One of the most difficult aspects of starting a physical product-based business is taking care of shipping. There’s no doubt that shipping products to customers is not only time-consuming but can also eat into your profit margins.
That’s what makes figuring out a shipping strategy so difficult for many new business owners. In this article, we’re here to help. We’ll teach you everything you need to know about how to ship products to customers.
Pick a Shipping Strategy
The first step to shipping products to customers is to pick the right shipping strategy that makes sense for your particular business. There are a few different options to choose from.
First, you can offer nationwide shipping. This will allow you to significantly expand your target demographics, which in turn could significantly increase your revenue. However, there are a lot of complexities involved with this option.
You have to calculate sales tax for each state. You have to use a nationwide service. And you also have to deal with the actual process of packaging and shipping more products.
Another shipping strategy is to only offer local delivery that you take care of in-house. This could be a great option for you if you don’t want to expand nationally and the size of the local market is plenty large enough for you to do business.
Identify the Right Shipping Service
If you’ve decided to go the nationwide route, then you’ll have to find the right shipping service for you. Whether it’s USPS, UPS, or FedEx, there are a few different options that you are going to have to choose.
A good way to figure out which one is right for you is to use each platform’s pricing tool. Take a look at your products’ size and weight, and figure out how much it costs to ship them with each platform.
Also, remember to think about delivery insurance. You want your products to be insured so that you don’t have to think twice if something ever gets lost in shipping. Talk to the commercial arms of each company sot that you’re able to secure discount pricing that’s available to high-volume buyers.
Decide on Cost Presentation
Last but not least, you need to decide on how you are going to present the cost of post-manufacturing shipping to customers.
Some businesses elect to provide free shipping to customers. They compensate for the cost of shipping with higher prices and higher sale volumes. Free shipping is always extremely attractive to customers.
The alternative is to advertise lower pricing for your products and then tack on shipping as an additional expense at checkout. This can lose you some customers right at the end of the checkout process, but it will protect your margins.
Read More: Top 5 Dropship Direct Suppliers: 2020 Edition
How to Ship Products to Customers, Made Simple
There you have it. Now that you know how to ship products to customers, you should be far better equipped to achieve success with your product-based business.
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