How do you determine shipping costs? We’ve got a great grid set up with the dimensions of our boxes & weight based on bottle quantity. We have a grid from 2016 with shipping costs based on zone/bottle quantity-- but I have no idea where it came from or how to update it. What I’m doing now, is going through our UPS bill & seeing how much we are charged to determine how much we should charge.
Our shipping was set up before I worked here, but we do ‘Shipping Based on Units’ and manually enter a cost based on zone and shipping type (ground, 3day etc.) But currently it’s using prices that were created 2 years ago. What’s the best way to get the most accurate up to date shipping cost? Agh. Help!!
The easiest flat rate system I know: Add everything you spent to box up and ship product during last year - UPS, boxes, labor, etc. Now divide that by the number of physical boxes you shipped. That gives you the cost per box to ship. Assuming 1 to 12 bottles per box you can use this number to decide what flat rate to ship per case, factoring in cost increases for this year, weighed against what your market will bear.
If you want to do 1-3, 4-6, etc. you’ll need to math more.
Charging for shipping based on zone and bottles or weight is the Devil Incarnate.
To add to that, look at shipping rates as an extension of your marketing strategy and not merely an operational cost. We live in a post-Amazon world, see if you can leverage shipping savings to up-sell your customers.
