Knowledge Base

In this ongoing series, we offer tips and suggestions on how you, as a retailer, can save shipping costs in fulfilling customer orders.

Our tip today is about envelopes. As an alternative to paper boxes, envelopes can be just as effective in packing and shipping products. Oftentimes, envelopes are ignored by shippers because they lack the structural integrity deemed necessary to protect merchandise in transit. While this may be true for certain products, there are many varieties of envelopes besides the typical yellow manila kinds and not all of them are created equal. For shipping lightweight products such as apparels, books, cell phones, jewelry and electronic components, you may consider using polyethylene envelopes which are lightweight, water resistant and tear proof. Poly envelopes can be purchased from just about any office supply stores. Depending on the envelope size and purchase quantity, each envelope can cost as little as a few pennies. A paper box with comparable capacity will cost 50 to 100 times more. This offers you a major costs saving in packing materials.

With our advanced shipping calculator, you can set envelope and box preferences for your products so the right packaging containers are used for packing merchandise. We also have built-in support for free flat-rate envelopes provided by United States Postal Service so you can further maximize your savings with USPS Priority Flat Rate delivery services. Our technology provides an effective solution to mitigate rising shipping costs. You can start saving money on shipping by integrating the calculator to your shopping cart, ERP or WMS systems through our easy-to-use API web services.