An ecommerce shipping strategy is more important than many realize. Consumers expect fast, affordable, easy shipping, and offering as much can give you a leg up on your competition.
But ecommerce shipping is about more than just free shipping and fast delivery. This guide will point you to all of the resources you need to plan and create an ecommerce shipping strategy that your customers will love.
Shipping costs vary depending on several factors, including package dimensions and weight; shipping destination, shipping service, and shipping carrier used; and content quality. Keep reading to learn more about how ecommerce shipping costs work and find the most cost-effective shipping solution for your online business.
To reduce shipping costs for growing businesses, working with a third-party logistics (3PL) provider can make a big difference. Outsourcing shipping services to a 3PL can help ecommerce businesses scale efficiently and take advantage of shipping discounts.
A 3PL network of fulfillment centers can also help ecommerce stores save on shipping costs by reducing transit times.
Shipping zones measure the distance between a package's origin and its destination In the continental United States, they can range from Zone 1 to Zone 8 Carriers use shipping zones to calculate shipping rates The shipping zone is calculated based on where your package is shipped from.
This means that two different shipping points to the same destination may be shipping to completely different regions. As a rule of thumb, the larger the shipping zone, the more expensive it will be to ship a package.
Shipping cost refers to the cost of getting the package from the shipping carrier to the end consumer. Handling fees cover everything else, including retrieving items on a pick list, transferring inventory, packing the shipment, creating a shipping label, loading the shipment onto a truck, and any other fulfillment center operations.
We also put together this handy table to calculate what price point to sell at
