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Should you negotiate your own agreements with the carriers, or might you just as well ship on Shipmondo's rates? Find out in our guide to choosing shipping agreements here.
Shipping and shipping rates take up a lot of attention for many businesses — whether you’re a manufacturing company shipping to stores or other retailers, an e-commerce business that makes its living sending goods to your customers, or, for example, a B2B company that ships things internally between different locations.
If you choose Shipmondo as your shipping engine, you can either use your own shipping agreements or get started in five minutes with Shipmondo’s built-in shipping rates.
If you have steady volume with specific carriers, your own agreements often give the sharpest rates. If you ship less, or just want to get going quickly, you’ll usually get furthest with Shipmondo’s rates or a combination of both. Below, we go through what suits you specifically.
Your own shipping agreements: what do they require, and when do they pay off?
Your own agreements are the ones you negotiate directly with the carriers yourself. They can give really good rates if you have the volume, but there are a couple of points you should consider before you enter into the agreements:
- You can choose to enter into agreements with exactly the carriers you want, but remember to check our selection of carriers so you can see who we already integrate with.
- Carriers have their own fixed standard rates for shipping, which you can always get, but if you want better rates, it takes a certain volume.
- Price lists from the carriers don’t include fuel, energy surcharges and other fees such as road tax, so keep that in mind. Fuel and energy surcharges are a percentage that typically fluctuates from month to month.
You can also read about what recent years’ rising shipping rates mean for you.
Do you need to send shipments right away? A shipping agreement first has to be negotiated and then set up on your Shipmondo account. If the parcel needs to go out now, book via Shipmondo’s rates.
Pickup or drop-off
When you choose a shipping agreement, you should pay attention to whether the parcels are picked up at your business address, or whether you have to drop them off at the carrier yourself.
If you buy shipping through Shipmondo’s shipping agreements, the parcels generally have to be dropped off at the carrier’s service points. However, if you book shipping with Danske Fragtmænd, DHL or UPS through Shipmondo, the parcels are picked up at your address. Read more about drop-off and pickup here.
If you negotiate your own shipping agreements, you should check whether fixed pickup is included in the agreement. It is generally not part of the carriers’ standard agreements, so you may have to drop the parcels off yourself. With some carriers you can instead order pickup on demand for a fee.
A good shipping agreement requires volume
If you have a high shipment volume, for example around 200 parcels a month per carrier, you can typically negotiate better rates than the carrier’s standard rates. Often you also commit to a certain volume, and the agreement is renegotiated on an ongoing basis based on your actual usage.
If you want to use several carriers, you should therefore consider how your volume should be distributed. If you run a webshop, the selection, order and shipping rates in the checkout all have a big impact on which delivery options customers choose — and thus how volume is distributed.
So it’s a strategic trade-off whether to concentrate your volume with one or two carriers or spread it across several for greater flexibility and choice.
In Shipmondo, you can easily set up your own shipping agreements and use them side by side with our built-in shipping rates.
Shipmondo’s built-in rates: when are they the right choice?
If you want to skip the negotiation and just send parcels right away, Shipmondo’s built-in rates are often the easiest route.
We’ve negotiated sharp rates with popular carriers, so you can ship regardless of volume. The strength here is how quickly you’re up and running. You immediately get access to booking shipping with popular carriers like Bring, dao, DHL, GLS and PostNord from a single account, and you can send your first package in under five minutes.
- Create a free account and book with popular carriers right away.
- No lock-in or commitments.
- The rates include all fuel and energy surcharges and road tax, so there’s no additional bill afterwards.
- Pay as you go. Book your shipments and pay.
Combine: the best of both worlds
For many, the best result can be to mix the two options. Use your own agreements where you ship a lot and have a good rate, and Shipmondo’s rates where your volume is small or you don’t have an agreement — or if you want to start using a carrier and don’t yet know how many of your customers will use them.
If you run a webshop, you can also efficiently manage both orders and shipments in Shipmondo across shipping agreements. You can easily add the shipping agreements and use them in your workflow whenever you want to book shipping through them — for example as part of your picking work.
Read much more about how to automate freight booking as part of the workflow in the warehouse.
How to choose: a simple checklist
Before you decide what you want to do, try considering the following, so you can find exactly the solution that suits you best.
- How much do we ship with each carrier?
- Can we negotiate a better rate ourselves?
- How quickly do we need to get started?
- Do we have time to maintain the agreements?
- How many carriers do we need?
- How do we want to work?
How to lower your shipping costs, whatever you choose
Review your shipping rates and agreements regularly. Your needs and shipment volume change over time, and the agreement that was right last year isn’t necessarily the best one today.
Also remember to look at more than the shipping rate itself. The time you spend handling each order and shipment can make up a significant part of your total costs. With Automatic Printing and Order Management, you save time on each shipment and experience fewer errors in daily operations.
Whether you choose to get your own shipping agreements or book via Shipmondo’s built-in rates, getting started is easy.
Create a free account and get started right away.
