How to Reduce Shipping Costs with Pre-Manifesting

How many staff members does it take to ship a single package in your warehouse? Does every order go through the same process?

Does your shipping mix tend to include many packages of the same weight and dimensions?

If so, you may be able to simplify your shipping process with pre-manifesting to streamline the process, ship faster, and free up staff to focus on work in your operations.

Rethinking the Order-to-Shipping Workflow

Following is a generalized fulfillment workflow that is commonly followed by many companies:

• First, a picker gets the item from your warehouse.
• Next, the item is packed at a packing station and then sent to a shipping station
• At the shipping station, the package is weighed and a shipping label is printed and applied.

In this scenario, all packages are handled in the same way, with the same amount of “touches” to pick, pack and ship the order, even if many of them are identical in every way except for the customer address. There is a more efficient way to handle these “standard” packages – pre-manifesting.

What is Pre-Manifesting?

Pre-manifesting is a process in which the label at the beginning of the shipping process, rather than waiting until the package arrives at the shipping station. That package can then skip the weighing stage of the shipping process, reducing the number of touch points needed by your packers and shippers. Instead, the packer adds the label to the package and it can bypass the shipping station, resulting in less labor and faster fulfillment.

When Can You Use Pre-Manifesting?

Pre-manifesting works very well on orders in which you already know the weight and destination of a package at the beginning of the shipping process. For example, your company sellers dinnerware.

• You receive an order for 40 dinner plates.
• Your fulfillment system stores exact item weights for every product, and can transfer this data the the rest of the order details to your shipping system.
• The shipping system should be able to calculate out the total package weight and print a shipping label before the package has even been assembled.
• The label printing process takes place upstream, and the shipping label is printed and applied by the packer.
• This process eliminates the need for order to go to the shipping station for weighing and labeling.
• Several touches are eliminated from the process, for faster, more efficient fulfillment.

Here's another example that combines pre-manifesting with batch shipping. A company that has an online store and offers a promotion of a pearl necklace over a weekend – receives 2,000 orders – all same item, weight and routing. Does that make sense?

Pre-Manifesting Requirements

The key to successful pre-manifesting lies in the right combination of technology and workflow. At a minimum, it requires:

• Order management of inventory system that is capable of capturing product items, weights, etc.
• Integration to the shipping system, configured to pass product details with the order.
• Shipping software that has the ability to perform calculations, routing and, configured to create the shipping label and transfer it back to the printed upstream.

Be wary of working with vendors that only sell certain types of shipping systems, as those who don’t support pre-manifesting will always recommend their own systems instead. This is why you need to get in touch with a partner who offers a flexible system that can meet all your shipping needs.

Could Pre-Manifesting Work for Your Business?

If you know the weight of the majority of the items you ship, pre-manifesting can yield huge cost savings in your shipping process. By moving label creation to the beginning of the order fulfillment workflow, you can reduce steps for staff at the shipping station, since they will have to weigh and label fewer of the packages coming down the line.

Pre-manifesting also works well in organizations that ship.

Related White Paper

9 Ways to Reduce the Costs of Shipping & Warehouse Operations
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