Three Areas You're Probably Being Overcharged on Parcel
When it’s time to sit down and take a good, hard look at the overcharges your company is sustaining, it would be wise to take even the smallest, seemingly innocuous events as parts of the whole overcharge picture. Anyone can compare shipping rates from UPS and FedEx, but the savvy business won’t forget to include fees and surcharges. Because each shipper has an extensive list of additional costs, rather than just comparing mere standard rates, determine your shipping needs and then calculate the fees.
No doubt there exist many variables in the equation for businesses across industry and category, but choosing the right shipping company can be a significant element to your success. Partnering with a high quality, lower cost regional carrier can ease much of the pain inflicted from extra fees. It’s easy to summarize by stating, simply: fewer fees add up to BIG savings!
It’s the Little Things . . .
Perhaps you’re thinking the points herein seem like small matters, and don’t have an impact on the bigger picture. But that thinking will trip you up. It’s all in the details when it comes to being overcharged on shipping.
It might help to break out spending and charges by category. Here are three to get you started thinking about these sometimes hidden opportunities to save money:
Incorrect Residential Charge –
Here, the delivery was charged as a residential delivery when it should have been to a business. According to UPS.com, a residential delivery is defined as delivery to a location that is a home, including a business operating out of a home that does not have an entrance open to the public. You can avoid residential delivery shipping charge corrections by selecting residential address when adding a new address or updating an existing address in the address book of your shipping system.
Invalid Address Correction –
Charges for addresses used that didn’t match the address in the carrier database. Again, UPS says if any shipment has an incorrect or incomplete address, they will make reasonable efforts to secure the correct or complete address, and will make available to the shipper the correct address. UPS may also correct or complete an address based on information obtained from the shipper or consignee. Still, an Address Correction charge will be assessed to you for an address correction or completion. Remember, an address validated by UPS may be incorrect or incomplete for purposes of completing delivery, and may in some circumstances be corrected by UPS.
Invalid Delivery Area Surcharge –
Ouch. This involves something a shipper may have no way of knowing at the order processing and fulfillment stage—or preventing for that matter! Here you can have an instance where the intended delivery area was x-amount of miles outside of a pre-determined delivery terminal. A surcharge applies to each package delivered to certain zip codes within the 48 contiguous states. Then, remote area surcharges can be assessed when sending packages to Alaska and Hawaii. Delivery Area Surcharge does not, however, apply to UPS Ground with freight pricing shipments.