Parcel services can vary widely, depending on your contract and carrier. Therefore, you need to make sure you understand what is in your shipping contract, especially if you consider yourself as a high-volume shipper. Without carefully reviewing the contract terms, you stand to lose more than you will gain. That is why it pays—literally—to take advantage of the services of an experienced contract negotiator and parcel auditor.
Parcel Contract Benchmarking
The data and insights received from parcel contract benchmarking serve to help shippers see which carriers offer better terms and rates with respect to incentives. It also serves as a gauge with respect to customer satisfaction, parcel use, carrier likes, and cost reduction methods. The most common sector using parcel services that require regular auditing include retail businesses, e-commerce sites, and wholesale companies. Other companies, that take up second place, include those involved in third-party logistics (3PL), warehousing, manufacturing, and fulfillment.
Companies that routinely use parcel shipping can make revenues from under $100M to over $10B yearly. A wide range of companies regularly take advantage of the services provided by the two top carriers, FedEx and UPS. By a margin of 4.5 to 1, most companies participating in surveys find that negotiating with carriers has not become easier, but, instead, is more difficult. Much of the technology related to parcel services involves the use of parcel contract auditing software or applications designed for the weekly auditing of small packages. Indeed, auditing is necessary, as half of the survey participants in logistics surveys regularly send out high volume shipments of about 2 million parcels annually. In 2018 alone, about 87 billion parcels were shipped internationally.
The Two Standout Features of Parcel Services
Whether you are the shipper or the receiver of parcels, two things stand out as being key parcel services – services that make a difference in how a carrier operates. Not only should the carrier provide fast pick-ups and deliveries, it should offer fully traceable delivery monitoring. The traceable option allows a parcel delivery company to track its couriers and permits customers to stay on top of their current shipping status.
Both FedEx and UPS predominate the field of parcel delivery in the United States. Negotiating parcel services contracts with the carriers needs to be done by experienced parcel contract negotiators – companies that audit carrier contracts and save shippers as much as 8% in the loss of funding due to invoice errors and contractual waivers and oversights. Parcel pricing experts recommend that companies carefully review their logistics contracts before they agree to the terms. It can save you thousands of dollars by knowing what you are signing. Call us today so you can reduce your shipping costs and increase your bottom line.