOrder can cheapen small business shipping.
Often, small business owners like yourself will have to negotiate with carriers to get cheaper rates. That can be a lot of effort. However, ShipOrder does the hard work for you. You can get heavily discounted USPS and UPS shipping labels. FYI, you can also print labels super quick. It only takes 3-clicks.
Plus, you’ll always be shown the best rates. So, you won’t have to search for them yourself. There’s also features like automatic order importing and the ability to easily print scan forms. This way, you can reduce shipping errors. And, ultimately, less errors means less cost incurred.
Platforms like ShipOrder are an awesome way to save on rising shipping costs. As well as saving you precious time. And after all, time is money.
Summary
Small eCommerce business shipping is anything but cheap in 2022. But there are ways you can cut shipping costs and as a result, offer your customers less expensive shipping.
One of those ways, which we briefly touched upon before, is using a platform like Ship.com. To make shipping cheaper for your small business (and a whole lot easier), we’d like to offer you a 14 DAY FREE TRIAL.
This will give you full access to our executive subscription. That means unlimited discounted shipping for 14 days. You’ll also have access to other awesome tools that will help you grow your eCommerce business. That includes our all-in-one Facebook live selling platform, where you can sell products, collect payments, ship orders, and manage customer communications with ease.
Dear small eCommerce business owner, from everyone at Ship.com – happy (cheaper) shipping!