We are starting to ship quite a bit everyday and we want to get a good deal with either UPS or Fedex for shipping. Anyone have any experience or suggestions on how to get the best rates?

I am also looking for where is the best place to contact because my regular UPS guy has no idea who to contact to get 'er done.

Everything is relative. So what does "quite a bit every day" mean to you?

I'm not trying to be a pain. Its just that I've worked with shippers who literally sent our ten thousand parcel packages per day and others who thought 4-5/day was a lot. So its all a question of perspective.

The point being that all discounts are going to be volume-based. If you have a history of growing shipments, use your most recent month as the bait and project an annual number of shipments from that. This number, along with a picture of your shipping profile (typical size, wt., add-ons[like sig. required], destinations and lumpiness of demand [do 90% of orders ship on Fridays]) will determine your attractiveness to any carrier.

With all that info in hand, you can contact the national sales HQ of the carriers to have them assign you a rep. Then meet with reps from both UPS and FedX (maybe DHL?), tell them you are shopping your business to get better rates and lay out your current shipping profile and volume for them. Then hammer them with your recent and expected growth rate.

Its a negotiation and they are EXTREMELY good at it. (For example, they are only authorized to give certain discount percents at each level of authority.) So, don't take it on faith that "here's the rate, take it or leave it." On the other hand, keep in mind how much clout you really have based on your shipping size versus everyone else in the world.

In all likelihood, you won't be big enough to carry too much clout now. However a small, growing shipper is also attractive to them. At the very least you should get a pretty decent discount off published tariffs (rates). However, how much exactly will depend on your volume, profile and honest growth expectations.

BTW, if you expect/claim you'll grow, that won't just be forgotten. They will track your activity and see exactly how much you ship. If the rep expects 30% annual growth and 1 qtr in his boss sees 5% growth, they will come back to you to adjust (if they gave you a decent discount). So that is another way to determine how good a discount you got. If you don't hear back often, you are likely small and not getting enough of a discount to bother them.

I think there was one or more older threads on this somewhere in the forums (maybe search for "rates"). There were others with good experience giving advice as well. However, I'm pretty much on target. I just don't want to raise your expectations until we have a common definition of "quite a bit".

Hope that helps.
Ed

When we were shopping for a carrier it was also important that we exclusively used one - rather than offering both UPS & Fedex. Which will also help you achieve a greater volume as opposed to diluting it between the two.

Good luck.

Thanks for the feedback. That helps me out a ton.

I just want to clarify two points.

First, I certainly was not implying he/anyone should split volume 50/50 between carriers. However, you ABSOLUTELY should shop both when deciding the main carrier for the next year or so.

Second, (while not splitting 50/50) many/most larger operations find it to be very prudent to keep a little volume on a second carrier at all times. You may recall way back when UPS had their teamster strike. People without existing FedX accounts were going crazy trying to get accepted/setup. Those with existing FedX accounts had little trouble transitioning. It can also help with oddball situations due to your location relative to the local hub and/or regional sort facility (which may make you able to get a late order out on a particular day without huge penalties).

Now a small operation might not think it important or worth the trouble to have a 2nd carrier in the wings (as it were). However, what does it really cost you to send a single shipment with a 2nd carrier every now and then (just to keep the account active and drivers aware of your site)? My answer...not much relative to your "discounted" main carrier rate. That investment of a few bucks could save your bacon if the teamsters/pilots/etc. ever do strike one of the biggies again. (I think they came within 4 days of a strike deadline in the fall 2004 UPS-teamster negotiations again.)

Anyway, my main point was that he should shop both (or all 3 carriers) for discounts. However after selection, I assumed it was clear that one carrier should get (at least) the vast majority of his volume.

Ed