Small Business Opportunity to Win a $100,000 and Get Free Shipping Advice

This week, April 21-25, 2008, is National Small Business Week.

I have been a small businessman for 18 years. I know the struggle and the sacrifice. It isn’t easy and many people fail. I was able to succeed with the love and support of my wife and through the advice of mentors other business owners and CEO’s that I met through The Executive Committee (TEC).

As a way of paying back, I would like to help you save on shipping. That is why I have offered to help the winner of the $100,000 small business makeover by analyzing their shipping costs for the past 6 months and sharing with them how they can save money.

This is once in a lifetime opportunity for one small business –
a chance to win a $100,000 makeover complements of SBTV.com, Sam’s Club and The National Federation of Independent Business.

The makeover includes the following:

– Up to $25,000 in cash

– Merchandise and supplies from Sam’s Club

– Mentoring from SBTV.com experts (I will be assessing the winner’s shipping costs and I positive I will be able to help them)

– A lifetime membership to NFIB

– A trip to Washington DC for NFIB’s Small Business Summit June 8-11th.

No purchase is necessary to enter or win the contest.

For details visit http://www.sbtv.com/ and click on the $100,000 small business makeover logo.

Here is how you can win $100,000 and Save on Shipping:

1. Visit your local Sam’s Club during National Small Business Week from April 21st through April 25th, 2008.
2. Bring in a recent invoice dated before April 21st or a list of items you typically purchase for your business.
3. An associate will compare your list to a list of 25 core Sam’s Club products and let you know just how much you can save by shopping at Sam’s Club.
4. Go to www.SBTV.com and use your Invoice Comparison Challenge code to register for your chance to win the $100,000 prize package

FedEx Executive Shares Delivery Options Every Online Seller Should Know

FedEx Home Delivery is a service designed for online retailers and eBay sellers that have hard to please the customers. Did you know that FedEx will call your customer and set up an appointment to deliver the package when the customer is home? Even at night or on a Saturday.

We all lead busy lives and it is frustrating as a consumer to have to wait for a package to be delivered. It is even worse if the carrier comes and leaves a note on the door saying that they attempted a delivery and you have to wait another day.

Steve Noble, Product Manager for FedEx Home Delivery, talked to me at the National Conference on Operations and Fulfillment about some of the unique options that FedEx can provide to satisfy customers.

FedEx Home Delivery offers features like the following:

• Delivery until 8 PM (like when we are home from work) and the option for an evening delivery
• Saturday delivery at no extra charge
• An option to specify the day the package will be delivered
• You can even specify a specific date and scheduled time. FedEx will contact the recipient by phone in advance to schedule the delivery.

Retired DHL VP Shares Inside Secrets for Slashing Shipping Cost

Jerry Hempstead retired as Vice President of DHL in January 2006 after 33 years in our industry. At the National Conference on Operations & Fulfillment, Jerry moderated the panel discussion of experts (I was one), entitled “40 Ideas to Reduce Shipping Costs”.

I asked Jerry to if he could provide advice for small business shippers, eBay sellers, and online merchants on how they might be able to cut their shipping costs. In this video, Jerry shares, what he calls, the best kept secrets in the industry for saving on shipping.

Jerry believes that the best way to cut express shipping is to use the carrier’s pre-paid products.

DHL has a product, called ShipReady. You can purchase letter, legal, packs or boxes. The minimum quantity is 10. I looked at the price and it was $16 for an envelope guaranteed to arrive the next day before noon. I then looked up how much it would be to ship that envelope across the country using www.dhl.com. The price was double!

Prepaid services don’t have:

• Residential surcharges
• Delivery area surcharges
• Weight limits
• Fuel surcharges

This is a GREAT way to save money. Thank you Jerry!

Taylor’s Tip #10, “Purchase prepaid express envelopes; save 50%!”

Cut Parcel Insurance Cost in Half

Taylor’s Tip #9, “Don’t buy parcel insurance from your carrier; save 50% with third party insurance.”

UPS, FedEx, and DHL all offer various forms of insurance if your package is lost or damaged. With these carriers a shipment is automatically protected up to $100 for loss or damage, but if you require more protection than you need to declare a higher value for protection. FedEx and UPS call it “Declared Value”. DHL calls theirs “Shipment Value Protection. The US Post Office offers insurance as well.

The formula works pretty much the same even though the rates are different if you have a retail or commercial account.
For example, UPS charges $0.90 for each $100.00 (or portion of $100.00) of the total value declared, with a minimum charge of $1.80. If you had a package that was worth $500, you would subtract the $100 that is included and have $400 or 4 units x $0.90 for a cost of $3.60.

If you did 10 packages a month, you would be paying $36 just for insurance!

Now here is a secret that many eBay sellers and online merchants don’t know. There are third party insurance companies that will insure your packages for 50% less than the carriers charge.

I had the opportunity to video Walt Moscoso, Director of Sales for U-PIC Insurance services at the National Conference on Operations and Fulfillment.

U-PIC offers discounted package insurance for packages shipped via major carriers such as UPS, U.S. Postal Service, FedEx, DHL, etc. The package is shipped by the carrier but insured by U-PIC, saving you hundreds, perhaps thousands of dollars every year. You will save 60-80% on your insurance costs. There are no minimum requirements.

USPS VP Offers Tips for Saving on Shipping for eBay Sellers & Small Business

At the National Conference on Operations & Fulfillment, I asked Jim Cochrane, the Vice President of Ground Packages for the United States Post Office, if he could provide some tips for eBay sellers, online merchants, and small business. In this video, Jim speaks about some of the unique opportunities for saving money that the US Post Office has to offer.

Jim specifically mentions in this video three exclusive services where shippers can gain significant savings.

The first service is the USPS Priority Mail Flat Rate Box in which you can pack in as much weight as will fit in the box and ship your package anywhere in the United States for a flat fee. These boxes come are at two price points: the new large flat rate box is 50% larger than the original Flat Rate Boxes (12″ x 12″ x 5.5″) and is $12.95 for domestic shipments, $29.95 when shipped to Canada and Mexico and $49.95 for all other countries.

The original Flat Rate Boxes come in two sizes, the shirt box size (11″ x 8.5″ x 5.5″) and the shoe box size (13.625″ x 11.875″ x 3.375″) for $8.95 domestically, $23 when shipped to Canada and Mexico and $37 for all other countries.

I have put as much as 20 pounds in this box. The same weight with another service (Parcel Post) or carrier would be twice as much. This is a GREAT deal because you don’t have to worry about fuel surcharges, residential delivery charges, or delivery area surcharges. See Taylor’s Tip #7.

The second great tip is First-class Mail Packages. The USPS is the only carrier to offer ounce based rates. UPS, FedEx, and DHL charge by the pound. This means if you have an eight ounce package that you will be billed at the carrier’s one-pound rate. For packages weighing less than 13 ounces, this is the one of the least costly shipping services available. For example, the rate for an eight ounce package is $2.36! First-Class mail is delivered in four days or less. An 8-ounce package costs only $2.32 to ship compared to the Priority Mail rate of $4.60 - a 50 % savings.

You can also add Delivery Confirmation.

Jim’s third tip was for eBay and Amazon sellers that ship books and CD’s. The USPS has a special category called Media Mail. The delivery standard for Media Mail is 2-9 days. Media Mail is a service offered by the U.S. Postal Service for shipments of books, films, manuscripts, printed music, printed test materials, sound recordings, play scripts, printed educational charts, loose-leaf pages and binders consisting of medical information, videotapes and computer-recorded media such as CD-ROMs and diskettes. The cost to send a one-pound box from New York to California using the USPS Media Mail rate is $2.13 compared to $4.60 using Priority Mail, a savings of 54 %. The package may take up to seven days to arrive, but at that price, the delay may not matter. In addition, if you want confirmation that the package was delivered, you can purchase Delivery Confirmation.

Thank you Jim!

Jim Cochrane was named Vice President of Ground Services for the United States Postal Service in February 2008. In this role, he reports directly to the Postmaster General. A 33-year postal veteran, he was previously manager of Package Services, directing product development and strategy for the Postal Service’s $11 billion portfolio of domestic and international package products.

If You Only Use 1 Parcel Carrier, You Are Leaving Money on the Table

At the National Conference on Operations and Fulfillment, in as session entitled, “Parcel Carriers Deliver”, moderator Jerry Hempstead asked executives from UPS, FedEx, DHL, United States Post Office, and Eastern Connection,

“What is the biggest mistake parcel shippers are making?”

Jim Cochrane, Vice President of the US Postal Service, responded, “If you only use one carrier, you are leaving money on the table.”

The message was clear. Shippers need to consider all their options.

Dave Loonam, Vice President of DHL Global Mail, answered, “Know where your packages are going and don’t pay for a service you don’t need.”

Keith Kellison, Corporate Strategy Manager of UPS, suggested when it comes to choosing shipping options that it is important for shippers to “Pick the right product.” He shared that some shippers tend to swing from making it a policy to ship everything ground to save money to shipping air to satisfy customers. His advice is to “find the optimal solution.”

Steve Noble,  Manager of Domestic Product Marketing for FedEx, suggested that shippers “take advantage of the full portfolio that carriers offer. He informed the audience that we are more mobile, “Customers want delivery options, evening deliveries, weekend deliveries, date and time specific appointments.”

Jack Mitchell, Vice President of Eastern Connection, a regional carrier in the Northeast, recommended that “shippers get everyone in the company involved in shipping the right way.” He was speaking about how companies create a policy of shipping in a specific way that will save the company on shipping costs but everyone in the company doesn’t follow the policy.

Most shippers are making mistakes and as a result are overpaying. I had the opportunity to video several of these executives.

Stay tuned; I will be posting their advice in upcoming blogs.

Get Lower Rates from the US Post Office

I am here in Orlando at the National Conference on Operations & Fulfillment (NCOF). This event is focused on helping catalog, online, and multichannel operations cut costs and improve their operations.

I had the opportunity to speak with Vivian Li, Product Manager at Endicia, and she shared in this video, some ways that small business shippers can save on postage by simply processing their postage online. (My company, RedRoller, partners with Endicia to provide PC Postage to our customers).

Parcel shippers that process postage online qualify for lower rates from the United States Post Office.

• Free Delivery Confirmation on Priority Mail—a savings of $.65 compared to going to the Post Office.
• Delivery Confirmation is only $0.18 for First-Class Mail parcels, Media Mail, Parcel Post, Bound Printed Matter, and Library Mail, a savings of $0.57 per package.
• Signature Confirmation for $1.75 saving $0.35 per package.

On May 12, the new changes in the USPS rate structure will provide different rates for retail and commercial shippers. Commercial shippers will save an average of 3.5% on Priority Mail, 3% on Express Mail, and up to 10% on international mail. See my post, USPS Rate Change Includes New Discounts: Do You Qualify?

A Quick & Easy Way to Calculate Dimensional Weight

Now that you have seen the hard way to calculate dimensional weight, cubic inches, and girth, here is a free easy tool that you can use that won’t require calculus to figure out the correct dimensional weight of your package.

Figure 1: www.ups.com

How to Get a Discount from UPS, FedEx, or DHL

I am here in Orlando at the National Conference on Operations & Fulfillment (NCOF). This event is focused on managing and directing vital areas of catalog, online, and multichannel operations: product fulfillment, distribution, the customer experience, the warehouse, the workforce, material handling.

Rob Martinez, Tim Sailor, and I presented a seminar entitled, Cost-Effective Shipping Strategies. Rob & Tim are partners at Navigo Consulting Group, a leading transportation consultancy representing large shippers in their carrier contract negations. Since 1995, Navigo has reduced its clients shipping costs by more than 30%. I asked Rob if he could provide some tips for eBay sellers and small business shippers. He shared on video several tips on how to get a discount with UPS, FedEx, or DHL.

Parcel Shipping Ain’t Easy

One of my teachers once told me that to learn about what is really happening in an industry to watch comedians. Successful comedians take some aspect of reality and we laugh because it is true. Brian Regan shares his experience of trying to ship some packages. If you are an eBay seller or have ever tried to ship a package with UPS, FedEx, or DHL, you have to watch this video. It is too funny.