Our good friend and parcel shipping expert Jim Lerose, founder of Lerose Systems, LLC has taken a very bold step to alert corporate CEO’s and other key corporate executives what many have known for a long time but have been afraid to say. In the May-June issue of Mailing Systems Technology, Jim provides bold insight into how UPS and FedEx doubled their profits last year. In many cases these huge increases in profits came at the expense of unsuspecting customers of these behemoth carriers.

Jim points out 10 ways shippers have helped to increase carrier profits at UPS and FedEx at the expense of their own. Here are Jim’s ten points to ponder:

· You got bamboozled into thinking you needed to give all your business to one carrier to get the best rates.

· Your company paid the UPS/FedEx invoice without reconciling each shipment. Yes, you did.

· You gave your employees a blank check to spend at will on UPS/FedEx.

· You tried but couldn’t enforce employee shipping policies although you knew it would cut costs.

· You didn’t benchmark or compare UPS/FedEx rates vs. what other companies paid.

· You allowed FedEx/UPS to deploy their technologies, such as Worldship and Ship Manager, which are designed to increase their profits but not help your business ship better or save money.

· You felt helpless to combat new carrier fees, so you left it up to someone else to deal with…and they didn’t! These fees now represent 15% of your entire invoice and you are blissfully unaware.

· You allowed your product to be shipped without the correct addresses. Shame on you!

· You left the contract negotiations up to an employee who had a relationship with the carrier rep. That cost you big time.

· You believed the carrier rep. when he/she said, “You have the best deal.”

As you can see from Jim’s statements he has provided some very keen insight into what goes on when shippers don’t fully understand the rates they are paying and what the carriers’ contract terms and conditions really mean. Many shippers also do not understand that there are many shipping solution options to help them save huge amounts of money. Shippers unfortunately sign these contract agreements every day because the carrier has assured them it’s in the shipper’s best interest to do so. We urge ALL of our readers to take a step back before agreeing to these contract terms and rates to solicit the expertise of a third party consultant to take a look at the contracts and analyze their shipping options BEFORE signing these agreements, not after when its too late.

To give you some insight into the power a parcel consultant can have on your business, we recently completed a parcel contract negotiation for a major electronics distributor. Our Parcel Appraisal and Negotiations Consulting Group generated an additional $1.4 million dollars in bottom line savings for our client. How many dollars in sales would your company have to achieve to put $1.4 million on its bottom line! Let’s talk real soon and discuss ways we can help your business become more profitable.

Tony Nuzio