Pandemic Ecommerce Woes — We Asked Shippers to Tell Their Story

Businesses across the board were affected by the whirlwind combination of COVID-19, eCommerce reliance, and peak season–we all know this. However, we wanted to hear about business operators’ experiences first hand:

• “The trend of so-called ‘temporary surcharges’ has become permanent over time. What we did is cover the higher costs, and did not pass this on to our customers. It’s just one way for us to be competitive in the industry in this time of pandemic.” -Matt Satell, CEO, Prime Mailboxes
• “The pandemic has changed many things in our lives, but the eCommerce business is changed forever. Foot traffic in-store has migrated to eCommerce, and B2B buyers are rapidly embracing eCommerce like never before. Shipping volume has increased notably for small parcel but also for big and bulky products. This has caused FedEx and UPS to take action, as noticed in the surcharges. The sorting facilities are highly efficient, but the surge in larger packages has slowed down the processing and shipping of the smaller, normal products. As a company that distributes MRO products, we have seen this impact our business greatly, but this doesn’t mean there isn’t a solution to the “new norm” of surcharges.” -Ritesh Chaturbedi, COO, Systemax
• “LumiBloom is an eCommerce-only business, so we were already familiar with navigating shipping surcharges. Even with this familiarity, we still had to make adjustments in 2020. In addition to a general increase in online shopping, many businesses experienced rising popularity in certain products. For LumiBloom, that product was our hand sanitizer. More demand for hand sanitizer meant a higher volume of orders. We had to take a close look at how we ship our products to make sure we are doing our best for our customers as well as our business.” — Tess DiNapoli, Writer and Editor, Lumibloom
• “I am a business leader with a large cable company and have more experience than most when it comes to surcharges from FedEx and UPS. We ship all of our cable supplies through FedEx, and were forced to pay much more than we usually do for our shipping costs. Instead of charging our customers, we have taken on the costs and incorporated them into our yearly budget. We make enough revenue that our operations weren’t affected, but I am afraid for small businesses who may have been financially hit by these surcharges. Businesses should budget these costs accordingly, and plan for the future of shipping costs. The pandemic has put a lot of financial stress on us and other businesses, and I recommend that we all take inventory of our services and make changes based on consumer behavior.” -Laura Fuentes, Infinity Dish
• “You would think that running an online consulting business would limit your use of packages, but you’d be surprised. I probably rely on FedEx and UPS more now than I did working at my corporate job. I have many clients who don’t know how to use online programs to sign things or sometimes I’m required to send paperwork in to other companies on their behalf. With the skyrocketing costs in shipping labels in 2020, I had to make so many other cuts to accompany those prices. I even questioned if certain services were even worth giving since the price of paying for these labels were close to the amount of the service itself. How did I adjust to this? I stopped shipping. Just kidding. I decided to go through USPS instead. Yes, some of their services are limited, but it’s just financially smarter for me.” -Manny Vetti, President, BackTaxesHelp
• “While I primarily use USPS for shipping my products to customers, I use FedEx and USPS to ship products to Amazon’s warehouses. Additionally, my suppliers generally use them to ship their products to me. That left me with issues on both ends — my suppliers were passing along the surcharges they were facing to me, and I was seeing those surcharges on my shipments. While I was not able to do much in the short term, I am definitely keeping shipping in mind for 2021 — as I’m scaling up, I’m looking for new suppliers anyway, and now a willingness to be flexible in which carriers they use is going to be important to my choice of vendors.” -Alex Willen, Founder, Cooper’s Treats

Many business owners and operators have thrown their hands in the air (literally and figuratively) and asked, “So what now?” Now, business owners must take a step back and think about the cost of their carrier(s), the delivery experience they desire for customers, and the flexibility and contingencies they need to successfully scale their businesses without carriers overstepping.

This reflection will undoubtedly take time and resources, but the resulting strategy will exponentially recoup these costs–your business and your customers deserve it.

“You need to have enough intelligence to go into the market and give yourself all the operational flexibility you need without sacrificing on price.” -Glenn Gooding, President, iDrive Logistics

For more help on how to reinvent your shipping strategy, visit iDrive Logistics on LinkedIn or on our website, idrivelogistics.com.