How to Reduce Your Delivery Costs for Your Online Store: Five Options

Editorial Team

How to Reduce Your Delivery Costs

The cost of delivering the products you sell through your online store can potentially be high. In turn, that can significantly affect your profit margin.

Therefore, you should actively look at ways in which you can reduce your delivery costs. Get started by considering the five following options.

1.   Shop Around for Delivery Services

Different delivery companies offer different services and prices, so it’s undoubtedly worth comparing different companies to find the best price.

However, you shouldn’t always go with the very cheapest option. You need to make sure the company you choose can cater to your precise needs. If the company you select can’t meet your needs, you could find it’s far from cost-effective in the long run.

For instance, many owners of online stores choose to use a scheduled delivery service, which guarantees your packages arrive on a specified day and time. And when you use a company that provides an excellent scheduled delivery service, routes can be planned more efficiently, which in turn can lower costs.

By using scheduled delivery, you also ensure your customers get their items at a time that suits them. That will result in far fewer returns and a higher degree of repeat custom. Fewer returns will help you to save money.

A higher level of repeat customers will enable you to sell more products through your online store and generate more revenue.

2.   Use a Fulfillment Service

You may be able to reduce costs by using a fulfillment service. So, again, compare different companies to find out whether a fulfillment service is the best option for cutting down your delivery expenses.

If you’re not aware, a fulfillment service stores, packages, and ships your packages on your behalf.

Even if the cost of a fulfillment service seems high, you should spend time looking at the bigger picture because you could save money in other areas. For instance, when you use a fulfillment service, you can save a huge amount of time in a number of ways, and of course, time is money.

3.   Increase Your Volume of Deliveries to Get Discounted Shipping Rates

If you increase your volume of deliveries with a courier company, you should be able to get a discount.

So, it could be worth your while to contact different delivery companies to see how much you could save by increasing your shipping volume.

You could even use your negotiation skills to get a better price than is first offered.

4.   Consider Increasing the Delivery Cost That the Customer Pays

You always have the option to increase the delivery cost that you charge your customers; if you don’t offer free delivery.

You would then effectively reduce the cost you spend on delivering items.

In reality, you’ll still be spending the same on deliveries, but you’ll be getting more revenue to cover courier expenses.

However, the drawback of this option is that you could find some of your customers go with a competitor to get a lower delivery price.

5.   Rethink Your Packaging

Another often-overlooked way in which you can make substantial savings on your deliveries is to change the packaging.

For instance, the weight and size of a sturdy cardboard box will be more than a bubble-wrapped envelope or cardboard tube. So, if you can package the items you sell in less packaging and reduce the size and weight of your packages, you could save a lot on the cost of delivery.

Spend some time looking at different packaging for products and comparing prices and quality to choose the right packaging for your items.