New app gets merchants refunds for late FedEx, UPS shipments
Guest post by Jose Li Founder & CEO of 71lbs
FedEx and UPS have amoney-back-guarantee policy, where every customer has 15 days to file their late shipment claim, otherwise they miss out. Not many people or companies know about this, as $2 billion dollars are left unclaimed every year. At 71 Pounds, we are trying to make this cumbersome and inefficient process easy and convenient for small businesses.
We spent two decades being on both sides of the shipping table – managing shipping and logistics for a mid-size merchant and also on the other side running FedEx’s Retail & eCommerce practice, working with thousands of merchants like yourself. This experience led us to build 71lbs.com, a "set-and-forget" system that allows SMBs to get their due refunds in an easy and convenient way.
71lbs has joined the Yahoo Commerce Central app gallery with their free, fast, and automatic Shipping Refunds app, providing an easy and convenient solution to getting your due refunds.
In addition to shipping refunds, a number of opportunities exist for small businesses to save on shipping. They all involve a certain level of investment in time and, to a certain degree, knowledge. Here are two more shipping insights that may help save money on shipping and put it where you need it—back into your business.
1. Understand Your Shipping Spend
The #2 pain point small business merchants have in regards to shipping is understanding their shipping costs. When was the last time you looked at your carrier’s shipping invoice? And did you really understand it?
Shipping invoices are very difficult to understand, as carriers print various product codes and acronyms seldom used in daily business and invoices carry mistakes for which you end up paying. Many of our customers rave about how easy it is to log into the 71lbs dashboard and see their shipping costs and breakdown by overnight, ground, international, and others.
Another metric that savvy merchants track carefully is your shipping spend. This can vary in a number of ways, but one useful ratio is how much your total shipping cost compares to your sales. As you can imagine, this number ranges for category of merchandise sold, average ticket item, etc, but most merchants spend 10% of their sales in shipping cost. This is a good benchmark to track and compare.
2. Talk to Your Shipping Carrier
Next on the list is to talk to your carrier. Meet your carrier's account representative, ideally once every six months, and ask to go over the last six or 12 months of shipping history.
The more you know about your numbers, the more you know about your business. Leverage your data to have more productive discussions with your rep. They should be continually working to earn your business. Ask your carrier what else they can do for you. The more knowledgeable you are about your company's shipping history and profile, the more your account rep can help you support your shipping operations to grow your business. An additional 10% discount to western states might sound really enticing to accept, but it won't do much for your bottom line if 80% of your customers are located on the East Coast. More than half of small businesses get no discounts from their shipping provider. You may get one just by asking. As the saying goes, you don’t get what you deserve, you get what you negotiate.
Jose Li is Founder & CEO of 71lbs. He ran FedEx's Retail & e-Commerce practice and has worked with thousands of small businesses. Jose has 15 years of experience in shipping, logistics, and e-commerce with Jamba Juice, Alibaba.com, and FedEx. He can be reached at [email protected].