If you’re one of the many sellers who sell through FBA, then you know that you’ve got lots of options when it comes to getting your products to the fulfillment facility. Probably the most common choice is to use Amazon’s discounted rate with UPS. For many sellers, this is the way to go. It’s a lower rate than you’re likely to receive from UPS or FedEx if you have your own account. Currently, Amazon’s UPS rate is about 20% cheaper than an average FedEx account, $.38/lb. compared to $.48/lb. Depending on your account and the discount you’ve negotiated, you may save a bit more or a bit less. Why wouldn’t you choose this option?
Before I was an Amazon FBA seller, I sold health and personal care products through my own websites. I shipped orders using a UPS account with a discount based on the total volume shipped. If you do any shipping at all, especially directly to your customers, get in touch with someone at UPS or FedEx to see what discounts are available to you.
At first I thought that using Amazon’s discounted UPS shipping made sense for sending items to FBA. It would save me money, right? If I shipped using the Amazon UPS rate, then even though I was saving money on those individual shipments, I would risk not meeting the quota on my own UPS account, putting my personal discount in jeopardy, which I needed to ship direct to my customers.
If you’re shipping pallets of large, heavy products, you may be better off arranging for shipment using a freight carrier, like Yellow Freight (now YRC, Inc.). If you’re shipping small heavy items that can be packed densely, consider using USPS Flat Rate Priority Mail boxes, which can ship up to 70lbs. for $15.45 or less (for US Domestic shipping).
Do you use an alternate shipping method? Do you have a shipping story? Leave it here in the comments or get in touch on Twitter, @SellerEngine. I love to hear the innovative solutions that Amazon sellers develop to maximize their profits!
I have a personal UPS shipping account but since I made the switch to FBA and have reduced my eBay auctions using Amazon’s shipping rates actually save me money but could see this being a tricky situation if you still ship a lot of items to your customers and use your personal UPS account a lot. Would love to see some of the other comments on this.
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Here’s what I have learned over the past couple of months of e-commerce.
1. If you package is under 13 ounces and you ship in the US get a stamps.com account and you can save lots of money over ups my average cost per item is about 2 dollars and you get free tracking with the service as long as your envelope is over 3/4 of an inch thick.
2. Unishippers is a great place to get your account unless you can get a sweet deal from ups or fedex directly which is difficult to do.
3. As a last resort I use Amazon shipping through ups because it usually is cheaper than most methods unless you have the situation of above mention.
I have my own ups account for 6 years already and I had the same thoughts as Dave that by using Amazons accountI would not build up my discount, I still ship a lot to none Amazon customers, than I reconsidered taking into account that after 5 years I only got a 17% discount from ups I’m better off using Amazons discount which is over 50 %, and think about it, you will never ever get a better discount than Amazon, by the time you will get a bigger discount for your account Amazon will get an even greater one so it’s either beat them, or as in my case rather join them.