Shipping Technology: Simplify Your Seasonal Strategy
The end of the year is the Super Bowl of shipping. With the rush of holidays and sales events — including Black Friday and Cyber Week — approaching, an efficient shipping strategy is critical to customer satisfaction and to your business success. Complex shipping management plans tend to collapse under their own weight. Implement a streamlined strategy for the best possible results this holiday shipping season.
Seasonal shipping pitfalls
With the holiday shopping and shipping season on the way, everyday shipping challenges are magnified by the sheer volume of sales and shipments. For shippers caught unprepared, this seasonal rush can undermine the success of their whole operation.
Other obstacles to seasonal shipping success include:
- Carrier peak surcharges. Designed to coincide with the influx of seasonal orders, carrier surcharges can quickly drive total seasonal shipping costs through the roof.
- Order deadlines and delivery cutoffs. The quickest route to customer dissatisfaction — and the reputation hits that come with it — is a faulty holiday delivery strategy.
- Seasonal stress. Shipping expectations run higher than ever during the holidays. Combined with tight delivery windows and the pressure to manage and avoid surcharges, delivery errors, and missed deadlines, high customer expectations are an enormous stressor for shippers and their employees.
With such significant obstacles to overcome, it’s a wonder any shipper can manage the holiday rush, or it would be — if not for the wonders of technology.
Work smarter, ship easier
In the digital age, technology defines the difference between working hard and working smart. With today’s cloud computing capability, and the right management platform, holiday shipping is exponentially easier than ever before.
Cloud-based shipping management platforms create options for flexible shipping and cost control. Comprehensive platforms scale both up and down with your business, which makes them ideal for managing everyday shipping and the holiday volume increase. Integrating these solutions is your best first step toward an efficient, streamlined shipping strategy.
Platforms with accessible, real-time, end-to-end shipping data drive flexibility and informed shipping decisions. Enhanced data visibility and smart automation features are vital for address and delivery verification, real-time shipment tracking, and carrier cost and surcharge management. From there, the best strategy for each individual shipment will be significantly easier to determine.
Data analytics is another benefit of smart shipping management platforms. With access to the most current data on your shipping operation, it’s easy to identify and eliminate redundant or unnecessary steps, improve delivery accuracy, and reduce overall shipping costs.
Simplify with SendTech
Pitney Bowes sending technology, aka SendTech, is a comprehensive, technology-driven set of smart, integrated shipping management solutions. SendTech features and benefits include:
- Simplified user interfaces to minimize employee stress
- Mobile access to integrated, online shipping management software
- Technology for buying and printing postage and shipping labels on-site
- Access to reduced costs, postage spend tracking, and instant carrier cost comparisons
- Address and delivery verification for reducing errors and associated fees
- Real-time data analytics for easier performance management and decision-making
- Streamlined shipping workflows, improved service delivery, and overall cost savings
SendTech solutions are designed to help businesses ship smarter, regardless of shipping volume. For your seasonal shipping strategy, simple is better than complex. Simplify your seasonal shipping strategy with state-of-the-art shipping management solutions.
With all the potential obstacles the holiday shipping season presents, smart technology solutions are essential for optimal shipping management.