Everyone ships, and it’s crucial for business leaders to find the best ecommerce shipping discounts for carriers like UPS, USPS, and FedEx. Whether you are a small business printing sheets of Avery labels in an office, a warehouse manager with a shipping station, or an operations director in charge of five warehouses, we understand that you need to control shipping costs and protect profits.
The good news is that shipping discounts are readily available from many carriers and shipping solution vendors. In this article, we will cover how you can access the best discounted rates for ecommerce parcel shipping. Let’s dive in.
Table of contents:
What is the best way to get discounts on shipping?
The best way to get shipping discounts depends on where you are in your business growth journey. Discounts on shipping primarily come in two forms:
- Using pre-negotiated discount rates for carrier accounts available through shipping software such as Descartes ShipRush, Descartes XPS, ShipStation, or Veeqo.
- Negotiating your own discounted rates with each carrier based on your monthly shipping volume, common shipping destinations, and package type.
Free shipping software
Small startups and hobbyists often ship through the post office or carrier retail locations such as a UPS store. However, free shipping software is available to save on shipping labels for low-volume shippers. That’s the best way for small businesses to get deep discounts and print shipping labels with no overhead costs.
Shipping software subscription
As your business grows in shipping volume and complexity of your shipping requirements, you will outgrow free shipping software and graduate into paid shipping plans. You will still get access to the pre-negotiated discounts up to 82% off, along with expanded monthly shipping volume capacity, additional users, and richer feature sets to increase efficiency.
Negotiate your own rates
Once you consistently ship enough volume to require weekly carrier pickups, it’s time to consider negotiating discounts with your carrier reps. Depending on what you ship, destination, and the services you need to meet customer delivery requirements, you may get better discounts by shipping most of your volume with a single carrier using your own rates.
What is the best way to save on shipping?
The best way to save on shipping is to look beyond cheap rates and approach your shipping operations holistically. Because shipping costs come from multiple factors, let’s look at a few different levers you can pull to save on shipping: packaging, efficiency, and labor.
Choose smaller packaging
Many businesses overpay on shipping because ship station workers use the wrong packaging size. The smaller the package dimensions, the more you will save on shipping labels. Some carriers offer extra discounts for small packages through special services like USPS Priority Cubic. You can access these special rates through shipping software.
Use software to increase efficiency
To increase efficiency and throughput, use a cloud-based multi-carrier shipping solution that integrates with all your sales channels and carriers. This will help you eliminate double data entry, minimize paper, and prevent costly mistakes caused by human errors.
Automate operations to save on labor
To reduce manual labor costs and save time, set up business automation rules. You can automate repetitive tasks like service selection and entering package dimensions. For example, if you always ship with the same type of poly bag for certain SKUs, it will automatically apply the correct package specs instead of a person manually entering them.
Why does shipping software get discounted rates?
Shipping software providers forge strong partnerships with major carriers like USPS, UPS, FedEx, and more. Because of the large shipment volume coming through the platform from the many users, these companies can negotiate deep discounts that wouldn’t be available to individual shippers.
For example, Descartes ShipRush provides shipping labels with up to 89% off USPS rates, up to 21% off FedEx prices, and up to 82% off UPS rates to help our customers get the best ecommerce shipping discounts without having to negotiate their own rates with carriers.
How does discount shipping with Descartes ShipRush work?
ShipRush is a cloud-based multi-carrier shipping solution that provides access to pre-negotiated discount shipping rates with our carrier partners UPS, USPS, and FedEx. When you sign up for a ShipRush account, you can create shipping accounts with multiple carriers and immediately access our discounts to print shipping labels.
We also offer:
- Integration – Our platform connects all your sales channels like Shopify or Amazon, carrier accounts, IMS, WMS, and more to manage all shipments/tracking in one place.
- Rate shopping – Compare real-time shipping rates from multiple carriers and services to easily find the best shipping service for every order.
- Automation – Create customized business automation rules to automatically rate shop, select the best service, increase efficiency, and reduce labor costs.
Which US and international ecommerce shipping discounts does Descartes ShipRush offer?
We are committed to helping our customers meet delivery deadlines, control operational costs, and grow profitably. ShipRush offers discounted carrier rates up to 89% off USPS, 21% off FedEx, and up to 82% off UPS for US domestic and international shipping.
UPS discounts from ShipRush
No matter how big or small your business is, your customers expect flexible, reliable and affordable delivery options. Luckily, UPS and ShipRush’s shipping integration can provide all three in one spot. Get discounts on domestic and international shipping, including:
- UPS® Ground shipments – up to 82% off
- UPS 2nd Day Air® service – up to 73% off
- UPS Next Day Air® service – 72%
- International services – up to 82% off
*These rates include Fuel Surcharge and Residential Surcharge for all services and Delivery Area Surcharge for Domestic Services.
USPS discounts from ShipRush
Your customers want more shipping options at affordable rates. ShipRush offers a user-friendly way to print discounted USPS labels through our integration. Save up to 89% on USPS labels when you print with ShipRush. Domestic shipping discounts include:
- Priority Mail® – Save up to 48%
- Priority Mail Cubic® – Save up to 89%
- Priority Mail Express® – Save up to 17%
- Ground Advantage® – Save up to 52%
- Ground Advantage Cubic® – Save up to 86%
Estimated savings based on ShipRush rates as of November 20, 2024
FedEx discounts from ShipRush
Fast, reliable shipping just got more affordable with FedEx shipping discounts offered through ShipRush’s FedEx integration. Whether you use a FedEx account or sign up through our FedEx Advantage Discount Program, you can immediately save up to 21% on FedEx labels.
- FedEx Express® – up to 21% off
- FedEx Ground® – up to 20% off
- FedEx Home Delivery® – up to 20% off
- FedEx Office℠ Print & Ship® – up to 20% off
We also provide competitive international shipping rates for FedEx, supporting FedEx International Mail Services (FIMS)®, Intra GB®, IntraCanada®, and many more FedEx services.
ShipRush users can also enjoy special savings on selected FedEx shipping services and FedEx Office℠ Print & Ship Services through the FedEx Advantage Discount Program.
How can I find the best discount shipping rate for each order?
The easiest way to find the best discount shipping rate for each order is to select the best shipping service using automation rules. Multi-carrier shipping software like Descartes ShipRush has robust business rules that you can customize according to specific parameters.
For example, imagine you are an Amazon Seller and always need to find the cheapest 1-2-day shipping service to meet Amazon’s Prime requirements and control your costs. You can build an automation rule in ShipRush that identifies Amazon orders as they come in, finds all of the 1-2-day shipping services available for that order, compares those rates, and selects the cheapest shipping service to meet your delivery requirements.
Step 1: Start a free 15-day trial of ShipRush
Begin by signing up for a ShipRush free trial to explore our discounted shipping rates. It only takes a few minutes to set up an account. Sign up now.
Step 2: Get discount UPS, USPS, and FedEx rates
Use the ShipRush platform to compare discounted rates from major carriers including UPS, USPS, and FedEx.
Step 3: Connect your sales channels
Connect your sales channels using our pre-built integrations. ShipRush will instantly import your orders so you can manage all orders, shipments, and tracking in one place
Step 4: Try the rate shopping tool
Use our ShipRush rate shopping tool to manually check rates and understand how service comparison and selection works before fully automating the process.
Step 5: Create business rules to automate rate shopping
Set up automation rules and let the ShipRush platform automatically compare real-time rates from different carriers to choose the best shipping service for every shipment.
Key Takeaways
- Save with shipping software – Access deeply discounted rates and save on shipping labels with a multi-carrier shipping solution.
- Compare carrier rates – Don’t assume a certain carrier is always the cheapest option. Use real-time rate comparisons to ensure you always get the best discount.
- Automate shipping operations – Discounted rates will only get you so far. To save on shipping, reduce operational costs by automating tedious manual tasks.
*Discounts off UPS daily rates. Rates are limited to shipping from the U.S. only. Rates and any applicable discounts are subject to change at any time without notice.
About the Author
Troy Graham is Vice President of Business Development for Descartes’ ecommerce suite of solutions. His area of expertise includes warehouse automation, parcel shipping, fulfillment, and ecommerce sales channel integrations with other programs. Troy brings over 15 years of experience in ecommerce-related technology and optimizing fulfillment operations.
