if you want to know the cheapest way to ship packages or if you run an e-commerce business and want to keep your shipping costs down this video will teach you all the cheap shipping methods that i use to run my seven-figure online store if you enjoyed this video don't forget to hit the subscribe button and be sure to hit the bell button to be notified when new videos come out now because e-commerce is booming and there's a nationwide shortage of manpower all the major shipping carriers have increased their prices for example the united states postal
service has been jacking up their shipping rates every four to six months as a result what used to be the most economical shipping method is now priced inline or even more expensive than some of their more reliable carriers like ups or fedex now here's a competitive analysis of the various shipping carriers from the perspective of a small business owner who ships thousands of packages every month now what is the cheapest shipping option usps fedex or ups now because there's so many variables and shipping options to choose from when deciding the cheapest way to ship a
package it's actually difficult to make an apples-to-apples comparison without locking down some of the basic parameters so for the purposes of this video i'm going to compare the shipping rates based on the following assumptions a 14 by 12 by three inch package is being shipped across the country from california to a residence on the east coast now incidentally this is the exact same size as a usps medium priority mail flat rate box and only domestic shipping rates within the united states will be compared i'm also going to use out-of-the-box pricing for all shipping carriers which
means that a lower negotiated shipping rate based on volume is not taken into account i'm also going to assume that all labels are being printed online which means that all associated internet only usps discounts apply and at the end i'll also discuss the trade-offs between shipping costs delivery time frames reliability and give my take on the cheapest way to ship a package with a reasonable delivery time all right so here is the cheapest way to ship a package two pounds or heavier with a five day delivery window now fedex ground or ups ground shipping will
almost always give you a cheaper shipping rate than usps priority mail now between fedex and ups fedex will be cheaper than ups out of the box because they provide you with an instant 15 off all shipments just for creating an account online now just a quick note the level discount will vary but there's always a discount program now here's just a side note both ups and fedex charge for what is called dimensional weight basically what this means is that if your package is large or oversized then the shipping rate will be dramatically increased so the
dimensional weight calculation for ups is currently length times width times height divided by 139 so let's put all that into an example here if your package is 20 by 20 by 20 and weighs 10 pounds then you would be charged for a package weighing 20 times 20 times 20 divided by 139 which equals 57.55 pounds instead of 10 pounds so using the box example of 14 by 12 by 3 the dimensional weight for this package is four pounds which means you'll get charged for four pounds no matter what otherwise packages below 5184 cubic feet will
be cheaper than usps in this category now the only exception to this rule is that usps offers three flat rate shipping options small medium and large now if you can manage to shove merchandise that is heavier than two pounds into a small flat rate box which is really difficult you can save about 10 bucks however more realistically you will need a medium flat rate box to ship something weighing two pounds or more now assuming that you aren't getting hit by dimensional weight the break-even point between fedex or ups ground and a priority flat rate medium
box is approximately three pounds now at exactly two pounds fedex or ups is slightly cheaper but above two pounds the usps medium flat rate box is slightly cheaper than fedex or ups ground now the break-even point compared to fedex and ups for a large usps priority male flat rate box is about five pounds now if you need a large flat rate usps priority mail box make sure it's heavier than five pounds otherwise fedex or ups ground will always be cheaper so i said a lot there so let's sum it all up if your item is
heavier than two pounds try to fit everything into usps priority mail flat rate medium box if your item is heavier than five pounds try to fit everything into a usps priority mail flat rate large box otherwise fedex and ups will be cheaper for heavier packages by the way here's just a quick note you can receive significant shipping discounts on usps shipping by signing up for a shipping easy account shipping easy also works with fedex and ups so you can easily compare shipping prices plus it's free for up to 50 shipments per month all right here's
the cheapest way to ship a package under two pounds usps will always be the cheapest way to ship compared to fedex or ups hands down however as the weight creeps closer to two pounds usps shipping costs achieve pricing parity with ups and fedex ground now for packages between one to two pounds in weight on paper fedex and ups seem to be slightly cheaper than usps but it all depends on the dimensional weight calculations if you can somehow avoid getting hit by the dimensional weight penalty for fedex and ups then fedex or ups will cost slightly
less in the one to two pound category but otherwise usps will be cheaper across the board up to two pounds now usps shipping costs are the lowest when your package weighs less than 16 ounces and can be mailed via usps first class mail now if you don't care about reliability usps first class mail is by far the cheapest shipping option for light items here's the cheapest way to ship a package for overnight delivery usps express is once again the cheapest way to ship and overnight delivery is guaranteed now the main problem with usps express mail
is that sometimes the delivery window is two days and you won't know unless you check online usps also does not offer a morning delivery time so if your client needs a package at the beginning of the business day they are out of luck i've also discovered that usps express mail is much less reliable for overnight delivery compared to fedex or ups next day service now while they technically guarantee their delivery times what this really means is they'll refund your money if the package is delivered late now this has happened to me several times already and
a shipping refund doesn't make up for having an angry customer but overall despite being the cheapest way to ship packages overnight you should avoid usps express mail after all if you're paying a high shipping cost for overnight delivery delivery speed is more important than cheap shipping here's the cheapest way to ship a package with a two to three day delivery window now it's unclear which delivery service is better if you need a two to three day delivery because usps does not guarantee the delivery speed for usps priority mail or usps first class mail so while
usps priority mail cites a two to three day typical delivery time it could be slower or faster depending on various unknown factors now in my experience i've had some usps priority mail packages delivered overnight and i've seen delivery times as long as 1.5 weeks now while the latter tends to be an anomaly overall the delivery speed is somewhat random other shipping carriers like fedex and ups however always guarantee the delivery times but are significantly more expensive and in some cases fedex and ups will cost you over 2x the shipping cost of usps alright so here's
my take on the three shipping carriers while usps is the cheapest shipping carrier in most cases their reliability is easily the worst among the three carriers now our online store primarily uses usps because most of our orders are under two pounds but we routinely get packages delayed or lost in the mail now these past several months alone we've had three customers email us wondering where the hell their order was and given our shipping volume three customers is probably statistically insignificant but having to deal with any unhappy customers is a real pain in the neck now
while we don't check on the status of all of our orders i can tell you from experience that the quoted delivery times for both usps first class and usps priority mail are completely hit or miss if you are sending a package to some podunk middle of nowhere town it's much more likely to get delayed meanwhile it's rare to ever have a fedex or ups package delayed or lost now in the end it comes down to reliability versus shipping cost now for light items usps is the cheapest way to ship if that is your goal and
for heavier items greater than two pounds in which delivery time is not a factor fedex or ups ground is the cheapest way to ship it's the two to three day delivery window where you have to weigh the trade-offs do you want the cheapest shipping cost or do you want reliability is actual transit time a concern now if you need a package to be delivered on time use fedex or ups if you're looking for the cheapest way to ship use usps now our online store offers a mix of both by default we use usps shipping to
keep the shipping costs low and our items are typically under two pounds a lot are actually under one pound however if a customer has a tight deadline we always use fedex or ups now speaking from experience the savings and shipping costs from using usps is not worth the hassle of pissing off a customer if there's a deadline but it's a tough decision to make because customers are typically turned off by high shipping costs now of course the other option is to just raise your prices or lose money on shipping you have to make the call
now in terms of just usps here's the cheapest way to ship now if you decide to use usps as your primary shipping carrier the cheapest way to ship is to use a shipping software like shippingeasy.com shippingeasy lets you print first class mail postage from your printer and offer significant shipping discounts on practically every service that the united states postal service offers now in fact using shipping software is the only way to get usps shipping discounts online and overall you'll experience the most savings if you ship a lot of usps priority mail or express mail orders
now it doesn't really matter which shipping software that you use but shipping software is really the only way to unlock the usps shipping discounts in addition shipping with fedex ups and dhl is all nicely integrated into shipping easy so you only need a single shipping service to ship across all carriers so check them out it's who we use as our primary shipping software but there's other offerings out there as well also don't forget to request free shipping labels and boxes from usps via the usps website now here's the cheapest way to ship a package via
fedex or ups the only way to get shipping discounts with fedex or ups is to negotiate of course you'll need to demonstrate that you can and will ship in volume but that shouldn't be too hard if you run an online store ideally you should pick one carrier and focus on them in my experience ups seems to be a bit hungrier than fedex for your business so they may be more willing to negotiate but your mileage is going to vary but do not be too shy to pick up a phone and speak to your sales rep
now if you ship enough volume to negotiate your shipping costs with fedex and ups i highly recommend that you look at fedex one rate as long as you use a special fedex shipping box you can stuff as many items as you can in a box for one flat shipping rate which is extremely inexpensive now for our ecommerce business we almost exclusively use fedex one rate to ship packages over one pound instead of usps priority mail because we've negotiated such a low shipping rate with fedex now your mileage is going to vary depending on volume but
fedex one rate is easily the cheapest way to ship packages over 16 ounces with a two to three day delivery speed for domestic shipping now ups also has a similar program called ups simple rate that is essentially the same as fedex now at least once per year you should reach out to both your fedex and your ups reps and ask for a lower shipping rate now we often switch carriers every other year to get the best price hope you enjoyed this video now if you like what you saw there's actually a lot more where that
came from if you subscribe to my channel below and if you are interested in learning how to sell physical products online then click over here and take my free six day mini course where i'll walk you through everything that you need to know to get started in ecommerce thanks for watching
