Very Long Journeys
You might not think it, but mail can be a pretty hot topic with people. While global conflict, inflation, and the national economy can be more commonly found in today’s daily discussions, mentioning the mail can bring on equal parts praise and vitriol from a lot of people. You might not believe it, but the post is a real issue of debate!
The discussions about mail are always the same: it’s traditional and something we prize, but it’s also often slow and expensive, and sometimes we have important pieces of communication lost within its rather complex network of operations. Many feel it should be privatized, while others abandon it altogether in favor of couriers and other delivery services.
These debates are actually a healthy thing for product fulfillment pros to engage in. It can cause many pros to start thinking very constructively on what sort of shipping requirements they must have in place for their business. Product fulfillment materials often make very long journeys to their clients, and the shipping or mailing services that get them there must be nothing short of fantastic.
With mail and shipping, product fulfillment pros have to consider all of the methods that make their products get from point A to B—and there are a lot to think about. But once you start to consider them in total, you can think about what options you have to best move your products.
Processes and Practices
Shipping and mailing are not all stamps and envelopes: there’s also rules and regulations, as well as fees and expenses. There’s a lot to know.
From the get-go, getting the goods on your national postal logistics is essential. Today’s post offices are more diverse in terms of the services they offer. You might want to see if sending materials by priority courier is in fact cheaper and faster than the possible alternatives. For all the criticism of the national postal services, they have a lot of good options that not everyone is aware of, especially for larger-scale business purposes.
One quick tip is to go and chat up whoever you work with for your direct marketing operations. Unless you are handling it all yourself and/or in-house, your direct marketing firm should be on the ball with direct marketing mailing and what services are available for your direct marketing material to quickly get items out while keeping costs down. If they aren’t prepared for mailing, find a print shop or other direct marketer that is. Large-sized mailings or batches can mean big savings for you, so you ought to be aware of them.
Shipping fulfillment is a bit of a bigger job to tackle. You might not only be sending material out into the world; but you may be receiving them from international locales as well. With that in mind, it never hurts to chat up logistics companies, or even put them to work for you to handle all the shipping fulfillment needs you have. There are border inspection services to consider, tariffs to be paid, and storage facilities like those big storage locker facilities you see around dockyards that may be needed for your materials. It’s a gambit and a half, so it never hurts to see what the shipping fulfillment pros know about this stuff in order to make things easier.
Keeping Up with It All
With shipping and mailing come the associated issues that you have to consider. Do you have the right mailing containers on hand, be they envelopes, cardboard tubes, or big boxes? For the bigger materials or ones with larger sizes available, what distribution and warehousing options do you have in place? If the mail goes wonky, do you have a local courier—via bike, van, or plane—on hand for backup?
In the end, it’s all about doing your best to keep up with the best mailing and shipping services. Taking the time to find the best answers will make your product fulfillment services run that much smoother.
Need solutions to your product fulfillment problems? APS Fulfillment, Inc has the knowledge and services to make your direct mail and product fulfillment ventures more successful. Contact APS Fulfillment, Inc by e-mail at [email protected], visit their web site at www.apsfulfillment.com, or phone at (954) 582-7450.
