If your company doesn’t have a shipping strategy then it doesn’t matter if you’ve cornered the market in the manufacturing of widgets and thingamajigs. Products sitting on your shipping dock or stuck in a warehouse will cost your company both time and money. Even worse, a product delivered late or not at all will cost you clients.

Finding the right shipper can seem like a daunting task when you already have a million day-to-day items to manage in your business. Trying to remember shipping rates/schedules along with understanding the intricacies of packaging can clog your throughput pipeline and damage your business reputation.

Understand that every company has unique shipping requirements and they can change depending on several factors:

• Types of products shipped
• Special handling requirement (e.g., overweight, odd shape, chemicals, etc.)
• Volume and frequency of items shipped
• Delivery requirements
• Distance (CONUS or overseas)

These factors can fit into the services offered from several different types of shipping companies:

• Bicycle Courier
• Local Van Deliveries
• OTR Trucking
• Aircraft
• Boat

Until your shipping needs are set through years of experience, ensure your shipping strategy will cover “one up and one down.” If you normally ship using “local van deliveries,” have a bicycle courier service (one down) and an OTR trucking service (one up) in place. Informing a client you’ll need an extra day for an overnight shipment to research OTR trucking companies is not a solution.

Look for shipping companies where the shipping container (e.g., box, tube, envelope, etc.) is included in the shipping cost. If you ship items using OTR trucking companies, get involved in a one-to-one pallet exchange program to reduce costs.

Review your shipping situation every 90–180 days to ensure they are the most effective in terms of costs and time management. An OTR trucking company could be doing a good job and have an outstanding “on time” delivery rating, but when performing due diligence you might discover a different delivery service that is less expensive and can deliver a day sooner.

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