Shipping rates are constantly changing. As your carrier strategy evolves to meet the industry changes, it’s important to make sure you are getting the best rates possible for each shipment. When was the last time you talked with your carrier representatives about your carrier rates? Maybe it’s time to think about how you can save money on shipping by negotiating shipping rates. Read on to learn more.
Most carriers don’t have a one size fits all approach to shipping rates. Discounts and incentives are often times determined by a variety of factors including things like your shipping volume. Sometimes when carriers want your business, they might be willing to offer lower prices if it means you will ship more packages with them.
Keep these in mind when prepping to negotiate
When auditing your carrier rates it’s important to consider a few key factors. We pulled together a few tips to help you know what to look for during your prep for the negotiation process. Here are a few of our top tips to help with negotiating shipping rates.
1- Comb through your carrier stats within Pacejet. Let the data speak for itself. Use our freight history reports to see what your carrier pricing looks like over a week or month to determine how much you are spending per carrier. You are in charge of your shipping data and can provide your shipping history stats from Pacejet to help the carrier understand your shipping and business. Know the facts before thinking about negotiating your carrier rates.
2- Understand your top surcharges. By pulling reporting from all of your shipments, uncover your most common surcharges. Some of the most common mistakes or issues that we see include; incorrect address information or wrong dimensional weight. Modules like Pacejet’s Address Validation can help your business quickly identify and correct address errors such as residential versus commercial or incorrect zip codes. Knowing your dim weight issues that occur regularly can help you identify room for improvement in your shipping strategy.
Another place Pacejet tool you can use to utilize your data to help with your carrier negotiations is our Carrier Performance reports. With these reports you will be able to explore insights per carrier to determine key elements for cost savings, improvement, and more.
3- Audit your invoices. Once you’ve combed your carrier invoices and know your typical surcharges, you’ll be able to audit your invoices and know areas where your business is losing money. Using tools like our Freight Auditing can help you easily navigate the mountains of invoices you receive and help key metrics and points to help streamline this process before negotiating shipping rates.
4- Mix up your carrier options. Diversity is key. Don’t put all your boxes on one truck. Understanding the ecosystem of carrier connections is vital to having a cohesive strategy. See all the carriers that we have current integrations with by viewing our website. We are constantly updating, innovating, and adding to our network as our customer’s needs change. Have a carrier you want to integrate through Pacejet but it’s not listed? Let’s connect and see what we can do.
5- Maintain relationships with your carrier representatives. This one goes without saying. Keeping a great relationship with your contact at each carrier not only helps you when you are thinking about negotiating shipping rates but can also help your business be on the cutting edge of technology within that carrier's offerings.
For a list of our growing carrier partnerships, click the button below. Interested in talking to us about a carrier that's not listed? That's no problem. Connect with us and we'll talk about ways we can expand out carrier connection to help meet your specific needs.
Learn more about the science of shipping
Pacejet helps you transform the shipping dock into a launching pad for profitability. This starts with a best-in-class cloud-based solution, surrounding it with the consultative support that enables customers to thrive in the 21st-century shipping economy.
For more information on Pacejet shipping software, visit http://pacejet.com, call 877-722-3538, or email info@pacejet.com.
