With Black Friday and the holiday season just around the corner, businesses can expect a surge of shoppers eager to get in the gifting spirit and take advantage of seasonal deals. This influx brings a great opportunity for increased sales, but it also comes with the complexities of increased shipping demands.

To keep up with the growing volume of orders, carriers like USPS have announced temporary price adjustments for the 2024 peak holiday season. Effective from October 6, 2024, through January 19, 2025, these rate changes will impact Priority Mail Express, Priority Mail, and USPS Ground Advantage shipments.

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What Are Peak Season Surcharges?

These holiday surcharges help USPS cover additional costs associated with labor, fuel, and supplies during the peak shipping months to ensure they can maintain service standards while managing higher volumes. Staying informed about these changes is key to plan accordingly and maintain a seamless delivery experience for customers, so we’ve packaged them up for you below.

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Commercial Increases

Priority Mail and USPS Ground Advantage: Zones 1-4

• $0.30 increase for 0-3 lbs.
• $0.45 increase for 4-10 lbs.
• $0.75 increase for 11-25 lbs.
• $3.00 increase for 26-70 lbs. 

Priority Mail: Zones 5-9

• $0.70 increase for 0-3 lbs.
• $1.25 increase for 4-10 lbs.
• $2.75 increase for 11-25 lbs.
• $7.00 increase for 26-70 lbs.

USPS Ground Advantage: Zones 5-9

• $0.35 increase for 0-3 lbs.
• $0.75 increase for 4-10 lbs.
• $1.25 increase for 11-25 lbs.
• $5.50 increase for 26-70 lbs.

Priority Mail Express: Zones 1-4

• $1.00 increase for 0-3 lbs. 
• $1.50 increase for 4-10 lbs.
• $3.50 increase for 11-25 lbs.
• $8.95 increase for 26-70 lbs

Priority Mail Express: Zone 5-9

$1.75 increase for 0-3 lbs.

$3.95 increase for 4-10 lbs.

$7.50 increase for 11-25 lbs.

$13.00 increase for 26-70 lbs.

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Retail Increases

Priority Mail and USPS Ground Advantage: Zones 1-4

$0.40 increase for 0-3 lbs.

$0.55 increase for 4-10 lbs

$0.95 increase for 11-25 lbs. 

$4.00 increase for 26-70 lbs.

Priority Mail: Zones 5-9

$0.90 increase for 0-3 lbs.

$1.45 increase for 4-10 lbs.

$3.25 increase for 11-25 lbs.

$8.50 increase for 26-70 lbs.

USPS Ground Advantage: Zones 5-9

$0.50 increase for 0-3 lbs.

$1.00 increase for 4-10 lbs.

$2.00 increase for 11-25 lbs.

$5.85 increase for 26-70 lbs.

Priority Mail Express: Zones 1-4

$1.10 increase for 0-3 lbs.

$2.00 increase for 4-10 lbs.

$3.90 increase for 11-25 lbs.

$9.75 increase for 26-70 lbs.

Priority Mail Express: Zones 5-9

$2.00 increase for 0-3 lbs.

$4.85 increase for 4-10 lbs.

$9.00 increase for 11-25 lbs.

$16.00 increase for 26-70 lbs.

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How Can Businesses Still Save On Shipping?

Despite the USPS price increases during the holiday season, merchants still have opportunities to save on shipping costs. By using VESYL, brands can shop the best-in-class rates across multiple carriers, streamline operations, reduce labor costs, and minimize errors through automation, further maximizing efficiency and cutting down unnecessary expenses. By streamlining shipping operations, merchants can offset the impact of seasonal surcharges while still delivering an exceptional customer experience during the busiest time of the year.

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Schedule a quick 15-minute call with us and we’ll show you how!

The busy seasons are both a blessing and a challenge for e-commerce businesses. Whether it's the holiday rush, back-to-school season, Black Friday or any other peak period, increased demand brings with it the potential for significant revenue, but only if your shipping operations can keep up.

In this article, we'll explore key strategies for effectively scaling your shipping operations during busy seasons, ensuring your business can handle the increased volume without compromising on service quality.

Forecasting Demand Accurately

The foundation of scaling your shipping operations lies in demand forecasting. By analyzing historical sales data, market trends, and customer behavior, you can best predict the volume of orders and products you'll need to fulfill during peak periods. This information allows you to plan your inventory, staffing, and logistics accordingly.

Optimizing Inventory Management

Efficient inventory management is critical during busy seasons. Overstocking can lead to unnecessary storage costs, while understocking can result in missed sales opportunities, delayed shipments and unhappy customers. The key is to find the right balance. To stay ahead of inventory needs, work closely with suppliers to ensure timely restocking and leverage inventory management for clear and real-time insights to stock levels. With any management system, implement regular inventory checks to reduce the risk of any mistakes. 

Streamlining Fulfillment Processes

As order volumes increase, your fulfillment processes need to be as efficient as possible. Streamlining and automating these processes helps reduce the time it takes to pick, pack, and ship orders, minimizing the risk of delays and errors. For example, batch processing orders significantly speeds up order fulfillment, allowing you to get more orders out of the warehouse, in less time. 

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Learn how VESYL automations are improving fulfillment efficiency for businesses.

Enhancing Warehouse Operations

Your warehouse is the heart of your shipping operations, and its efficiency can make or break your ability to scale. During busy seasons, optimizing your warehouse layout, staff training, and workflow processes is essential. For example, you can create a "Golden Zone," where the top 20% of SKUs that account for 80% of your orders are stored. This zone should be located near the packing and shipping stations to minimize the distance these items travel.

Leveraging Multiple Carriers

Relying on a single carrier during busy seasons can be risky. Carrier delays or capacity issues can disrupt your fulfillment. By working with multiple carriers, you can mitigate these risks, ensure timely deliveries and save on costs.

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With VESYL, we deliver the best-in-class shipping rates across multiple carriers in just a few clicks, allowing you to make the most informed decisions for your shipments, without sacrificing flexibility.

Implementing Flexible Shipping Options

Customers expect fast and reliable delivery, especially during busy seasons. By offering flexible shipping options such as expedited shipping, same-day delivery, or in-store pickup, you can meet customer’s expectations and improve their experience. It’s important to clearly communicate shipping options and cut-off dates for guaranteed delivery on your website. 

Outsourcing Fulfillment and Logistics

For many e-commerce businesses, outsourcing fulfillment and logistics to third-party providers (3PLs) is a scalable solution during peak seasons. 3PLs can offer additional storage space, advanced technology, and expertise in managing high volumes, allowing you to focus on other aspects of your business. However, 3PL’s can come with their own set of challenges such as a large initial investment and limited visibility. 

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Alternatively, businesses can leverage shipping software. At VESYL, brands can simply connect their stores, import orders, run shipping automations, such as assigning particular products to certain package sizes or shipping rates, batch purchase up to 500 shipping labels at once at the best rates, and print labels with their corresponding packing list. This allows businesses to manage their fulfillment internally while still saving time and money on shipping. 

Enhancing Customer Communication

During busy seasons, clear communication with customers is vital. Be sure to keep them informed about order status, shipping timelines, and any potential delays. This transparency can help manage expectations and reduce customer frustration. You can utilize automated email notifications and SMS alerts to keep customers updated throughout the fulfillment process.

Preparing for Returns and Exchanges

Both brands and customers would prefer to get it right the first time but as we know, it doesn’t always go that way. Busy seasons can often lead to increased returns and exchanges, especially during the gifting season. Preparing for this influx is crucial to maintaining customer satisfaction and minimizing operational disruptions.

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Streamline your returns process by providing clear instructions and offering easy-to-print return labels or QR codes. You can also consider using a returns management software that automates the process and provides customers with instant refunds or exchanges.

Conclusion

The key to a successful busy season is ensuring your fulfillment can keep up. By forecasting demand, optimizing inventory and warehouse management, leveraging multiple carriers, and enhancing customer communication, you can ensure a smooth and successful peak season. Finally, be sure to track, record and analyze for continuous improvement and business success.

As businesses grow and order volumes increase, the need for streamlined shipping processes becomes critical. Not to mention, with e-commerce behemoths like Amazon shifting consumers’ expectations, brands can no longer afford to overlook their fulfillment operations. 

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Introducing VESYL’s Batch Ship feature, a shipping game-changer designed to help businesses save time and enhance productivity by allowing the printing of multiple shipping labels at once, all while enjoying the most competitive shipping rates. Here’s how Batch Ship can revolutionize your shipping operations.

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The Challenge of Standard Shipping Processes

Standard shipping processes often involve manually printing shipping labels one by one, which is not only time-consuming, but also prone to errors. This method is not sustainable for businesses handling large volumes of orders, especially during peak seasons. The repetitive nature of this task can lead to significant time wastage and operational inefficiencies.

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Introducing Batch Ship on VESYL

VESYL’s Batch Ship feature addresses these challenges head-on. By enabling users to print multiple shipping labels simultaneously, Batch Ship significantly reduces the time and effort required in the shipping process. This feature is designed with the shipper in mind, offering a seamless and intuitive experience.

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Key Benefits of Batch Ship

1. Time Savings: Batch Ship allows you to print hundreds of labels in a fraction of the time it would take to print them individually. This is particularly beneficial for businesses with high order volumes.
2. Increased Efficiency: With Batch Ship, the entire shipping process becomes more streamlined. Orders can be processed faster, leading to quicker turnaround times and improved customer satisfaction.
3. Error Reduction: Automating the label printing process minimizes the risk of errors that can occur with manual entry. This ensures that each package is accurately labeled, reducing the chances of mis-shipments.
4. Cost-Effective: By saving time and reducing errors, Batch Ship helps lower operational costs. Employees can focus on more critical tasks instead of spending hours on label printing. Not to mention, Batch Ship still allows you to shop the best-in-class shipping rates, further reducing shipping costs.

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How Batch Ship Works

Implementing Batch Ship on VESYL’s Shipping Software is straightforward. Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to get started:

1. Upload Orders: Start by uploading your order list to the VESYL’s platform. This can be done via integration with your e-commerce platform or by importing a CSV file.
2. Select Orders: Choose the orders you wish to buy labels for. VESYL allows for easy selection, whether you’re printing labels for all orders or a specific subset. Once you’ve selected the orders, above the orders list, click “Buy xxx Labels”. Immediately after, an alert screen will appear with the shipping and cost information and a “Purchase” button. Once you have verified the information, click “Purchase”. 
3. Generate Labels: You will then see the batch page showing how many labels were purchased, the status, along with tracking numbers for each order. On the right hand side you will see a dollar sign ($) allowing you to refund the label and an eye button allowing you to view the shipment. At the top right you will see a Print Labels button allowing you to print the shipments.
4. Print Labels: Print all the generated labels at once using a compatible printer. VESYL supports various printer types and label formats, ensuring compatibility with your existing setup.
5. Ship Orders: Once labels are printed, affix them to the respective packages and proceed with shipping. The streamlined process ensures that your orders are ready for dispatch in no time with the best-in-class rates.

Click here for our complete step by step guide to Batch Ship.

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Real-World Impact

Businesses using VESYLs Shipping Software’s Batch Ship feature have reported significant improvements in their shipping operations. For instance, an online retailer handling hundreds of orders daily reduced their label printing time drastically, allowing their staff to focus on other critical areas such as customer service and inventory management.

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Conclusion

In the increasingly demanding world of e-commerce, efficiency can make or break a business. VESYLs Shipping Software’s Batch Ship feature offers a practical solution to the challenges of traditional shipping processes. By enabling the printing of multiple shipping labels at once, Batch Ship saves time, increases efficiency, reduces errors, and ultimately enhances overall productivity. 

For more information on how VESYLs Shipping Software can help streamline your business and cut shipping costs, visit our website or contact our support team. 

Let us help you to level-up your shipping game. Get a free evaluation on us, or book a demo with us today! 

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