Growing your shipping options for choice and cost saving

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Many marketplace sellers start off by simply taking their parcels to the local Post Office, especially if they begin their selling career as a casual seller and indeed out postal system is one of the best in the world and still the defacto choice for experienced sellers alike.

However if you’re still using the Post Office then you’re probably overspending on your shipping and underdelivering for your customers.

The second stage of your shipping journey is likely to be one of the many shipping consolidators. These companies give easy access to a wide range of couriers without the need to have an individual courier contract. The big advantage is that you can pick and choose the most appropriate courier and it’s ideal if you have that one oversized or overweight parcel or need to send an item overseas. You still get all the tracking if you booked directly with the courier, but probably at a more attractive price point.

As you get larger you will doubtless consider your own courier contract once you have the scale to negotiate decent rates. Don’t forget that postal operators also offer accounts with discounts available for various posting profiles dependant on your volumes and the type of service you require.

In today’s world it’s likely that you’ll want to offer a range of shipping options to your customers. Dependant on the product set, some may be very happy with a low cost economy service. Other products generally distress type purchases, may dictate that a next day (or even same day) service makes sense.

The larger online retailers routinely have contracts with multiple carriers giving them flexibility to ship light and heavy items with a choice of economy and priority couriers. When you get to this stage you’ll doubtless be looking to set up shipping profiles in your multichannel software solution to automate the choice of carrier used.

If you’d like to explore shipping options further, we have a range of carriers and postal services to choose from in the Shipping section of the Tamebay Guide.

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