Costly shipping mistakes and how to avoid them

If you’re here then the chances are that shipping plays a crucial role in your business. In some cases, your customer’s experience with your shipping services can be the difference between earning a customer for life and losing them forever. And as they say, the devil is always in the details and it’s small mistakes that can cost you a lot of stress, time and money. Thankfully, there are some things that you can do to remedy those issues. 

Today, we’re going to talk about the most common mistakes we encounter and how you can make sure you don’t make those same mistakes. Let’s jump right in!

Poor packing

Regardless of what you’re shipping, you need to choose the right sized box and the right protective packing material. Faulty packaging can cause a plethora of issues depending on what’s being sent – and in some cases, your parcels can get broken and or damaged. Make sure that whatever you ship – that you do your research or ask your courier service precisely how to package your items. 

Lack of transparency with returns

Make sure that you have a very clear, thought-out return policy that only gives precise instructions as to what needs to go where and how; but what will also happen once the package is received. This is a commonly overlooked aspect of the day-to-day function of a business that can lead to a lot of unnecessary expense. Also – be sure that all of your returns are going to one, centralized place. That way, things will run more efficiently. 

Underestimating the weight of your package

Weight has a heavy influence on the cost of shipping something from point A to point B. This can be an issue because if there’s a discrepancy between what you THINK the package weighs and what it actually weighs, companies can and will charge you extra – and in some cases that cost can be significant. Measure the weight of a product up front and save yourself the headache of unexpected fees and expenses. 

Use delivery receipts 

Keeping receipts is important because it tracks where a package was and when it was there. That way, in the event that something got broken, you can easily track back to when the damage happened and try to get some answers. Even though this isn’t ideal, it’s making the best of a bad situation and will at least show some initiative on your side to help your customers out.