EPT1. Do not ship air
What I mean is that a lot people dont package their shipments good and pay unnecessary money. There is a thing called volumetric weight, which is calculated on the following way :
length x widht x height/ 5000
for example you want to send something that weights 3kgs and the only box you have is 30/40/50cm.
The volumetric weight of this box is 30x40x50/5000 = 12kgs.
So in the end you`ll pay for 12kgs instead of 3.
Always try to make the packaging of your shipment as small as possible!
2. Insure, Insure, Insure
I always recommend people to insure their shipment. Usually in case of damage or loss of a shipment the courier/postal companies pay around 20usd per kg. This in most cases is not enough to cover the lost of the shipment so insurance is your friend. What you`ll pay for insurance is around 0.5% of the value of the goods you are sending.
3. Send by post or by courier?
Of course the rates for postal services are much lower than these of the big courier companies (the so called integrators - DHL, UPS, Fedex and the european TNT).
If you want to save money you should send your shipment with the post of your country. But you have to take into consideration where are you sending your shipment. If it is going to USA or Western Europe, there should be no problem, but if you are sending stuff to Eastern Europe or Russia you have to have in mind that the postal infrastructure of these countries is very bad and there is high chance of big delay or even loss of the shipment.
4. My shipment is urgent, but the big courier companies want too much money.
A lot of people dont know, but there are many independent courier companies who offer the same transit times and service as the integrators, but on much lower rates. I wont mention names of companies, but with google you`ll be able to find one in your area for sure.
Another alternative is to use the EMS service of your local post, but once again I dont recommend to send urgent shipments with post.
5. Use road service
If you are in Europe, there are a lot of alternatives for road transport, which is very cheap and relatively reliable. The transit times are also very good, so if you are sending bigger, heavier shipments this is a very nice alternative.
6. Ask for discounts
The rates for the big courier companies are inflated so much that, if you ask for discount you may get a very good deal.
7. My shipment is extremely important and has to be delivered in any case.
If you have so important shipment that you cant take any chances, my advice is to contact a local air freight forwarded to arrange the shipping and delivery.
If you send the shipment with a courier companies it will go through several hubs, flights, warehouses and drivers and as you can guess the chance of something going wrong is very big.
Air freight forwarders in most cases will load your shipment on a direct flight to the required destination, which makes the delivery much more safe. Of course you`ll have to pay a lot money for this.
And in the end dont forget that 1% of all global shipments are lost no matter how they are sent, so dont hurry up to blame your freight forwarder, cant fight against the statistics
