Just in front of its' upcoming earnings release, FedEx announced yesterday that it will raise shipping rates at the fastest pace in more than 12 years (see "Shopping Online is Getting More Expensive" for perspectives from the WSJ) . The average rate increase of 5.9% breaks a long-time 4.9% yearly trend that FedEx and UPS have typically managed in lock-step. With record ecommerce volumes, labor challenges, and persistent inflation, the faster than usual rate increases are not entirely unexpected, but still a challenge to many shippers struggling with costs.

With pricing power shifted to UPS and FedEx, many shippers could benefit from a review of their parcel shipping cost structure and operations performance. Read on for some ideas on where to start.

Shipping hazardous materials and dangerous goods with standard parcel carriers can quickly become a new requirement, as your shippable products start to include batteries, power packs, solvents, or even hand sanitizer.

Compliance mistakes can harm people, the environment, and have serious financial implications such as fines of $80,000 per day and up. At the same time, managing the procedures, material designations, packaging, and operating requirements of hazardous materials and dangerous goods shipping can be complicated, manual, and error-prone. But that all changes when you use Pacejet’s direct integration to UPS WorldShip software.

In this Pacejet demo video we will show you how to take control of your shipping data by quickly moving information to and from Pacejet for a more customized and streamlined shipping experience. Pacejet's Bulk Import and Export module provides a powerful tool for importing and exporting setup data or processing shipments using data from virtually any source.

Watch our demo video to see how easy it is to build data maps and export data to a CSV file.

It’s an exciting time when your business is growing with new sales, new customers, and expanding product lines all paving the way to a brighter future. For your shipping team, growth brings new challenges that can stress the people, processes, and technology that bridge the gap between sales and revenue. More or larger sales orders might mean new freight shipping challenges, increased delivery errors, higher costs, or even more shipping capacity problems. Complex new workflows and paperwork for export compliance and customer demands for personalized shipping service can slow deliveries, irritate customers, and frustrate employees.

Whether you are a long-time Pacejet shipper hitting a new growth spurt or a new customer readying for a fast scale-up, here are 5 key features to consider as you position your business for growth.