Best Practices in Packaging & Shipping

[JerryB]

Hello everyone,
Have you thought about how it would affect your business if the USPS (United States Postal Service) stopped delivering on Saturdays or shortened their daily schedules. Maybe you use other shipping companies like UPS, FedEx, or OnTrac.

I am trying to see what works for other people and get some new ideas on shipping our bags of coffee to our customers. You could say this is a brainstorming session on shipping out coffee to the customers. Please share with us your experiences and ideas ion this. I am wanting to know what containers and which shipping companies are used to ship out say your 2lb, 1lb, and/or smaller coffee orders. For example; do you package your sealed 1lb bag of coffee into a "Stay Flat Mailer" and ship USPS? Do you save on postage by buying it from a postage retailer? What have you found that works best for your needs?

Thanks for participating!

**** :decaf: Brainstorming Session :decaf: ****
**** Best Practices in Packaging & Shipping Coffee Orders ****
**** In order to minimize costs without sacrificing Good Customer Service:exclamation: ***
​

 

[peterjschmidt]

I use USPS for 99% of my coffee customers, and offer a flat-rate of $5.95 for all orders, but free shipping over $75. For single lbs. I like the padded flat-rate envelope. For 2 or 3lb. orders I'll use the Regional A boxes, and regional B boxes up to 6lbs, and Large FRB's over that.

 

[CoffeeJunky]

I use USPS for 99% of my coffee customers, and offer a flat-rate of $5.95 for all orders, but free shipping over $75. For single lbs. I like the padded flat-rate envelope. For 2 or 3lb. orders I'll use the Regional A boxes, and regional B boxes up to 6lbs, and Large FRB's over that.

Ditto...... Can't really compete with USPS.

 

[JerryB]

Thanks peterjschmidt and CoffeeJunky, I appreciate you sharing your comments.
CHEERS

 

[flexopackind]

Its like to manufacture the attractive coffee packages by the packaging industries. Packaging machines pack the product and people never know that what is inside instead of manufacturing the packages for the products. So it should be attractive and fine package for the products.

 

[topher]

You have lost me Flexopackind. Back to the topic...I use Fedex for 100% of my shipping. I am not sending out single lbs or 2 lbs though. We ship to our stores. Boxes weigh on average 40 lbs each. I used to use UPS but the customer service wasn't as good...plus FedEx came in with some awesome rates.

 

[linuxreign]

@topher - I wish to have available good or at least reasonable rates from Fedex, UPS or DHL, but to give an example, to send a small box (cellphone box) from Panama to, let's say, Florida will cost me around 95 bucks....yes, armed robbery....
As of now I use Panama Standard Mail which is not bad, I do send single pounds of ground coffee and beans, it takes around 10~15 days to reach my US customers and not a single pound has been lost yet. Ah, also the Panama Standard Mail includes a tracking code.
I'm just walking in from the Postal Office, I've sent a couple of pounds of ground coffee to NY

But nevertheless having a Carrier with good rates would be nirvana....

Have a Great Day and a Great Cup of your favorite coffee.

LR

 

[peterjschmidt]

But nevertheless having a Carrier with good rates would be nirvana....

Have a Great Day and a Great Cup of your favorite coffee.

LR

Great rates, in addition to getting your beans to the customer before they're stale would be great too. ;-)

 

[linuxreign]

Great rates, in addition to getting your beans to the customer before they're stale would be great too. ;-)

With all due respect, a Big LOL and you are right, on beans I buy what I sell for obvious reasons, I didn't have any complaints yet.

Kind Regards,

LR

 

[JerryB]

Hello everyone,
It's been a while sense I stopped by this post and therefor I wanted to give an update on my findings. As mentioned above by peterjschmidt, I can't find any cheaper and/or better way to ship fresh coffee to my customers. We are a new On-Line Coffee Shop and we work hard at getting our customers their coffee as fresh as possible and USPS has been working well for us. I was hoping that we might find some less expensive carrier to ship our packages, however without real high volume you just can't beat the USPS.

Thanks for everyone's participation and if you come upon any other advise, please reply to the thread.

Jerry
UtahCoffeeExpressions

 

[peterjschmidt]

wow.......
*thinking*

wow....

Great post. Thanks for letting us know you're thinking. I find it very reassuring.

 

[JerryB]

Hello everyone,
I have been talking with other companies that ship using USPS but were not aware of "Regional A" and "Regional B" boxes.
I don't remember where I discovered these (I think Ebay) but it can save you good $$ when you use them.
There are 2 different shaped "A" boxes and 2 different shaped "B" boxes. You have to order these from USPS.com and
there are some restrictions of where you can ship them but you should check them out.

I wish someone had told me about them a long time ago.

Thanks again for everyone participating in this thread.

Cheers,
Jerry