How to Reduce Your Parcel Shipping Costs

Parcel shipping is complex. And confusing. The reality is, a lot can happen between “label to landing” aka, when you print your shipping label to when your customer receives their package.

We sometimes think about packages like velcro. As that package travels from origin to destination, a bunch of extras fees, surcharges and added costs can “stick” to it. All of that stuff can really add up, making your actual shipping costs much higher than your expected shipping costs.  

In this post, we’ll explore a few ways you can reduce your parcel shipping costs for free. You’ll learn about a few variables that might be having a big impact on your overall shipping expenses. But before we get into the cost savings opportunities, allow us to introduce ourselves.

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Hi, we’re Lojistic.

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ShipSaving + Lojistic = big parcel shipping cost reduction opportunities

Lojistic is a free cost savings automation and analytics platform that helps businesses reduce shipping costs.

And we’re thrilled to partner with ShipSaving to help you save even more on your parcel shipping costs.

Our platform lives alongside your current ShipSaving account. Since you’re already using ShipSaving to connect your store, create discounted labels, pack & fulfill in batch and track in real-time, you’ll be able to use Lojistic for free to:

• Ensure your parcel invoices are 100% accurate
• Get money back for carrier mistakes
• Get packages to your customers faster and for less
• Reduce or eliminate surcharges
• Keep DIM weight from driving up costs
• Protect yourself from getting overcharged by your carrier
• + more

Want to see your cost reduction opportunity? Create your free Lojistic account today. 

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100% Accurate Parcel Invoices

There can be a lot of “stuff” on your shipping invoices that shouldn’t be there. The Lojistic platform automatically identifies every carrier billing error and service failure. Invoice errors and service failures, such as late shipments and duplicate charges, could mean big refund opportunities for your business.

Lojistic quantifies the impact each has on your overall shipping costs and how much you may be owed in potential refunds. The bottom line is, you should NEVER pay an inaccurate invoice.  With Lojistic, you’ll never have to worry about carrier invoice issues again. 

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Get Money Back For Carrier Mistakes

Did you know that you can get refunds from your carrier? Every carrier billing mistake and service failure carries a cost. Lojistic automatically quantifies the amount of potential refunds you’re owed by your carrier. As a ShipSaving partner, we’ve made it really easy for you to get your refunds.

You’ll get all of the detail you need from within Lojistic to chase down refunds on your own. We’ve even created this step-by-step DIY refund recovery guide.

Or, you can let Lojistic get your refunds on your behalf. We’ll even do it for free for 120 days once you create your Lojistic account. 

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Get Packages To Your Customers Faster and For Less

Sometimes ground service guarantees faster delivery than air. It’s true. The higher cost of air services doesn’t always mean that your packages will get to your customers any faster than if you had shipped using the more cost effective ground option.

Lojistic helps you optimize your shipping spend with the Air vs Ground analytic. Air vs Ground shows your total number of air shipments and your total number of ground shipments.

The platform identifies which shipments could’ve arrived in the same number of days and which shipments would’ve arrived even faster had you used ground instead of air. How often have you paid more money for a slower service? Air vs Ground will help you reduce your shipping costs in a meaningful way by adjusting the service levels you’re using. 

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Reduce Or Eliminate Parcel Shipping Surcharges

There’s a surcharge for just about everything. At least it feels that way. Parcel carriers, especially UPS and FedEx, love to tack on added fees. Lojistic identifies all surcharges, then provides you with the information you’ll need to mitigate or eliminate the financial impact they have on your overall parcel shipping costs.

That’s why Lojistic complements your ShipSaving account so well. 

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There’s hundreds of surcharges, so it’s nearly impossible to keep track of them all. Here’s some of the most common:

• Fuel Surcharge - extra fees the carrier assess to cover the fluctuating cost of fuel 
• Large Package Fee - assessed by the carriers when a shipment is bigger than they prefer it to be when moving through their network
• Extra Large and Heavy Fee - a penalty fee assessed by the carriers when a shipment is too big or too heavy
• Residential Delivery Fee
• Handling Fee - an extra charge incurred with “special” effort is required by the carrier during pickup/transit/delivery
• Address Correction Fee - extra charges that occur when the carrier has to correct or edit a shipment’s “Ship To” address during the process of transporting the shipment 

Easily track and manage your total surcharge cost per carrier, and see your surcharges as a percentage of your total shipping costs. You might be paying more in surcharges than you realize. That can change! 

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Keep DIM Weight From Driving Up Your Costs

Like almost everything else with parcel shipping, the weight of your packages can be confusing. That’s because there’s Actual Weight, Billed Weight and Dimensional Weight.  And if you’re not careful, you could end up spending a lot more than needed. 

• Actual weight - the weight you’d see if you put your package on a scale
• Billed weight - the weight that you’re charged for shipping the package
• Dimensional weight - a calculated “weight” based on the length, width and height of the package

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DIM Weight Explained

Both UPS and FedEx use a “DIM” factor to calculate the Dimensional Weight of your package. They multiple the length, width and height of the package, then divide that number by the DIM factor. The current DIM factor is 139. 

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UPS and FedEx will always bill you for whatever is greater: Actual Weight or Dimensional Weight. It’s one of the many ways the carriers maximize their profits off of shippers like you.

With Lojistic, you’ll be able to monitor and manage all of your shipments that are impacted by your carrier’s DIM pricing. Sometimes DIM pricing can be avoided by optimizing your packaging, in other words, if you’re shipping small, light-weight items be sure to avoid packaging that’s too large.

All that extra space in your packaging might be adding a bunch of unnecessary costs! 

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Protect Yourself From Getting Overcharged By Your Carrier

The reality is, there’s tons of ways to reduce your shipping costs. Carrier pricing is complex. And confusing. All those complexities are opportunities for the carriers to squeeze every last penny out of you. Remember our velcro analogy. Fees, surcharges and more might “stick” to every package you ship.

You might think you’re paying one amount because that’s what your label says. But really, you’re paying much more once all pricing variables and add-ons are taken into account. Lojistic identifies your biggest cost reduction opportunities, like eliminating correctable errors and fees (it’s not always the carrier’s fault), optimizing your packaging, shipping with the fastest and cheapest service level, securing your carrier refunds, getting better rates and much more. 

With Lojistic, you’ll never overpay for shipping again.   

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Reduce Your Shipping Costs Today

Create your free Lojistic account here and quantify your cost reduction opportunity.

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We’ve partnered with ShipSaving to ensure you’re getting the best possible deals on every single shipment, regardless of your carrier. As we like to say at Lojistic, we’re here to help you Send Costs Packing.