How To Keep Postal Costs To A Minimum – Small Businesses

Funnily enough, all businesses start as a small business and then grow. Everyone starts off by keeping spend to a minimum at the same time as trying to keep customers happy. 

Postal costs can be a big expense if not managed correctly. It’s going to be hard to try compete against e-commerce giants like Amazon when it comes to shipping, but it’s something that needs to be right, it’s essential, not only for your business, but also for your customers. 

Reducing your e-commerce shipping costs can be difficult. But, if you want to keep costs down and margins high, it’s important to look into. 

Let’s see…

How best to get started

1. Right Sized Packaging

   No doubt you’ve received an item in packaging which is way excessive of what it needs to be, it’s a pain and you have to try get rid of it somehow. When it comes to shipping, weight is money. So, the bigger the package, the higher it’s going to cost. When it comes to choosing your packaging, get the right size box or bag! Measure your products and get the packaging to suit them. The right size box will reduce shipping costs.

2. The Weight

   When you’re using different packaging, choose one that is lightweight and strong. The lighter a package weighs, the less freight cost you’ll have to pay. Try not to use void fill if possible, if you have to choose something light, like honeycomb paper.

3. Courier Sized Packaging

   Every courier is different when it comes to cost for package size and weight. Choose packaging which fits into the smaller categories of courier pricing. For example, Royal Mail – There is several types of postal boxes for smaller items that fit into “Large Letter” pricing instead of “Small Parcel”. This helps keep your costs to a minimum. 

4. Postage Scales

   These are very useful and definately worth the investment. If you take parcels to a post office, varying weights can round prices up to higher costs. With a postage scale, you can monitor and ensure packaging fits within specific weight categories. This enables to acfurately predict the cost of your shipping and have more control over your budget. A good investment if you use Royal Mail is the “franking machine”. 

5. Wholesale Prices

   As a small business, you can keep costs down by purchasing in bulk, or higher quantities. This is good as you’re going to use the packaging eventually, so you may as well get enough stock to last 1 month, 4 months or even a year. The more you purchase the lower the unit cost, so in the long run its more cost-effective. You’re probably thinking – I don’t have space to do that! That’s no problem. Most packaging comes flat-packed taking a lot less space than you think. A different way to do it is ask your supplier if they can hold the stock for you for a certain length of time. 

6. One Supplier

   It can be hard sometimes to get everything you need from one supplier. But if you can it can save cost, time and will be a lot easier for you. You can get them to send everything together which will save freight costs and reduce unit costs. 

7. Mailer Bags

   Mailer bags are a great option to explore. When shipping products like clothing or books, the mailer bag is far more cost effective due to being lighter, smaller, and use less packaging material. They don’t require anything like tape to secure them. You can even send smaller products with bubble or padded mailer envelopes. This will be worth testing and seeing how much you could save. 

To finish off…

There you go, a few quick tips and tricks you can try out to save on postal packaging as a small, or start-up business. Freight costs can be daunting at times and can be a lot more than expected, but if you follow the above steps you’ll start saving. Try and source locally where possible then freight costs are also reduced when sending to yourselves. 

If you’re needing any packaging supplies to reduce your postage costs, get in touch. Our low MOQ’s and fast-response, friendly team can answer any questions you may have on how to further save time and costs.