If you are looking into shipping for a new business this year, you will have already likely thought about a logistics department. For small businesses, you might not be able to afford logistics employees right away, and this is where these handy tips can help you out.
Transport
When you come to look at shipping, you’ll likely think of a Freight company. Freight companies are amazing for large shipping such as big products or large volumes, but there are other types of transport that can be used for smaller orders. A small carrier van such as a UPS van can be the perfect thing to use for your orders. Explore different types of transport and decide which one will work the best for you.
Keep high traffic products near the door
Part of the shipping process is picking the items from your warehouse ready or be packed up and sent off. To make your life much easier, be sure that you place the most popular and fast moving items of your business near the packing area. This will make for easy picking, packing and shipping.
Think seasons
If you are a company who often sells seasonal items as well as everyday ones, you will likely have a warehouse which includes Halloween items and Christmas decorations. You can make your warehouse more organised by putting seasonal items within reach, and out of season items at the back of the warehouse out of the way. This will make life much easier for your warehouse workers when bringing products out for delivery, and it means that you can get more items shipped each day.
Have a packing station
The most important thing you need to do when you are working for a business that ships product is a packing station. You will want to have a station close to the back door of the warehouse where workers can pack items, stamp them with postage marks and get them into bags for delivery. Always make sure you have plenty of bags handy to make your life easier!
Pick into the box
When your workers are picking products to be packed up and shipped, try and make sure that they pick them and put them straight into a box which just needs to be sealed. This will allow you to save time on processing an order, and therefore the product should reach your customer much more quickly.
Have a wireless printer
There’s nothing that can slow down your production more than having to walk all the way to the printer to get labels. Instead of having to slow down packing, you can get yourself a wireless printer which you can place on the packing station. This will allow labels to be printed off during the day while you are working, and you won’t need to break stride while packing in order to get up and get them! Your working day will be much more productive and more items will make their way to your customers every single day.
