For small businesses, parcel delivery can be a nightmare. Charge too much and you may lose customers on that point alone, but charge too little and you'll end up losing money on each sale. Finding the right balance, as well as ways to shave time and costs on your end, can help your business significantly.
Get postage discounts
If your business is set up to prepare your own post, you're liable to save a lot of money. By buying or renting a postage meter, you can weigh and apply the postage to your own mail. This way you're making sure everything sticks to the official postage guidelines, which speeds things up and rewards you with lower postage costs. While you do have to spend a bit of time stamping all your envelopes, you get to skip the post office queues, which can often take up more of your time.
Get some help
If you find the problem with parcel delivery is that you spend too much time preparing envelopes or parcels – time that could be spent developing your services – you may find it beneficial to hire someone to take care of things for you. While not many people are likely to join your company for this express purpose, you can get in touch with a company who can help with this – either through drop shipping or as a dedicated postal service.
Set standard rates
While trying to offer a rate for each individual package may seem fairest, offering standard charges for a weight range can often work out easiest for you. Another option is to slightly increase the price of each item and then offer free or discounted shipping. With either version, you can reduce the cost of postage as the order gets bigger in order to encourage sales.
Although parcel delivery may seem like it should only be a minor part of your business, it often takes up more time and money than it should. By taking time to seek out the right solution you can service your customers without breaking the bank.