Are Shipping Cost Savings Worth it?

Imagine that there’s a Mr. Abernathy. He owns a major chain of craft stores. Now imagine there’s a Ms. Eliza that owns a small, but booming scrapbook manufacturing company. They happen to both be in the same scrapbook/gift boutique at the same time and Ms. Eliza point out her products on display and suggests Mr. Abernathy look over a sample.

In response Mr. Abernathy could request a sample. He could let her know that he was looking for something fresh to present at an upcoming corporate meeting where they’ll decide on what to order for the store inventory nationwide next spring. They could shake hands and move about their business after exchanging a few, additional, meaningless pleasantries.

Mr. Abernathy may have requested a sample because he was being polite. It doesn’t matter. Ms. Eliza now has an opportunity to send her products in to a buying meeting for what would be a HUGE client for her company. She prepped the package herself; arranging all the products “just so” to show them off effectively. She had it picked up for delivery the same day. Then she sat back and waited to hear back from the elusive, but surprisingly polite, Mr. Abernathy.

So when she never hears back she’s surprised. But then she gets the package returned to the warehouse. It was never delivered. There was a malfunction and it was lost in the shipping warehouse for several days before being returned for an unrecognizable address. And Ms. Eliza has officially missed her big chance.

Ms. Eliza knew that she was working with an untried parcel service. She switched from her major carrier to a smaller, less known shipping company for shipping cost savings fairly soon after opening her company. It made a big difference in her bottom line to lower the company expenses with shipping cost savings. But she realizes after the Mr. Abernathy fiasco that it definitely wasn’t worth it.

If I had been there I absolutely would have told Ms. Eliza to use a major carrier. You can’t give up quality service for shipping cost savings. It’s never worth it in the long run. I would have suggested she achieve shipping cost savings by working with Parcel Savings. They monitor their clients shipments and handle all refund requests so that you never pay for anything you don’t actually receive. This lowers shipping costs without decreasing shipping quality.

Sticking with a major carrier could have helped Ms. Eliza avoid the unexplainable, and life altering fiasco with Mr. Abernathy’s package. And working with Parcel Savings could have made shipping through a major carrier more cost effective than switching to an “unknown” shipping company to get shipping cost savings.She’ll never know what might have happened with Mr. Abernathy. But after experiencing such a shipping fiasco once…she’ll never make the same mistake again.

Ben Jamison is a consultant working with companies looking to streamline their shipping processes and decrease their shipping costs. The first thing he suggests for most clients is Parcel Savings. Parcel Savings handles parcel refunds and discounts for their clients. Many first time users are surprised to see themselves receiving $1,000’s in refunds per week.