March 2018

7 Things to Look for in a Quality Warehousing Service

Looking for a quality warehousing service? Wondering how to choose the best one for your needs?

Using quality warehousing services can be a lifesaver for your business. However, choosing the wrong one can cause a lot of headaches.

It’s important that you take the time to evaluate a potential warehouse service thoroughly before working with them.

Below we’ll look at the 7 top things you need to look for in a quality warehousing service.

1. Exceptional Fulfillment Services

Chances are that your business needs fulfillment services for packing and shipping your products. If so, it’s important to find out what the warehousing service offers and if they’ll be able to meet the demands of your business as well as your customers.

Find out about their turnaround time as well as their standards when it comes to packing a product securely. Do they have automated and manual assembling capabilities? Will your products arrive safely to customers?

Find out everything you can about the warehouse’s fulfillment services and try to uncover if they are the real deal.

Not all warehouses have the capabilities to meet the fulfillment needs of your business. It’s important to ask about a company’s process and make sure that they won’t leave you hanging when you need them most.

2. Strong Security

Any reliable warehouse will also take security very seriously. They will have great security measures in place and will go the extra mile to ensure that your stock is well protected from harm at all times.

A great warehousing service will have a 24-hour security system in place that will ensure the protection of your items from thieves. Many great warehouses will also have plenty of security cameras in place, onsite staff, and other provisions to ensure that nothing goes wrong.

If security matters to you, it’s important that you get a thorough explanation of how your items will be protected when choosing a warehousing service. It can take a weight off of your shoulders knowing that the warehouse has an increased level of security and that your items will be well-protected.

3. Tracking and Monitoring

A great warehousing service will also offer options for you to remotely access tracking data. They’ll have a system in place so that you can easily access information on your products and shipments.

A barcode tracking system can help make this simple and can assure that you always have access to the status of your belongings.

Along with remote user access, a barcode tracking system is absolutely crucial if you want to be sure that your goods are well taken care of. You’ll gain a greater peace of mind by easily being able to check up on the details of your items and shipments as needed.

4. Cross Docking

An excellent warehouse will also offer affordable and efficient cross-docking services. Cross-docking can help to greatly reduce the delivery time of packages and shipments. It can be a great help for giving your customers the absolute best service.

Cross-docking streamlines the shipping process. It allows products to be picked up from a manufacturer or supplier and then sent directly to a final destination.

This service is great for shipping items that are time and/or temperature sensitive. For many businesses, it is an absolute must-have feature from a professional warehouse service.

5. Industry Specific Standards

For many businesses, it’s also important to find a warehouse that understands the ins and outs of their specific industry and specific products that they will need to be stored and shipped.

Not all warehouses have what it takes to handle the needs of food and beverage industries, for example.

It’s important that you consider the needs of your industry and ask what experience the warehousing service has with your type of product. If you have any specific needs, be sure to discuss these beforehand.

If you’re storing food and choosing a shared warehousing service, you may also need to learn more about what will be stored near your items. Toxic materials and food products don’t mix well, so make sure you know what you can expect going in.

6. Ease of Use

When looking for a great warehouse, it’s crucial that you find a great team of professionals that you can trust. Look for a warehouse service who will work hard to make your experience as easy and simple as possible.

A great warehousing company will invest in their staff and train them well. They’ll have adopted some great processes and systems for managing products.

The warehouse should be extremely efficient and also very communicative with you. They should work hard to meet all of your needs and also provide a way for you to easily track and monitor your stock.

Look for a professional company that makes your job easier, and you’ll never be dissatisfied with your decision.

7. Flexibility

In addition to the above points, it’s also important that you look for warehousing services that are flexible when it comes to meeting your needs.

In business, all kinds of unexpected things can happen and your requirements may change suddenly. Find out if the warehouse company has any options for overflow storage. Ask if they have any special services and provisions to help your business at times of seasonal changes or increases in business.

A great warehouse will understand the needs of a business and the unexpected changes that can occur throughout the year. As a result, they’ll have processes in place that will help ease your burden when you most need it.

Choosing the Best Warehousing Service

If you’re looking for quality warehousing services for your business, it doesn’t have to be as hard as you think. By taking the time to consider the points above you’ll have the best chance at making the right choice and ensuring your needs are fully met by the warehousing company.

A warehousing service can revolutionize the way you do business and can make your business more efficient. But take your time when choosing a service to use, and ensure that you’re making the right choice.

Looking for a great warehouse service for your business? Contact us today to learn more about what Need It Now can do for you.

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6 Common and Expensive Shipping Mistakes to Avoid

There’s more to shipping than just getting your goods to their receiver. There are many factors that can influence how much it will cost you and what you get for the price.

To professionals, shipping represents the business. It demonstrates your reliability and commitment to giving customers what they want.

Saving time and money on shipments is a great way to do better business and get a sharper competitive edge. Avoiding the biggest pitfalls will help you spend less and reduce damage and delayed goods.

The ability to ship things in an efficient, controlled, and cost-effective manner makes a great improvement for anyone who ships a lot of things.

Keep reading to learn about six common costly shipping mistakes–and how to avoid them.

1. Lacking Attention to Detail

When you ship things, you must pay close attention to the details.

Don’t assume you know the weight, size, packaging type, and costs. You need to know for sure beforehand. And you need to make sure every address is 100% correct.

Getting these details wrong often lead to paying more than you have to. It makes the delivery less efficient as well.

If you seek shipping solutions for a company, the best idea is to create a database. Use it to log all the data for reference, calculation, and comparison. This can help you reduce big shipping expenses.

Even when you’re dealing with a last-minute shipment or a very rushed job, you need to impress and satisfy. Otherwise, you’ll lose customers.

It’s important to get the data right in these situations too, no matter how much you feel like you don’t have the time. The good news is that there are software solutions that can do the math for you and your customers.

Many shippers have many more fees than you think. These fees may not be obvious to you and may seem unnecessary. You must be prepared to pay more than you thought if you don’t pay close attention from the beginning.

Look for any additional fees added to the bill. Examples include fuel compensation and residential services. Make room for these fees in your shipment budget.

Be very diligent. Even the slightest address correction can cost more than $10 with many carriers.

2. Using the Wrong Packaging

Getting the packaging details right is so important that it gets its own entry on this list. Pay close attention to the weight of the items you’re about to ship. It can affect the price more than you think.

If the weight you told the carrier and the actual weight of the package differ, you’ll be charged for it. There may be penalty fees with certain carriers.

Ensure that all the packages you’re ready to ship have the right weight that you budgeted for and specified. You need to understand how to ship heavy items.

Inefficient packaging is a very common problem that costs many companies a lot of money. Make sure that you’re not using packaging that’s too big for your delivery.

It may seem convenient at the moment to grab a big box and stuff your items in it, but it will be a waste of money. You have to pay for more space, so you’re paying for the empty space in the box.

You will also end up spending a lot more on boxes, padding, and other packaging materials. In the long run, these smaller costs will accumulate into big costs.

Extra packaging also adds extra weight, which you’ll pay more for. This can cause a difference in the weight you planned for, and thus the final weight. This will make you pay more than you budgeted for.

On the other hand, if you try to skimp too much on the packaging, you may risk damaged goods. It’s a balance you’ll find by paying attention to the details.

Last but not least, don’t underestimate the holding capacity of envelopes when shipping small items.

3. Making Promises You Can’t Keep

If you can’t tell the receiver when to expect their delivery, they may be hesitant about the shipment. If you tell the receiver they’ll receive the product at a particular time and it doesn’t come in time, you’ve got a major problem.

There is a straight-forward solution to this matter. For example, rather than guaranteeing delivery in two days, promise delivery in three days or less. This gives you an error margin.

It lets you be more flexible, and it can help you reduce costs. Most importantly, it will reduce the number of disgruntled receivers.

A good way to make things simpler and more efficient is to use next-day delivery.

4. Failing to Handle Unhappy Returns

If you have a return policy, make sure it’s clear, concise, and accessible. Make sure you have it fleshed out in writing, with all the details covered in concrete form. No maybes and a few conditionals as possible.

Put your return policy on your website. Make it visible to customers before they finish the purchase, or you may lose potential customers. This will establish trust and ensure that both you and the customer are accountable.

Good return policies focus on the customer and making things easier and more efficient for them.

5. Neglecting Automation

Automation is an effective way to reduce inconsistencies and human error. It doesn’t have to be a huge, complicated task to implement automation. It doesn’t have to be very expensive.

Assuming it’s not worth it is an expensive mistake. There are many benefits to automation.

Start in the shallow end. Connect data points with Microsoft Access or Excel spreadsheets. Set them up to memorize and recall data for you, keep track of numbers, and do your calculations.

Automating these documents to give you comprehensive graphs on how you’re doing is a quick task.

Then see how you feel about continuous automation. The more you automate, the less you have to do. And remember, computers don’t miscalculate or misspell.

6. Using Indirect Delivery

This one might seem like an obvious matter to some readers. However, it is a very common mistake that cost many people a lot of money.

This mistake can take a few different forms, such as:

  1. You order an item and have it shipped to your business. Then you send it onward to your customer.
  2. You buy an item and wait for it to come by mail. When it arrives, you get in your car and drive it to your friend.

This is such an inefficient way of doing things. It takes a lot more time than a direct shipment. It costs a lot more. And it’s a lot more work.

You could have the retailer or manufacturer do most of the work, without additional costs. Or you could use a shipping company to deliver it from the first point to the last.

Avoid These Expensive Shipping Mistakes

There are many mistakes that increase costs for nothing, from wasteful practices to unseen fees and penalties for negligent calculations.

Cutting down on shipping can improve your finances a lot. Not only do these mistakes cost more money, they’re often inefficient in other ways as well.

By following the advice on this list, you’ll avoid these costly mistakes and save money.

For more information on fast, cost-efficient shipping, contact us.

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The Many Advantages of Freight Consolidation

If you’ve been resisting freight consolidation perhaps it’s the idea of change itself that is the problem. You are in a comfort zone and change is risky. Stephen Hawking’s comment, “Intelligence is the ability to adapt to change,” is all the more powerful because of the changes he has seen in his life.

Read on to learn about the advantages of freight consolidation.

What is Freight Consolidation?

Freight consolidation is where small shipments are brought together and shipped to the same location. These smaller shipments may be too small to constitute a container load. Consolidation brings them together to form a container load.

The container is then shipped and de-consolidated at its destination. The individual shipments are then sent on to their final destination. This last part of the delivery, sometimes known as the “final mile” could be right to a customers’ front door.

Lower Operating Costs

Even if a container or truck trailer is not filled, shippers will often have to pay for the cost of the whole container or trailer. A full container costs the same as a half-full container. The shipper is paying to ship air.

Consolidation services overcome this problem of shipping air. They bringing together less than container loads (LCL) and less than truckloads (LTL). These shipments better use the space available reducing the costs of shipping.

These LCLs and LTLs are charged by volume rather than the flat rate for a container or trailer. There are extra costs are for shipping before and after the consolidated journey. There may be extra consolidation administration costs.

Underpinning this lower cost is a real saving in fuel and capital equipment. These cost reductions benefit the whole supply chain. They are also arguably more environmentally friendly.

Lower Capital Costs

Supporting a distribution process for LCLs can involve significant capital costs. Warehousing or distribution centers and transport can be significant capital investments. These can be reduced by using a third-party logistics operation utilizing freight consolidation.

Transportation Options

When a shipper is focussed only on their own logistics need the range of options is limited. This is because of scale. A one size fits all approach is taken.

With consolidation, there are more options. Where trucking appeared to be the only option, rail, air or sea may be available to the consolidator.

Logistics is a strategic activity for any business. It can be the key to business success or failure. Understanding and exploiting the options available is vital.

Reduced Wastage

Small, multiple shipments involve multiple touchpoints. The hub and spoke distribution process will involve much more handling than consolidation. The more times the item is touched, the more opportunity there is for damage, loss or theft.

With fewer touchpoints, a consolidator can reduce damage, loss, and theft. This is because there are fewer occasions when the consignment is at risk. A full container is a more secure entity than multiple small consignments can ever be.

Flexibility and Speed

You need to ship a consignment to a customer but the quantity or volume is too small to make it cost effective. The natural logistics based thinking is to wait until the order quantity is sufficient to make it cost effective to ship. In the meantime, the customer is waiting.

That customer may be happy with your product quality and even price. Without timely delivery, you are exposed to the risk of a more flexible and speedy competitor stealing your customer from under your nose.

A consolidation strategy provides the means of providing a more flexible response to customers. Freight consolidation makes flexible and fast delivery more economic. It also helps meet sales and marketing expectations for delivery.

More importantly, it satisfies customer expectations.

How to Take Advantage of Consolidation

Finding the right carrier to provide freight consolidation for you is the first important step. Not every carrier will or can provide this service. It takes specialized operations and expertise.

When assessing the services of a carrier offering freight consolidation, do thorough costings. Make comparisons between your current arrangements and those of the prospective carrier.

You will need to change your operations in order to make the most of the new logistics. Planning must change otherwise you will fail to realize the benefits of more flexible delivery. There may be a need to change packaging, labeling, and documentation.

Sales and marketing may need to incorporate communications about delivery methods. While you may be able to deliver in a more timely manner, the consolidation process itself may take more time than a direct delivery. This will need to be incorporated into planning and schedules.

The Right Freight Consolidator

Freight consolidation is only advantageous if it’s the right consolidator and they are right for your business. The advantages come with the following:

Right location

Check that the consolidator is located in a suitable place. The consolidator may offer great shipping rates but you need to consider the end to end costs.

Right scale

Do they have the capacity to handle your business including any future growth? Are they geared up to handle any seasonality in your business?

Right flexibility

Can they handle your changing demands and that of your customers? Can they handle the variability in your products, consignments, schedules and more?

Right reputation

Have they got a reputation for delivering on their promises? You will be partnering with them to service your customers. You need to know they will care as much about them as you do.

Check reviews, reference sites and meet their operation people, not just sales representatives.

Consider a Change

With a greater understanding of the advantages of freight consolidation and how to realize them, you can now approach making a decision. Think about your reasons for change and test your arguments.

If it’s right for you, develop a clear vision and targets for where you want to get to. Share it with others. Build your organizations capacity for change including getting the resources, time and people you need.

Make a plan and take the first few steps towards a consolidation strategy.

To learn more and talk to people who understand shipping click here.

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