About 30% of all businesses conduct at least some of their business online on a regular basis these days. This is pretty amazing when you consider that fewer than 10% of businesses conducted some of their business online just two decades ago.
If your company operates in the e-commerce industry, it’s going to be important for you to make sure that you take the right approach to shipping. More specifically, it’ll be important for you to set up a dedicated shipping station for your shipping department.
By creating a shipping station, you’ll ensure that you’re able to ship products out to your customers fast. You’ll also find that inventory management will be a breeze when you have a shipping station that you can rely on.
Want to get some tips on how to create the perfect shipping station for the online portion of your business? Find them below and begin putting them to good use right away.
Start by Looking for the Right Place to Put a Shipping Station
If you’re going to go through the trouble of putting together a shipping station, you want it to last. So you don’t want to try to shoehorn it into an area that you’re going to be using for other things.
Instead, you should look for a dedicated space that you can devote to your shipping station. It should be in an easily accessible area that won’t get crowded up with clutter.
Ideally, your shipping station should be somewhere in the general vicinity of your inventory. It’ll make it so easy for you to grab products from your inventory so that you can ship them out quickly.
Fill Your Shipping Station With Cabinets, Baskets, and Other Things That’ll Keep It Organized
Once you know where you’re going to put your shipping station, you should begin filling it with cabinets, baskets, and other things that will keep it organized. Everything that you put into your shipping station should have a place, and these cabinets, baskets, etc. will make this possible.
You don’t necessarily need to cram every single organizational tool that you can find into your shipping station. But you shouldn’t be shy about filling it up with things that you know will be useful when it comes to keeping your shipping station as organized as it can be.
Add the Necessary Shipping Supplies to Your Shipping Station
After you have places to put everything in your shipping station, you can start to fill it with the necessary shipping supplies. You’ll need to have all the following things on hand in your shipping station:
- Cardboard shipping boxes (various sizes)
- Padded shipping envelopes (various sizes)
- Packaging tape
- Scissors
- Shipping labels
- Bubble wrap
- Packing peanuts
- And more
Your shipping station should have everything that you could ever want and need while assembling a package to ship out. The last thing that you want to do is spend time creating a shipping station only to find that it routinely doesn’t have the right supplies in it.
Come Up With a Consistent System for Using the Supplies in Your Shipping Station
If you want to make sure that your company’s shipping system is as efficient as it can be, you’ll need to come up with some kind of system that will help you ship things out consistently.
Every single time that you ship out Item A, Item A should be packaged and shipped in the same way. You shouldn’t ship Item A in a cardboard box with bubble wrap around it one time and then ship Item A out in a padded envelope the next time.
Rather than shipping things out in this way, you should find the most effective way to ship each item in your inventory. This will require some work on your part, but it’ll allow you to run a tighter ship from your shipping station.
Work to Keep Your Shipping Station Clean at All Times
When you begin using your new shipping station on a daily basis, it’s going to start to get messy at times. There will be bubble wrap, tape, and other things thrown all over the place before long.
But you shouldn’t let it stay this way. You should get into the habit of cleaning up after yourself once you’re done using your shipping station. The more time that you spend cleaning your shipping station, the neater it will be in the long run.
Consider Doing Away With Your Shipping Station Later and Calling On a Third Party Logistics Company
When your business is still on the relatively smaller side, you’ll be able to handle most of your shipping needs on your own. You can stay on top of what’s happening in the shipping industry and find the best ways to ship out your products to your customers.
But as your company grows, you’re going to find that even the best shipping station won’t stand a chance when it comes to keeping up with demand. It’s why you’ll want to search within the logistics industry to find a reliable third party logistics company that can lend a hand to you.
A company like this can take your shipping needs and handle them for you. It’ll put you in a better position to focus on all the other aspects of running your business.
Creating a Shipping Station Can Change the Way Your Company Does Business
If you don’t have a shipping station set up for your business already, what are you waiting for? You’re missing out on the chance to make your shipping process so much more efficient than it is now.
Use each of the tips that we’ve provided for you here to bring the perfect shipping station to life. You should be able to have it up and running in no time at all after you find the right place to put it.
Find more tips on improving your business operations by browsing through some of the other articles posted on our blog.
