There is a trend in the business world to jump in and not think things through. Now when it comes to business I am all for jumping in and solving things a little later. It is better to get a few things wrong to begin with than to not even start. That philosophy is good, but in some cases, it can also bankrupt your company or simply dishearten you later on by seeing how much loss you incurred or how much money you lost due to an easy mistake. That is why I want to go over a few things i am seeing from eCommerce companies. There are some simple and convenient mistakes that are made all for the sake of being quick and easy and in some cases, it's not worth it. Taking the longer more complicated route even though it is as simple as picking up a phone and making a quick call is the answer. So let's go over ways on how to not lose money or your competitive advantage over simply shopping for shipping supplies.
Shipping is a huge part of eCommerce. It is a basic need and understanding that if someone is buying online then they need to produce to get to them somehow. Most of the time that involves shipping an item to them. The lessons that I have learned in this area have been great and vast and I have made wins and some big losses as well. In fact, I have even lost money on some of my entire sales, by messing up the shipping side of the equation.
Many people don't factor in the simple idea that a box costs money. Tape to seal and close the box costs money and some products need stuffing or padding inside the box to make sure the product does not break in transit and that costs money as well. I didn't think about this the first time I made an online sale and I lost 30 bucks on the wholesale. It was a sad situation because I didn't take any of the items above into my mind or the costs of the service to ship the item or the percentage that was taken from me by the third party platform I was selling on.
Another area that I needed to find a way to not lose money on was the products themselves. Getting shipping supplies at a reasonable rate is easier said than done, but it really only takes a call to the right place. There are companies online that specialize in tape and boxes and only sell those items. If you buy them on Amazon a 10% fee is instantly added to the product. But if you buy the item directly you usually get a much lower price and if you call in and make an order you can get a bulk discount as well. This is something that so many companies refuse to do. They stop working on saving money in a few small places and they end up losing tons of money over time. If you competitor is saving 3 dollars a shipment and does 100 a day. He can now afford to have more merchandise than you or do more advertising than you. That 3 dollars he saved on a box or tape, can mean the difference between success and failure.
