Rate shopping gets all the attention, but the biggest savings in a small shipping operation usually come from packaging and process — the parts nobody negotiates.
The seven leaks
- Oversized boxes. Every centimetre of empty space is billed as dimensional weight on most services.
- One carrier for everything. Small light parcels and heavy bulky ones rarely have the same optimal carrier.
- Retail counter rates. Online or platform rates are generally lower than walking into a counter with an unmanifested parcel.
- Address errors. Address-correction fees are avoidable with validation at checkout.
- Free shipping with no threshold. Shipping cost has to live somewhere: in the price, in a threshold, or in your margin.
- Signature and insurance on everything by default. Apply them by value, not by habit.
- No returns policy design. An unplanned return can cost more than the original outbound shipment.
What to measure
Track cost per shipment and cost as a percentage of order value each month, split by destination zone. Those two numbers make the leaks visible far faster than reviewing individual invoices.
Before switching carriers, run a month of your real parcels through a comparison rather than a sample quote on one hypothetical box.