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Comparing shipping rates, or performing a shipping rate comparison, is essential for shippers who want to maximize their budgets. Why Comparing Shipping Rates Matters Let's say two people operate similar ...

UPS and FedEx have made it increasingly expensive to get your packages to your customers quickly. So, how do you strike the perfect balance of cost-effectiveness and fast delivery? Often, shippers make transportation purchasing decisions based on the branded carrier service levels (ie. UPS 2nd...

If your business relies on UPS & FedEx, chances are your ‘spidey’ senses are tingling. With demand (packages needing to be shipped) far exceeding supply (UPS’s and FedEx’s ability to deliver packages while honoring service guarantees), limited options, and a lack of competition, the small parcel industry is in the throes of a carrier’s market. With ...

Editor's Note: This post has been updated with new links and content. Original Publication Date: January 18, 2016 Everyone's heard of Newton's Universal Laws of Motion. Today we’re discussing Lojistic's laws of parcel negotiation. ...

Editor's Note: This post has been updated with new links and content. Original Publication Date: December 2, 2011 Today we’re discussing one of our favorite topics, shipping rate negotiation tactics and negotiating carrier agreements. Let’s begin with how most companies approach carrier negotiations. ...

Editor's Note: This post has been updated with new links and content. Original Publication Date: March 19, 2011 FedEx and UPS are a modern-day oligopoly. Let’s explain what that means. ...

Publisher's Note: This post has been updated with new links and content. Original Publication Date: May 1, 2017 In this post, we’ll help you understand how to become a FedEx and UPS power user. Let's start at the beginning with what FedEx and UPS power users are. ...

Peak shipping season is here and to ensure your packages are delivered in time for the Holidays, download our Holiday Shipping Deadline Calendar below. In addition, please be aware of this year’s Peak Season surcharges. On October 1, 2019, UPS implemented the following Peak Season surcharges: Peak Season Large Package Surcharge* = Additional $31.45 per package Peak...

It's that time of year once again. UPS & FedEx are dishing out another costly general price increase to small parcel shippers effective December 29, 2019 for UPS and January 6, 2020 for FedEx. It is important to understand that the announced UPS & FedEx rate increases are only averages and the impact on your company could vary greatly. Over the past decade (2010-2020), UPS and Fed...

FedEx and UPS Carrier Exceptions Can Save You Money Alright, today we'll be talking about the different carrier exceptions. In particular, I'm going over carrier exceptions for both FedEx and UPS. They're very similar so I'll kind of go over them all in the same bucket. First, we'll talk about pick up exceptions. Sometimes no packages were picked up and pick up is not rescheduled. They...

UPS Waiver Basics There are a few things to remember about a UPS waiver. For those of you shipping with UPS, you're aware that they guarantee their services. This excludes their hybrid services. For example, let's say that you're shipping a package from Southern California to New York. Based on the service t...

UPS and FedEx Billing Insights from the Pros Hey, guys, Rich with Lojistic here. I'm here to talk about UPS and FedEx billing with any of you that are still on paper invoices. Federal Express and UPS both offer online services. This will allow you to build in so...

Lowering UPS Shipping Rates: First Steps The best way for lowering UPS shipping rates is to get detailed reports on your current shipping. This should include all the relevant characteristics. It should be things like your average cost is by service level and your average discounts. Take a look at those, especially if your last negotiated contract was about six to nine months ag...

UPS Shipping Rates Versus FedEx UPS shipping rates are similar when you compare them to FedEx shipping rates. There aren't any certain rates that are different between UPS and FedEx. This is unless you are looking at some of the surcharges. UPS and FedEx ...

Lowering Shipping Rates: Some Basics to Remember Here are some things to keep in mind about lowering FedEx shipping rates. The clearest, easiest way is to renegotiate the contract. So, to do to lower your FedEx rates is to take account the timeframe in which you last negotiated your contract. As long as it's within a si...

UPS Quantum View Keeps Your Money So as you can imagine, UPS looks down on the parcel auditing industry. Now, why might this be, you ask? It's because auditing services, like Lojistic, returns money to the shipper or custo...

FedEx InSight: Why They Made It Hey guys. So as you can imagine, FedEx looks down on the parcel auditing industry. Now, why might that be? Well, auditing services like what Lojistic provides put money back in the shipper's pocket. FedEx Insight would otherwise allow FedEx to keep this money. So, as you can imagine, FedEx does everything that they can to deal with this. They co...

FedEx Contracts Have Changed FedEx contracts have changed like UPS. In fact, FedEx calls it over-max fee while UPS calls it unauthorized charge fee. It's the same thing. It's for packages that are heavy and lar...

UPS Service Guarantee: What to Know Here are important things to know about a UPS service guarantee. When you ship a package with them in any way, they offer a UPS service guarantee. Here's an example. Say I want to ship a package to New York and want to ship it either next day air, next day air saver, or ground. It comes with a delivery guarantee. This means that they're going to guar...

UPS Contracts: Changes to Know UPS contracts changed in 2019. I would say some of the most notable impacts have been in some of the surcharges. So, in 2018, UPS took a massive increase in their over-max fee. That's when you're shipping very large packages, whether it be long or heavy. That fee went from $300 to $650 by the end of the year. This year that fee is still in effect. This is...

FedEx business customers spending around $60,000 or more annually can expect to see a waiver of their “Money Back Guarantee” in their next FedEx Agreement revision, assuming a waiver isn’t already there.  A waiver of the FedEx Money Back Guarantee eliminates a customer’s right to a refund when FedEx fails to meet their time in transit commitment (aka guar...

In a global economy you have internal/external pressures to maintain high levels of performance at the same time managing the costs between customers and carriers. The challenge is managing your parcel shipping costs while continuing to reflect the capabilities that makes your company truly unique and drive its value. These capabilities stand out as true different...

These five rules apply to everything from negotiating the price you’ll pay for your next car to getting a better deal on the donuts you’re bringing into the office on Friday.  When applied to negotiating your parcel carrier contracts however, following these rules may save you enough to buy a fleet of cars, or enough donuts for your whole office building....

“I’m a really bad negotiator”, said no one ever.  Especially in logistics. Case in point, I was on a sales call last week and the gentleman responsible for negotiating the existing UPS and FedEx contracts for his company was VERY confident in his shrewd negotiation skills.  “My new parcel rates are amazing. I just negotiated a 9% savings with my incumben...

Let's start right at the beginning. Most people don’t know what a parcel audit is. A parcel audit is the task of going through each and every shipping invoice to look at carrier service errors you can be refunded for. The process is extremely tedious and time consuming. This is where 3rd party parcel audi...

You have the achy feeling that somehow, someway, your parcel shipping is draining your company of valuable revenue. Every month you see profits melt away with ever increasing shipping invoice bills that you have no idea if they are correct or just plain filled with mistakes and lost saving opportunities. What are you missing in terms of savings and knowledge abou...

UPS Peak Surcharges Arrives in the Parcel World *Updated with SurePost Peak Surcharge After experimenting on several high-volume peak shippers last year, UPS announced on Monday that it is implementing Peak Surcharges on select packages tendered bet...

Parcel Forum 2017 has just announced their conference line-up. Our very own parcel analytics gurus Bryan Van Suchtelen and James Matthews will be proudly representing Lojistic at the Forum this year. ...

You know that it’s coming. It happens every year without fail. No, I’m not talking about parcel rate increases (not this time, at least). Nope, this time I’m talking about April Fools’ Day. Maybe it’s just me (though I suspect not), but I am keenly aware of and anticipate April Fools’ Day. I expect to be pranked. My spider senses are on unusually high-alert, yet every year ...

Six weeks ago FedEx announced what will likely be the single largest rate increase on record for many shippers.  As predicted, UPS announced that they are following FedEx’s lead.  Effective Monday, December 29, 2014, UPS will impose dimensional weight (DIM) pricing on all Ground packages. To varying degrees, this change w...

When it comes to 3rd party logistics, not every company is familiar with the considerations involved. There are many major third party logistics advantages, but capturing them means first finding the right 3rd party logistics company for you. In a field that is growing very fast, getting a handle on the world of 3PL is not necessarily easy. Still, it is worthwhile for you to delve into 3...

No matter how simple or relatively complex your logistics operations may be, there are certain logistics costs that you will have to be concerned with. Luckily, professionals in most industries will have the opportunity to turn these costs over to various carriers and other logistics services and will not have to concern themselves directly with things like the cost of fuel, long haul trucks, t...

Shipping comparison is one of the most important ways that you can save money on your logistics needs, but that does not mean it is easy to do an enterprise-wide shipping cost comparison. When you compare shipping costs, it is important to be methodical and ensure that you are taking all the pertinent factors into account. That being the case, you might wonder if the investment of time and effo...

When carriers determine discounts and incentives for their customers, they may utilize some similar tactics, but overall, they do not have a singular system to differentiate between one company to the next.  Therefore, they create custom, specific shipper strategies for pricing agreements and makes negotiating carrier discounts highly subjective. There are many different factors that the carri...

There are a number of erroneous charges that can appear on your shipping invoice, the number one complaint of carriers being accessorial charges. But what exactly are they?  These charges are supplemental to transportation charges and calculated using a number of minuscule, but important variables including pick-up and delivery criteria.  There are many accessorial charges just for one packag...

There are discounts available from UPS and FedEx for both small and large businesses.  These deals, however, are not standardized.  A company often must be knowledgeable of what level of discount is possible if they are to receive great shipping rates.  Many companies negotiating with shipping carriers will not successfully achieve best-in-class shipping rates due to a lack of information....

Though you may want to reduce your company's shipping costs, you don't want to diminish your customer's experience in the process. When packages arrive on-time, customers recognize, appreciate, and reward such efficient operations in the form of repeat purchases and word-of-mouth promotion. This all sounds great for your business, but how can you slash your shipping costs while maintaining cust...

By closely evaluating your business’s shipping and distribution patterns, you may identify many areas that you can easily discount freight costs. Below are 3 simple practices that will allow you to effectively assess your current practices, and help you identify areas for improvement. Logistics Reporting Logistics reporting is essential in effectively ev...

In the current, uncertain economic environment, when fuel costs are constantly fluctuating, corporations can overspend thousands of dollars with national carriers like UPS and FedEx. Many executives are unaware that they can achieve substantial costs savings simply by monitoring and challenging UPS and FedEx on-time delivery guarantees and taking advantage of FedEx and UPS discounts. An...

Contrary to what some may think, carriers do not have a uniform system for determining the level of shipping discounts and incentives offered to one shipper versus the next. Numerous variables contribute to the carrier’s process of extending any price better than their tariff rates. Certainly there are shipper characteristics that are commonly considered when a carrier is evaluating the leve...

Accessorial charges that are assessed while a shipment is in-transit or upon its delivery can present an important cost management issue for businesses. Since many companies charge their customer for shipping when an order is placed, it is problematic when the actual shipping charges exceed expectations due to accessorial fees. With shipping costs that exceed the associated revenue collected fr...

Accessorial fees refer to shipping costs that are additional to the base transportation charge. These charges seem to go up every year with new ones being added constantly. Recent fuel service charges for FedEx and UPS recently shot up a "wallet- emptying" 25 percent. Accessorial surcharges for extra, supplemental or special services can easily account for up to 40 percent of your overall frei...

Every January UPS and FedEx tariff rates change. When comparing FedEx vs UPS rates, one has to consider contracted incentives relative to the carrier’s annual price increase. Your contract incentives will more than likely carry over from one year to the next; however, the incentives will now be ap...

You'll find revenue-based incentives in most small parcel shipping contracts. UPS uses the term Portfolio Tier Incentives. FedEx refers to them as Earned FedEx Discounts. Basically, they amount to nothing more than a quantity or volume discount. Some shippers don't like revenue-based incentives; yet, managed properly, they can be fairly advantageous. Carriers like them because in decades...

Many companies will discount freight services on slower, ground shipments to save customers money and protect the environment. Whether companies discount freight services or charge their regular fees, shipping by seas can pose a threat to the world’s oceans and waterways. Shipping contr...

Shipping costs are going up, especially with the global crises in Japan and the Middle East affecting oil prices. But you can negotiate lower rates with FedEx. When negotiating for discount FedEx rates, work with the manager at the local distribution center and request a lower rate. Ask him or her to analyze your account...

In today's tough economy, you need all the discounts and rebates you can get to reduce shipping costs. The major shippers know this, which is why, to keep long-time, loyal customers happy, they commonly offer rebates. But these carrier discount rebates vary with the shipper, the volume of packages and many other factors. ...

Gas prices are up and so are UPS rates. But you can negotiate with UPS if you know how. When negotiating discount UPS rates it's important to establish a rapport with the manager at the local distribution center. After you have asked them to reduce shipping rates they and their pricing depar...