5 Ways to Reduce Shipping or Delivery Costs for Your Business & Customers in 2024

Delivering items to your customers is now easier with Bumpa! With the Bumpa app, you can connect to Shipbubble and gain access to multiple delivery companies like SpeedAF, Sendstack, GIG, Topship, DHL and more, compare shipping prices and delivery timelines, and pick the best prices for deliveries, for you and your customers!

Get more options for reducing delivery costs and gain a competitive advantage with cheaper deliveries by signing up on Bumpa! Download the app to get started!

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One of the things that can scare a customer away very quickly is the delivery cost of an item they want to purchase.

In Nigeria especially, customers often believe that ‘the distance from where you’re delivering an item to my house shouldn’t be more than XXX amount’ and therefore if it’s more than that, you’re cheating them and this tends to push them into the arms of your competitor. It doesn’t matter how much it costs you to ship or produce these items, how much you’re paying in rent or whatever else. Even when the economy is clearly saying something else, it often feels like these customers expect you to bear the brunt of the increase in everything, including delivery fees just so that they don’t have to pay more.

I can understand where they’re coming from. But the truth is shipping costs can also eat into your business if you don’t find the right balance.

In this article, we’ll cover 5 ways to reduce shipping or delivery costs for your customers and small business in 2024.

Related: The Expert Guide to Packaging Your Items for Trouble-free Shipping!

How to Reduce Shipping or Delivery Costs for Your Small Business and Customers

1. Offer a Free Shipping Limit

One of the fantastic things about this strategy is that it can make your customers buy more products in a single transaction. A free shipping limit or threshold is the minimum order amount a customer needs to reach to qualify for free shipping. Companies that successfully use this strategy include Amazon, Target and Best Buy, to mention a few.

For example, you can tell your customers that they’ll get free shipping when they place orders worth up to N50,000! (This is just an example, so you can set what works for you).

Setting a minimum order amount for free shipping can be a win-win strategy for businesses and customers alike. Here's why it is beneficial:

1. Increased Average Order Value: Customers tend to add more items to their cart to reach the free shipping threshold, leading to higher sales per transaction.

2. Cost-Effective Shipping: By consolidating orders into fewer shipments, you can reduce per-order shipping costs.

3. Customer Incentive: Free shipping acts as a powerful incentive for customers to shop more and complete their purchases, ultimately boosting customer satisfaction and loyalty.

2. Negotiate or Find Cheaper Options

The best part about this is that Bumpa has made it easier to compare shipping prices of different companies at a glance, but more of that in a bit.

To reduce overall shipping costs (and get your customers to fall in love with you!), you can find cheaper options than what you're currently using, and compare shipping or delivery rates. But this can be tedious even when you find a list of the best delivery companies. And this is one of the things that Bumpa solves.

Bumpa has integrated with Shipbubble, a logistics aggregator that provides businesses with access to multiple logistics providers like SpeedAF, Sendstack, GIG, Topship, DHL and more. What this means is that as a business owner, you can compare prices and delivery timelines, and then choose the best option for you and your customers, thereby helping you reduce delivery costs while still giving your customers the best experience.

Bumpa and Shipbubble are seamlessly integrated so that all orders from your Bumpa website or manually recorded on the Bumpa app appear on Shipbubble, orders are automatically updated when shipped and delivered, removing the need to move from platform to app or manually update anything. Check out how to connect your Bumpa app to Shipbubble, and download the Bumpa app to get started if you’re just beginning your journey as a user!

3. Invest in Bulk Buying

Before you shake your head at this strategy, there’s a trick to it.

Bulk buying is a great way to save money on stocking up on products, which in turn means that you’re not spending a lot of money on reordering, and sudden cost spikes will not affect your delivery rates, giving you enough time to ease your customers into a possible price increase in delivery, and helping you maintain customer loyalty and satisfaction for as long as you can.

Now, for the trick.

One of the problems most businesses run into when they buy in bulk is that they sometimes end up buying items that are not in demand, thereby tying their business funds into products that don’t sell as fast. It is important to study the trends of consumer behavior and your customers’ shopping patterns to understand what sells out fast, and what your customers need, as they’re also the direct reflection of your target audience. If your customers are not buying something you have in stock fast, you may not want to restock that same product, especially in bulk.

One of the ways you can understand your customers’ shopping patterns is by using the Bumpa app! This tool gives you robust analytics on your products, sales, customers and more. You can see how well your products are performing, your best sales channels, and more data that can help you make better decisions on bulk buying.

How to Use the Bumpa App: The Ultimate Guide For Small Business Management

4. Group Your Order Deliveries by Location

Another great strategy to try, especially if you’re not selling perishables, is to group your deliveries by location.

What this simply means is that you can consolidate orders based on proximity, and pick a particular day to ship all the orders from that location to your customers, thereby reducing delivery costs on them. For example, if your delivery company has to go from Ogba to Yaba to Lekki in one day, then it’ll cost more than if they just have to deliver to different places in Yaba.

Of course, this works if you communicate with your customers first-hand, and also show them the benefit of your strategy. For example, what customer wouldn’t wait a day or two if their delivery fee would be reduced from N3,500 to N1,500? Letting the customer understand the strategy provides transparency for them and helps them see how much effort you’re putting into reducing delivery costs and satisfying them.

Smoothly Navigating Delayed Shipments or Orders: How to Inform Customers Efficiently!

5. Invest in Technology

One of the best ways to reduce shipping costs for your business is by increasing efficiency. You have to avoid errors in shipping like shipping the wrong item to the wrong customer, and either having to bear the cost of shipping the right item all over again, or putting the cost on your customer.

To do this, you need to invest in technology for easier order processing and fulfilment, and also shipment tracking. Automating these processes also helps you reduce time spent on tasks like order processing and shipping, boosts your productivity and ensures accuracy in your order processes.

You can use the Bumpa app to manage your orders - every order placed on your Bumpa website comes in automatically into the app, and you can record orders placed from other sales channels as well. You can manage your orders online and offline, and every update you make on the app automatically sends an email to the customer as well, helping them track their order and improving customer satisfaction and loyalty.

Conclusion

Finding ways to reduce shipping or delivery costs for your business and your customers is a great way to encourage your customers to keep coming back and patronising you. With these strategies, you can implement cheaper ways to ship or deliver customers’ purchases without drastically increasing shipping costs, and without also taking a loss!

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