Shipping is an important part of most retail businesses. Although shipping mistakes aren’t uncommon and oftentimes are out of the business owner’s control, taking measures to avoid them will help in preventing unnecessary shipping expenditure, delivery delays and poor customer experiences.
Read on for ISS's guide to the 5 most common shipping mistakes and how to best go about avoiding them.
1. Unsuitable Packaging
Many issues that occur during shipping could be avoided by ensuring cargo is packaged sufficiently. If an item is not packaged properly, there is far greater risk of it getting damaged during the shipping process. This can be an unnecessary expense for you as it is your responsibility to replace the item and cover the additional shipping costs.
For more information on how to package your products correctly, read our Packaging Tips to Minimise Damage During Transit blog.
You may also want to consult a professional on the best way to package your goods.
2. Incorrect Shipment Weight
Although it may seem harmless, providing an incorrect estimate on the weight of your shipment can result in the incurrence of additional expenses. Few business owners are aware that fees are often charged by carrier companies for businesses that provide an incorrect or inaccurate shipment weight.
In order to avoid these fees, you want to ensure you weigh all your shipments and provide your carrier with an accurate shipment weight. Consider investing in a good-quality scale or outsourcing your shipping processes to an experienced logistics company entirely.
3. Using Only One Shipping Carrier
Different shipping providers offer different benefits. Having a multi-carrier shipping strategy gives your business flexibility to choose various carriers that differ in terms of scale, expertise, and geographical location.
This will therefore give you the best chance of providing your customers with the fastest delivery whilst saving your business money, particularly on international orders.
4. Wrong Address
Even the smallest error in recording the delivery address can have drastic effects on the shipping process of the order. This may lead to you needing to resend the item which can be an unnecessary expense and lead to customer dissatisfaction.
In order to avoid this from occurring, you want to minimise the possibility of error on both you and your customer’s side. Consider installing plug-ins into your website that will auto-fill your customer’s address and always triple-check the address your employees record on the package itself.
5. Not Maintaining Delivery Receipts
Maintaining proper delivery receipts will help prevent you from being held liable for damages that occur during transit.
They will also help you pin-point exactly when and where any damages occur so you can better avoid them in the future.
Shipping mistakes do happen, even if you take all necessary precautions to avoid them. One of the best ways to ensure your shipping runs as smoothly as possible though, is to outsource the logistics of your business to an experienced shipping services provider, such as ISS. We will tailor-make a shipping solution that gets your shipments to your customers as quickly and seamlessly as possible, without going over your budget.
Get in contact with our friendly team today for more information.
