The Cold Hard Truth About Parcel Accountability

In Parcel Shipping What You Don’t Know Can Hurt You
Companies who want to better manage margins and control costs must continually measure these wasted dollars, assess how they are impacting their budget, and take action to avoid creating a hole through which countless funds are lost.

Left unaddressed, these lost dollars can be disastrous to a parcel budget.

Parcel accountability is not easy - in part, because much of the information needed to understand it is obscured beneath the surface.

Only through proper parcel intelligence can parcel shippers not only avoid chilling costs, but begin to make smart, informed steps to thaw the ice itself.

Surcharges, Accessorials, and the Hidden Fees You Don’t See
Steering a parcel budget on the correct path requires an understanding of what is hidden underneath the surface.

It may seem simple to avoid something immediately visible - like a huge dollar amount assigned to a carrier contract - but it’s important to consider the smaller, less noticeable fees that add up to massive wasted dollars.

Consider the following: How does a package with a sticker price of $15 end up costing $37? It’s the same way a “$49 per month” phone plan becomes $72 per month. And the same way a “$99 airline ticket” ends up costing $127. Or the way a concert ticket costs 14% more on the invoice than it did on the website used to buy it. It’s the hidden fees!

They’re everywhere - baggage fees, processing fees, restocking fees, convenience fees. If consumers knew they were going to pay a convenience fee to begin with, they probably wouldn’t have thought it was so convenient!

Parcel shipping carriers have figured this out, too. Their fees come in the form of accessorial fees and surcharges that are tacked onto a package’s total landed cost - after the package has been shipped.

To learn more about the benefits of optimizing your parcel spend, download this e-book, The Cold Hard Truth About Parcel Accountability.