in this video i'm going to show you how
to package and ship your orders so that
your packages are arriving
safely on time and that you're saving as
much money as possible
stick till the end of this video where i
show you how i package and ship my
[Music]
orders
i'm creative strategist michelle bally
and i've worked with successful
e-commerce brands to help them achieve
reliable
low-cost shipping strategies however if
you're not familiar with this process
it can feel a little bit overwhelming as
there are so many options out there
so get ready because this is the only
video you'll need to watch to start
shipping your orders
here's what you're going to learn we're
going to talk about packaging options
we'll cover how to charge for shipping
and what carriers to go with
we'll also take a look at insurance and
tracking customs and declaration
and labeling your packages and finally
we'll look at shopify shipping and how
it can save you time when you're
fulfilling your orders
and stay tuned to the very end where i
show you step by step how i ship
and package my orders packaging options
there are a few common options for
packaging you can go with a box
an envelope or a padded envelope and if
your item is fragile you'll want to look
at padding like crinkle shred or
biodegradable peanuts but right off the
bat i want to give you an amazing
resource to buy your materials
check out arca with arca you can
customize your boxes
mailers packaging tissues tape and
stickers easily and all online
i love them because you can get your
boxes quickly in under 10 days
and they integrate with shopify also
their boxes are optimized for shipping
rates so you don't have to worry about
any extra costs
one of my favorite solutions are
biodegradable polymailers they offer
multiple benefits
they're lightweight which reduces your
shipping costs and they can adjust to
different volumes and weights depending
on what's included in the order
so for example the same size poly mailer
could accommodate one pair of socks
or five and you wouldn't be overpaying
on packaging weight or dimensions for
the single pair
you may also want to try thinking
outside of the box and look at less
traditional packaging options
so for example you could try using a
mailer that could be planted and grown
into a flower
opting for sustainable packaging is not
only the right thing to do but it's a
good look for any company
check out no issue and grounded
packaging for sustainable options at
larger volumes
some other larger packaging suppliers
you might also want to take a look at
are value mailers
fastpack and esupply store many carriers
like usps
dhl and ups offer free packaging when
you go through certain classes of mail
if you have a variety of items you may
want to carry many packaging sizes and
materials
a word of advice the smaller and the
lighter the shipment the better
because most shipping options are based
on size and weight so
small packaging means that you're saving
on shipping costs for you or your
customer
how to charge for shipping here are some
common strategies to choose from
offering your customers free shipping is
one of the best ways to incentivize
purchase
but in reality shipping is never free
someone always has to pay
so to make free shipping work you have a
few options you can increase your
product prices to cover your shipping
costs
and this basically means that the
customer pays you can pay the full price
of your shipping out of your own margins
which means that you're paying
or you can find a middle ground by
increasing the prices of the products
slightly to cover the partial cost of
shipping
this will mean that both you and your
customer are paying try offering free
shipping once a customer reaches a
certain dollar threshold on an order
a larger order is obviously going to
mean more money in your pocket but at
the end of the day you're still going to
have to pay for shipping so make sure
that that threshold that you calculate
does make financial sense
another effective shipping strategy is
to charge real-time carrier rates for
shipping
you can set up real-time carry rates on
your shopify store so that when a
customer is checking out they can choose
what service they want to pay for
a popular option is to offer flat rate
shipping make sure that you're not
drastically overcharging or
undercharging your customers
flat rate shipping only really works
when you have a fairly standard product
line of items
that have similar weights and sizes so
if you're a furniture business for
example
and you sell picture frames on the
smaller end of things and bed frames on
the larger end of things
flat rate shipping probably won't work
for you
another method to consider is local
delivery where you personally drop off
items
when you set up local delivery you can
customize your delivery area and
rates using a zip code radius customers
who are within your defined delivery
area
will be able to select local delivery as
a shipping method at checo
how to choose the right carrier between
fedex dhl ups canada post
and the other hundreds of services that
are available it's hard to know what the
right option is
when reviewing different carriers make
sure that your products are supported
some carriers exclude services for very
expensive or very fragile items
and make sure that your carrier ships to
your customers locations see what
tracking services they offer
and compare how quick packages get sent
it's important to note that not all
shipping carriers provide insurance
so if that's important to you double
check this convenience will also be
another factor that comes into play
so if you're tight on time select a
shipping carrier that can pick up the
packages from you
and finally make sure that you're
cognizant of price in my experience
the way to get the best rates is by
going through a shipping broker
i'm honestly not sure why more
businesses don't do this the only
shipping broker that i've ever used is
e-shipper
the way that e-shipper works is that
they get shipping rates in bulk
and then they mark it up and then they
make those discounted rates available to
the public
it is of course marked up on their end
but it's ultimately cheaper than
most shipping rates that are out there i
was shipping a package to indonesia and
it cost me 39
with e-shipper rather than the 100 that
it would have cost me
and it's of no cost to you or your
customer so to create a profile just
click the link in the description box to
get started
insurance and tracking depending on the
value of your products
shipping insurance and tracking offers
security with most carriers insurance
and tracking is relatively inexpensive
and it provides you recourse if your
package gets lost or damaged
some shipping services like ups and usps
priority mail
offer complimentary coverage for up to
100
customs and declarations forms if you're
shipping outside of your own country
you'll need to include the proper
customs documentation these are
available online through shopify
or at the post office these forms
disclose what is in the package
how much it costs and whether it's a
gift or merchandise
check with your country's postal service
to find out exactly which forms you'll
need to attach to your package
these forms should be completed honestly
and clearly to prevent your package from
being held up in customs
tariffs taxes and duties if there are
any additional custom fees due when a
package reaches its destination
your customer will be responsible for
them at the time of delivery
it's always a good idea to make sure to
include this information in your
shipping policy page
so your customers aren't surprised by
unexpected fees here's an example of how
your disclaimer might be written
regarding customs and duties
and you can put this on your shipping
policy page for more information on the
forms you'll need and policies
make sure you're checking out the
description box we have a link for every
region here
how to label your packages many new
ecommerce entrepreneurs start off by
writing the ship to
and return addresses on the package by
hand this is a great way to start but
once you start getting hundreds of
orders which of course you will
this is way too tedious and way too time
consuming and that's where shopify
shipping comes in
you can print and pay for multiple
shipping labels directly in shopify
here's how it works
from your order list select all the
orders you're ready to ship
preview each shipment including the
carrier shipping service and package
adjust or fill in any missing
information as needed
buy all of your shipping labels in one
click then print them as a single pdf
you can print your labels on plain
printer paper using any printer
and then cut them and tape them to the
package or to save even more time you
can upgrade to a thermal label printer
to print directly on self stick labels
using a fulfillment warehouse a
fulfillment warehouse can help automate
and handle the shipping for you
your inventory is stored at one of their
warehouses and when an order comes in
your order is picked
packed and shipped on your behalf
advantages include
cheaper shipping rates less of a time
commitment on your end and shorter
shipping times
fulfillment warehouses aren't for
everyone though there are several
disadvantages as well that you're going
to want to consider
so for example the unboxing experience
will likely suffer
you'll probably have to go with stock
boxes that have no branding
and while you will receive better
shipping rates when you work with a
fulfillment partner
you'll also have to pay for labor fees
for picking and packing
as well as warehouse storage fees once
you have enough volume of orders
and you feel like you're ready to work
with a fulfillment warehouse there are
several that integrate with shopify
check out shipwire fulfill right and for
my australian business people check out
fulfillio
now let's look at how i ship my orders
so we're going to start with our
shipping packaging
on this side we have our uline boxes
uline is a pretty inexpensive company to
go with
you can get around a thousand for 28 but
you're not committed to bulk orders so
you can buy in smaller quantities
and i like these corrugated boxes
because they are environmentally
friendly
and then on this side we have our bubble
mailer so bubble mailers are great
because they protect
whatever's inside but they're also
really slim so you can just drop this in
any mailbox i prefer an elevated
experience of actually
opening a box so we're going to go ahead
and package this one up today
cardboard boxes do have one drawback
though when they come to you in the mail
they're going to come flat which means
you're going to have to construct
every single one of them and as you
start to scale your business and start
to get more and more orders
if you have to construct every single
one of them that's going to take up a
bit of time
so just keep that in mind all right so
let's get this box filled
so the first step is i'm going to
include some padding now we've decided
to go with
this material which is recycled water
bottles which we love
but you can go with crinkle shred or
biodegradable peanuts it's totally up to
you there's endless
options we're going to pop this right in
here and that's going to give us a lot
of
padding padding is really important to
us because we have a lot of glass items
so it does a really good job of
protecting our makeup
and we also really love it because when
we pop the makeup in it looks like our
products are just floating on clouds so
the next step is to
include a card this could be a promo
card introducing the customer to new
products
or it could be a card that speaks to
your brand values but the point is it's
going to help a customer get to know
your brand
and that's going to encourage repeat
sales another option
is that you can include a thank you card
it's not every day that you get a
handwritten thank you card from a
founder
so this really opens up the opportunity
to turn a customer into a brand advocate
and we want that so what you can do is
you can get a 4x5 card printed with your
logo on the one side and leave it blank
on the other side
and that's going to leave you space for
your handwriting you can go to a local
printer
or you can get it done on moo printing
online so i'm going to just take this
card
pop it in here in the box close it up
and we're ready to start putting our
shipping label on
to get my shipping label all set up i'm
going to log into eshipper
i already have an account so i'm just
going to hit log in and from there i set
up where i'll be shipping from
this will usually be your house or
office and then i'll specify where it's
going to and that's where the customer
is at
put in your box dimensions and the value
of the package as well
and then we're going to hit submit from
there you're going to get a list of
rates
this will show you various options for
pricing different carriers
and the amount of time it will take to
ship now i just want to show you the
difference here as we can see on
eshipper
it's quoted us for eight dollars and 84
cents canadian
and that's for a pure later shipment so
when i go to the actual pure later site
and get an estimated shipping cost it's
showing 21. as the lowest price
this is why i stick to e-shipper and why
i love e-shipper so if i were to just
click submit order here it's going to
give me a shipping label
and i will just have to print that out
and stick it on now let me show you
which printer i use
so this is the printer that i use it is
the dymo label writer 450.
in hindsight i would recommend getting
the 4xl because that's going to print
your labels at the right size
i do have to shrink mine down to around
50 not the biggest deal
i actually got this on facebook
marketplace so you can check out kijiji
or marketplace you can get it on amazon
as well
but what i do is i connect this to my
laptop and that's how i print out my
labels
in order to get these two connected i do
have to use an adapter
so this adapter is good because my
computer only accepts usbc
so this is a usbc to regular usb and
that's how i connect these two
you can get this at amazon for around 20
super inexpensive and that's a great way
to start printing your labels
so we're all hooked up here and ready to
go and this printer really just works as
a regular printer so i'm just going to
go ahead and click
and it's going to print off a shipping
label now this shipping label is going
to indicate to
the postal service person where this box
is going to and that's what the barcode
indicates you don't necessarily need to
know this
but just keep that in mind so that you
can put it somewhere visible on your box
and we're going to go ahead peel this
off
stick it on the box gracefully as i do
and now we're also going to put down our
logo so this is my branded logo sticker
and i'm going to put this on the front
of the box
and we're ready to go so the last step
is i take this box i put it outside on
my front porch
and the postal service knows to come to
my front door to pick it up and send it
away
packaging and shipping should be seen as
a strategy that evolves over time
you will likely have to play around with
a few variables until you get it right
so trust the process and experiment
hopefully this video has been helpful
and i hope now you have a clear idea of
how you can start shipping your orders
each week learn with shopify has a new
video dedicated to teaching you
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subscribe button and i will see you in
the next one