Turn shipping and mailing data into cost savings with analytics

Turn shipping and mailing data into cost savings with analytics

Shipping and mailing are two of those “invisible” cost centers in many businesses—you pay for postage, labels, carriers, packaging, and handling but may not have full visibility into how much you’re spending, where the inefficiencies lie, or whether your service levels justify the cost.

Without that view, it’s nearly impossible to control costs, take advantage of savings opportunities, or make data-driven decisions to improve your business.

Stamps.com explores how businesses and professional services organizations using data analysis in logistics and predictive analytics to gain shipping and mailing insights can uncover patterns they’d otherwise miss.

By using shipping and mailing data and analytics, you can:

• See where your money goes: What are you spending per carrier, service level, destination, or package type?
• Spot inefficiencies: Are you using an expensive expedited service when a cheaper ground option would suffice or shipping small parcels with a large-parcel service?
• Compare carriers and services: Which carrier is the most cost-effective or ships the fastest?
• Forecast and optimize: Are you allocating funds effectively or choosing the best fulfillment locations?

How to use reporting tools and shipping data analytics to save money

Having the tools is one thing; using them effectively is another. Here are the top ways to leverage reports to reduce spending.

Establish a baseline of your spend and performance

Pull your current shipping and mailing data for the last two years via your shipping platform and review the spend. Look at the total spend and breakdown (by carrier, service level, and destination zones) and the total number of shipments and shipments by service level and package size/weight.

Segment and analyze by dimension

Use filters to break up the data by carrier, service type, and cost codes, which let you track expenses and bill postage spend back to specific clients, projects, or departments.

Look for patterns in the data, such as services where the cost is disproportionately high relative to volume or weight, package sizes where you might be overpaying, and carriers with below-average transit performance.

Identify data-driven opportunities to optimize

Based on your analysis, formulate cost-saving opportunities such as service-level right-sizing. If many items are shipped via expedited service but the delivery time doesn’t require it, consider a slower but less expensive service. You can also consider shifting carriers or transferring more volume to a more affordable provider if one offers a lower rate for a specific zone or weight.

Monitor the impact of your changes and optimize continuously

With reporting in place that helps you make sense of your metrics, keep a close eye on how your actions are impacting spend and performance. Create recurring reports for a convenient way to track KPIs that matter most, such as change in cost per shipment or on-time delivery rate.

You can broaden the impact of your shipping and mailing analytics by sharing reports with stakeholders in finance, operations, fulfillment, and other areas of your business. Most shipping platforms support printable views and exports, making it easy to communicate and share knowledge across functions. You can also feed data from the platform into your own business intelligence dashboards or integrate data with your ERP or fulfillment systems.

Shipping and mailing are dynamic—rates and services are constantly changing. Regular reporting leads to measurable ways to save time on business mailing and reduce costs.

How mailing and shipping analytics lead to real-world cost savings

Here are several ways shipping analytics translate to savings:

• Lower postage and label cost: By shifting to the lowest rate and carrier, you reduce your per-shipment cost.
• Reduced time and waste: Less manual handling, fewer trips, less time spent reconciling—those hours saved translate into reduced costs.
• Avoid hidden costs: Reducing packaging inefficiencies, failed deliveries, returns, and reshipments.
• Better resource allocation: You’ll know which channels or products have high cost relative to margin—you can adjust pricing, packaging, or shipping policy accordingly.
• Scalable advantages: As your business grows, analytics help you ensure shipping and mailing costs don’t grow disproportionately.
• Leverage automation: After creating rules, automate the process to reduce mistakes and make the process easier.

Mailing and shipping analytics software is a must-have

Shipping and mailing aren’t just “necessary costs”—used smartly, they’re a lever for competitive advantage. Using shipping and mailing data and analytics, you can transform raw data into insights that drive significant cost savings.

For small and mid-sized businesses and professional services organizations that ship and mail at scale or are growing rapidly, this kind of visibility can mean the difference between cost being a drag on margin or a managed, optimized expense. If you’re not yet tracking your shipping and mailing data with a centralized reporting tool, now is the time.

This story was produced by Stamps.com and reviewed and distributed by Stacker.