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Module 5: Outbound Shipping. You did it. You’ve made sales of your product. Now it’s time to get their product to your customers. We call this process outbound shipping and it’s also commonly referred to as last mile. There are three different ways to get your products, your customers deliver it yourself deliver it in bulk or use parcel carriers. I don’t recommend delivering your products to your customers one at a time herself.
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So we’ll be talking much about that. And since you’ll be primarily shipping to individual customers I won’t spend a lot of time talking about shipping your product boat. We’ll be talking mostly about using parcel carriers here in the United States and are primarily shipping to US customers. There are three main options for partial carriers u.p.s. FedEx and USPS or the United States Postal Service.
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If you want to ship from the US internationally the two simplest options I recommend are the United States Postal Service and DHL when you start evaluating shipping carriers they will all have similar shipping methods shipping methods or how the carriers get your products to your customers and can have various names. However don’t be confused by all the different names
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shipping methods are just describing how fast you’ll be getting your product to your customer. For example next day one day to day. And so on. Check with each type of carrier to see what types of prices they will charge you for each of the different shipping methods that they offer shipping methods. We usually charge based on weight and dimensions so you get better pricing if your products are small and light versus if your products are heavy and bulky.
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If you’re in the United States and your products are fairly small I highly recommend getting started by using USPS. It’s the simplest and easiest way to get started. If your products are under a pound you can use your first class mail option and if they’re over a pound you can use their parcel select ground service.
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They also have other shipping methods for next day to day. Another expedited shipping methods through their priority mail service. Something to keep in mind. Once you start shipping it can be tedious to go to the post office for each order. You can avoid going to the post office by scheduling pick UPS or even putting your packages in the mail before your mailman arrives and raising the flag on your mailbox before you start shipping.
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I highly recommend you use a separate address as your ship from address. Even if you’re shipping from your home. I’ve made this mistake in the past and been in situations where a customer showed up at my front door asking to exchange their item. Don’t let this happen to you. It’s actually pretty easy to set up a separate mailing address but make sure it’s a physical address and not
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just a P. O. box because many carriers and services won’t accept a P. O. box from you getting now dressed like this pretty simply by visiting your local UPS. store. Few other things to consider Make sure the weight of your packing material is accounted for when you ship your products because the added weight will definitely affect the cost of shipping that order measure and weigh your products inside of their shipping
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containers to see if their packaging increases the weight of that order and account for that and your shipping estimates. If you don’t get the wage right the carriers may reject your package and return them to you causing delays in getting your orders to your customers. Or worse the package may be shipped all the way to the customer in the post office will hold onto their package until they pay the difference in postage.
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Not good your packaging. Many people spend a lot of time trying to get the most beautiful and on brand shipping boxes for their product. When you’re just starting out I recommend you put your time and effort elsewhere. Your packaging doesn’t have to be beautiful. Remember you’re basically shipping trash. Think about it. What it mostly would do as soon as they get the product they bought it. They take the product out of the packaging
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and put the packaging into the trash free supplies. Many carriers will give you packaging supplies and shipping equipment for free. Scales label printers boxes tape tonnage and so on. Reach out to your carriers and see what types of packaging materials they’ll offering account reps. When you start shipping a consistent amount of volume per month reach out to your carrier
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to get an account rep as soon as you can account reps can help you get access to free resources and can even negotiate discounts for you if you can’t get your packaging for free. Don’t buy it individually. Buying in bulk from places like you line Amazon business or even.
