Save Money on Shipping Costs
Ask your Shipping Company what they can do for you
Recently my UPS driver asked me if I had an Account Rep with UPS. We have been so busy lately that I never even thought about this. We only ship about 10% of our inventory from our warehouse here in Colorado so I wasn’t sure how this would benefit us. My driver sent in a request for me and a few days later I was contacted by a UPS Rep. that had been assigned to my account.
Well I soon found that having an Account Rep. is a huge asset to our business. First she looked into getting us a better incentive. She came back to me with a whole new rate plan. Last week our new incentives saved us quite a bit of money! She was able to negotiate new international rates with paperless invoices and set us up with UPS WorldShip, which is a much better way to organize and keep track of our daily shipments. We also set up a Daily Pick Up so my diver comes by everyday to pick up our shipments. My kids were very excited that they didn’t have to help me haul boxes into the UPS Store anymore!
I also learned that we can use our UPS account number with our suppliers. It may seem obvious, but I never thought of that. The more you ship the more you save. It saves us money to ship all of our shipments under our account number.
It took about a month to get everything set up but it was well worth the time and effort. We are saving money and I have a contact at UPS that can help me anytime I need it.
I’m sure other shipping companies offer incentives and can assign you an Account Rep. to help you better understand your shipping needs. Why not give them a call and see what they can do for your business?
16 Comments
hmjelks says:
You are right, our UPS Rep (Mary) takes care of us to at www.jelks-coffee.com and she is great. She and UPS is a asset for our company.
Harvey
Poz One says:
With the insane gas prices affecting our shipping costs, which in turn affects ecommerce sales, this is a great idea! Thank you, Kara. My UPS guy never mentioned finding our rep. I'm calling UPS now. :)
Poz One General Manager www.Embracethepositive.com
nikok2 says:
Agree with hmjelks, UPS has been much more responsive for daily pick ups and earlier drop off times at our DC for healthdesigns.com
Richard Kuipers says:
Great post, Kara! At windmilltrading.com I too use UPS for about 10% of my shipments. Even though it's only 10%, they're always the most expensive/heavy ones! I will contact UPS and see what "Brown can do for me"! :)
I'm also starting up a new venture for buyers in Europe whereby I basically act as the US receiver for their purchases and will ship the merchandise on to Europe for a fee. If I can get better rates by working with a rep, I'll certainly do that!
Richard Kuipers http://www.windmilltrading.com
alan_washburn says:
Yes, UPS is a great shipping tool for us. We have had daily pickup here for several years. We are pleased. Daily pick up at a consistent time of day, Helpful drivers, easy tracking of shipments, ability to enter an email address of customer in the shipping ticket which UPS emails the customer the tracking info automatically, cool! Eliminates a lot of calls from customers about their shipment. Billing is excellent. Higher monthly volumes get a little better rate. Have tried Fedex and DHL which are both very good and prefer UPS. Alan Washburn http://custompotrack.com & http://grapevinepotrack.com & http://hayspear.com
Zach Olsen says:
We use USPS because most of our packages are below 1 lb, and much cheaper and faster way to ship than UPS for us, but we use UPS in those situations when we some one requests it, tracking number is better than USPS delivery confirmation number. Once packages start to get over 2 or 3 lbs then UPS becomes a much better solution we have found so we willl sometimes ship large orders that way. Not enough orders yet for daily pickup but maybe someday.
Zach Olsen www.digitalpowerpro.com
Nomi Dekel says:
We've had a UPS daily pick up account for over a year. We don't send enough of our ecommerce orders via UPS to really benefit from the savings of having a UPS account just yet. But, the way I justify keeping it, is that it saves me a good amount of time not having to drive the packages to the UPS store. I save my back, because the packages we send via UPS are usually our bigger (boxes) & heavier orders. I agree with Zach that there is a price point where it's more economical to use UPS over USPS - I have found that to be at 3lbs. You receive a good size discount on the shipping charges when you purchase shipping labels under a UPS account and if you spend a specific amount on shipping in any given week the weekly pick up charge is reduced. We pay $17/week for daily pick up and have gotten as low as $12/wk. There is also some other type of discount that we haven't taken advantage of yet, that I need to talk to our rep about.
Nomi Dekel www.VoluptuArt.com
Karen says:
I'm amazed that your driver did all that work for you! After 2-1/2 YEARS of shipping with UPS, I one day got a call from my rep. I was astounded to learn that I even had one! The bummer is that I found out about my rep and the shipping discounts AFTER Christmas (aaarrgh!), but at least I did find out about this well-kept secret.
THANK YOU on behalf of all UPS customers for writing this blog post! And to UPS customers: don't assume your account is too small to qualify. If you have daily pick-up service, you probably do.
Karen Horne www.thecrittershop.com www.catandcaboodle.com www.tabletopcollectibles.com
andrewchane says:
Not to dampen your enthusiasm here, but I've found in my 20 years of being in direct marketing that there is quite a bit of turnover with UPS reps, and they never seem to do anything proactively for you. That being said, they can provide a good service when you really need them.
Andrew www.ToolsForWellness.com
Casey says:
Nice service UPS offers...not to mention that they also benefit greatly from it.
JackieBlueWear says:
We use DHL exclusively. UPS rates are more than DHL and with DHL we never have a damaged package. Something I can't say about UPS. Getting our shipments there fast and undamaged is priority #1 with us. Money aside, I would always go with the shipper that can accomplish this. After all, these guys are a reflection on your company and keeping the customer happy is what it's all about. You can get an account and sales rep with DHL to save more just like UPS. We have daily pick-up and really love the great service they give us.
andrewgreess says:
Some other ideas:
UPS imposes significant surcharges for errors. Be sure to "Validate ship to address" under "Tools" in Worldship. This will save you money.
Also, for $2/week you can get the thermal printer, which prints labels that stick right to the package. The best $2 you will ever spend. Saves time on every package.
Thanks.
Andrew Greess Pest Control Equipment Expert www.qspray.com www.beesuitscheap.com
interiorpieces says:
great advice! we have account reps for ups, dhl, tnt, and fedex and all have helped us get the best rates possible for all www.interiorpieces.com's shipping needs.
cabz says:
Very good advice. It is certainly true that not all account reps are created equal though. We've had quite a few of them throughout the years and only 2 were proactive with regards to our contract and other needs. That said, it's worth your time to hound them for the best possible discounts as it could be a huge cost savings for your business. Within the last year we've had two updates to our contract that have saved us many thousands of dollars and we're currently negotiating another - even after you get your first discounts be sure to continue to follow up every few months if your volume continues to grow (or even if not, as you can always play the 'FedEx dropped off some rate quotes' OR 'time are tough and we need to cut costs' cards) to see if you can squeeze a bit more out of them.
Overall, I would compare their setup to negotiating for a car - there's really no reason to pay MSRP and the 'deal' they show you is ALWAYS negotiable.
Carla says:
I just checked and that only works if you have daily shipments. Is that true?
John Lindberg says:
As an ecommerce fulfillment house, we ship between 10,000 to 15,000 packages a week and over the years we have worked with every major shipping service provider here in the US and overseas. We now focus our buying power on just two carriers: USPS and UPS.
Like everyone else, we have found the US post office to be the the most affordable for packages under three pounds although we add delivery confirmation to everything we ship as a matter of policy. The two problems are no free transit insurance like the $100 per package insurance that UPS provides and no real tracking capacity--just confirmation of delivery.
We recommend UPS for heavier packages and provide discount sharing of up to a 14% discount--this is normally better discounts than our clients can get on their own. The UPS service is excellent although their automated sorting equipment is hard on packaging--we use heavy duty cartons with plenty of padding to cope with this. The big problem is the rising cost of the surcharges which include $1.95 ground residential fee, a 10.25% fuel surcharge and a $2.30 rural area surcharge for some zip codes.
John Lindberg - President EFULFILLMENT SERVICE INC
www.efulfillmentservice.com
