1. Air Waybill (AWB): It is a contractual document agreed between the shipper and the carrier. As long as the airway bill is valid (signed by the carrier), the carrier is responsible for the goods that are transported. Once delivered to the respective consignee, the contract expires. More importantly, an airway bill number is a unique eleven digit number that is assigned to a shipment. Using this unique number, the shipment can be monitored in real time.

Read more on how to complete FedEx international Air Waybill here.

Image Source

2. Bill of Lading:  This is also a contract between the shipper and the carrier that gives detailed information about the quantity, type and destination of the goods shipped. The difference between Airway bill and Bill of Lading is that the former is non-negotiable while the later can be negotiated.

The Bill of lading also acts as a receipt to confirm delivery of the shipment.

3. Bonded Warehouse: Whenever businesses ship packages internationally, bonded warehouses provide a safe and secure place to store these goods. They also benefit a retailer as storing in a bonded warehouse could aid them in deferring any additional duty tax. Most warehouses offer upto 5 years of storage with deep storage, bulk storage and dry container storage facilities.

4. Certificate of Origin: Whenever goods are imported or exported, a certificate of origin is required as an attestation to the place where the item was originally manufactured or produced. This also acts a determinant while deciding if the goods should be allowed to pass duty-free or not.

Fun Fact

5. Commercial Invoice (CI): An invoice for an international shipment that describes in detail the total number of goods sold and total outstanding payment. While a shipping invoice gives basic details that include the shipper’s name, shipment quantity and total cost of items, a commercial invoice provides exhaustive information such as description of packaging, volume of goods, per sale price, insurance cost and shipping charges.

6. Consignee: A person to whom the goods are shipped.

7. Customs Entry: All internationally shipped goods need to be declared at the time of transportation.  The importer also has to pay a duty on all the imports. The declaration is compared against the shipping manifests of the imported goods.  FedEx customs clearance fee ranges from $29.50 to $97.50 depending on the shipment value

Fun Fact

Credit: NASA/U.S. Customs and Border Patrol.

8. Dangerous Goods: Certain substances that could prove hazardous to the environment need to be handled with special care. Transportation of dangerous goods are controlled by various stringent regulations to prevent a spillover of potential hazards. Some of the regulatory frameworks includes United Nations Recommendations on the Transport of Dangerous Goods, ICAO’s Technical Instructions, IATA’s Dangerous Goods Regulations and the IMO’s International Maritime Dangerous Goods Code.  Both FedEx and UPS allow the shipment of hazardous materials through service types such as ground, express and custom-critical.

9. Declared Value for Carriage: The cost of shipment that is declared to the carrier by the shipper. In case of loss or damage, the value declared will limit the liability of the carrier.

10. Delivered/Duty Paid: When shipping internationally, in addition to the shipping costs, ancillary charges such as customs duty and residential address charges are included in the shipping invoice. Retailers have to ensure that delivery duty is paid so that customers are not burdened with these charges.

11. Dimensional Weight: While calculating the weight of the package, carriers consider either the actual weight or the volumetric weight, whichever is greater.

Here’s an updated list of dim divisor used in the calculation of dimensional weight for UPS, FedEx and DHL packages:

Read more about Dim weight pricing

12. Electronic Manifest (E-Manifest): While shipping in bulk, a list of packages that are shipped is created by the retailer before handing over to the carrier. Electronic manifests list the number of packages that are being shipped.

13. ETA: Estimated time of arrival or estimated time of availability. It refers to the date and time a package is expected to arrive at its designated destination.

14. Foreign Trade Zone (FTZ): A duty-free zone where goods can be stored, transported, exported or imported. These are classified as special economic zones that are exempt from customs duty.

Fun Fact

15. POD: Proof of delivery or port of dispatch. FedEx and UPS generate electronic proof of delivery which is instantly updated to the shippers’ account.

16. Import License: Document issued by the national government authorising the import of certain goods. Although the US does not require import license, retailers shipping goods to international destinations must be aware of regulatory framework to ensure safety and conformity.

Fun Fact

Image Source

17. Multiple Package Shipments: When a package is oversize or exceeds the stipulated weight, it could be shipped by splitting into multiple packages with the same tracking number. Most global carriers such as UPS, FedEx and DHL offer multi-piece shipping option for select packages.

18. NAFTA Certificate of Origin: North American free trade agreement was established to eliminate trade barriers between the US, Canada and Mexico.

19. Non-Document Shipments: Shipments that would be subjected to a customs duty when transported to the destination country.

20. Pro Forma Invoice:  A preliminary invoice that states the estimated value of the orders sent by the seller to the buyer. Businesses issue a pro forma invoice in order to get the Purchase order approved. It is also considered essential by customs while clearing imported goods.

21. Shipper’s Export Declaration (SED): A document issued by the government of the United States for export of goods valued at $2500 or greater.

22. Shipping Weight: The gross weight of a shipment expressed in kilograms that includes packaging.

23. Tariff:  A duty that is levied on imported goods.

Fun Fact 

24. Value Added Tax (VAT): An incremental tax imposed on goods based on the value of the goods. While 160 countries have VAT, the US has no VAT as of yet.

25. Waybill: A document issued by the carrier that accompanies shipments including details such as the name of consignor, consignee, origin and destination.

The post 25 Shipping Terms That Every Retailer Should Know appeared first on Lateshipment.com.

Luckily, you don’t have to embark on this scavenger hunt alone. At LateShipment.com, we automatically audit your shipping invoice for over 50 carrier errors and recover refunds that are directly applied to your shipping invoice.

Here is a snapshot of the ten most expensive shipping carrier errors that are eligible for refunds

Delayed Deliveries – Sample this: You are a wine retailer who has had a merry sales season. Just when you are toasting your big wins with that chilled Chianti, you are interrupted by a distressed call from your customer. As luck would have it, his favourite bottle of chardonnay was going to arrive late. To keep him happy, you speed deliver another bottle, it’s Christmas after all! But then you get another call and then another. Before you realise, you are flooded with order delivery complaints and end up spending the better part of your holiday salvaging delivery disasters.

The real cost of late delivery is a disjointed customer delivery experience and losing repeat buyers. One harrowing delivery experience could get you blacklisted by even loyal customers.

Damaged shipments –  True, when an expensive order is found to be damaged, it causes a dent in your profit margin. But far greater is the resulting negative impact it has on a customer’s brand perception.

Lost Shipment: The message on your customer’s tracking page reads: Delivered to the front porch. When your customer enquires about the package whereabouts, with casual indifference, you quote the delivery status update. Surprise! They don’t even have a front porch. 

Lost shipments could turn out to be devastating for retailers and their customers alike. Especially when they are marked as delivered by the shipping carrier.

Residential surcharges: There is a fee applied to packages that are shipped to non-commercial addresses. But what exactly is considered as a non-commercial address? UPS states that a residential surcharge would be applied whenever a package is shipped to any address that is a house and does not have an entrance open to the general public.  Let’s say you’ve got an artistically designed, quaint office with a side entrance and a carefully camouflaged garage- it’s quite possible that residential charges will get applied even if it’s situated in the middle of a bustling city.

Address correction charges: Instances of packages delivered to wrong addresses are aplenty. Agreed, the address could be incorrectly mentioned on the package by the shipper. That still does not absolve FedEx or UPS of taking responsibility when packages are delivered to wrong addresses. Nobody wants their brand new purchase sitting on somebody else’s doorstep.

Dimensional weight pricing:  When you ship a 3 tier cake or a pound and bench toy that weighs less than 6 lbs, how much do you pay? You may have to pony up the charges for a 13 lbs package. Dim weight pricing is one of the trickiest charges to calculate. Finding an optimal package size for orders remains a challenge for retailers. Pad it, you pay extra. Skimp on the cushion, you face unhappy customers. Adding to worries of a toppled cake, is an application of incorrect DIM weight charges.

Void shipments: Remember those labels that you created but never used? They generally account to about 0.22% of total packages. At an average cost of $5 per shipping label, cancelling unused labels could recover a significant amount, especially if your shipping volume is quite high.

Delivery area surcharges and extended delivery area surcharges: Did you know an additional fee is applied every time a package has to be delivered to residential, rural or commercial rural area? Packages tagged under DAS are charged a $4 – $4.5 whereas those tagged as eDAS are charged a whopping $130-$150. Even more appalling is the fact that there is a good possibility that 20% of your ecommerce orders fall under either of these categories.

Fuel surcharges: The most contentious and least surprising fee applied to a shipping invoice has been fuel surcharge for all service types including ground shipments. Adding to the complexity of validating your invoice charges, fuel surcharges keep fluctuating on a weekly basis.

Duplicate charges: Is it possible to bill a tracking number twice? Tracking numbers theoretically are unique. But in practice, the same tracking number could be assigned to two different orders. Although straightforward and low in occurrence (.07%), depending on the charges that are duplicated, the amount you could save from auditing for duplicate charges could be significant.

Image source: Disneyinstitute

Inspecting each shipping invoice and searching for errors is like playing catch blindfolded. You have no clue where or when you are likely to bump into an error. An automated auditing process, on the other hand, could systematically catch all possible errors and request refunds on your behalf. All you have to do is, say the word: “Audit”! ( And of course follow it up with a 2 minute sign up process with LateShipment.com)

Credits

https://parcelindustry.com 

https://ecommercenews.eu/primary-reason-orders-dont-arrive-time/

All charges mentioned are as published by FedEx/UPS

The post 10 Important Shipping Carrier Errors That Could Cost Your Ecommerce Business appeared first on Lateshipment.com.

Yet swathes of retailers are still in limbo.

It is time to break-free from echo chambers.

Face up to GDPR reality.

Source: Dilbert.com

Unfortunately for debilitating retailers intimidated by this complex regulation, GDPR will come into effect on May 25th 2018. Almost a third of retailers remain incognito of the legislation. While the remaining 66% of them are still tottering in their efforts to adopt. Majority of the retailers fret taking on this onerous task for it does not stop at aligning their data storage policy with GDPR norms. They have an equally formidable task of ceding to customer’s request for information.

Some of the potential roadblocks for retailers in complying with GDPR are :

Scope: The primary challenge is to understand and discern the policies within the legislation that will have an implication on their business.

Data Library: Retailers have been hoarding huge sets of customer data to strengthen their relationship with their customers. Often this data is scattered and disorganized. They will now be forced to take stock of their data inventory across channels.

Technological Viability: Most small time retailers are short staffed and technologically insufficient to close the gap between their existing process and the one mandated by GDPR. For example, businesses may have to rework on the core design of their product or service to safeguard data which may take months until ready.

Aligning Teams: To undertake a complete process overhaul, retailers have to foster collaboration between marketing, merchandising,customer service and product team, to name a few. Businesses have to restructure their teams to effectively combine, share and compare the information they possess and maintain them according to the guidelines laid down.

Process Documentation: It does not suffice to be process ready, retailers have to be audit-ready too. One of the most manually intensive tasks would be to maintain a record of all the specific requirement compliance such as customer consent to access personal data. Should there be a security audit, businesses have to present with evidence to prove their claims to be GDPR compliant.

Apart from these challenges, retailers have to be mindful of the potential third-party data breaches. This is no easy feat considering the recent events when large enterprises such as Facebook were found guilty of third-party data sharing without explicit permission. Ofcourse, the cost of non compliance amounting to 10 million pounds could be the final blow for retailers who are already sliding into irrelevance in their competition against Walmart, Amazon and such.

Here is a checklist highlighting the basic tenets of the policy.

For legal information on GDPR, refer to the guidelines stated by ICO.

The good news is that a centralized data controlling process and being certified as GDPR compliant could be a boost to your brand’s reputation yielding better customer loyalty. Letting customer’s gain complete control of their personal information helps retailers leap forward in their customer service offering. With GDPR leading the way, retailers should capitalize on this chance to honor their customer’s privacy.

Related:

The War of Retail: Online vs Offline

50 service failures of shipping carriers that are totally eligible for refunds

The Checklist – How to reduce your shipping cost by auditing your shipping invoice regularly?

A 5 point checklist for shipping cost optimization

The post Are you GDPR compliant? Last-minute checklist for retailers appeared first on Lateshipment.com.

The most compelling reason to switch to an automated audit process is that manual process could be time sinking as well as labor intensive. Moreover, the cumbersome process of auditing your invoice takes your focus away from building a successful business. Listed here are the definitive advantages of using automated parcel shipping invoice audit over manual in-house process.

As noted in the illustration, the first step towards logistics digitalization is automating the auditing process of FedEx and UPS shipping invoices. LateShipment.com is a service that helps you audit upto 50+ service failures committed regularly by your shipping carriers and save instantly upto 20% of your shipping costs. Our realtime tracker also empowers your business to predict delivery exceptions and help you make data driven logistic decision.

Are you willing to take a calculated leap and step out of your in-house process? Sign up now to automate your shipping invoice audit process.

The post Why should your retail business automate shipping invoice audit process? appeared first on Lateshipment.com.