How to Get a Quote for Courier Service: eParcels 101

If you have simply trusted one carrier for all of your e-commerce shipments, you are missing out a lot!

Even to the carriers and their logistics partners like us, it is completely normal for businesses to quote a few courier services before deciding to go with one. This is because different carriers are specialised in providing different solutions, e.g. in terms of sizes and territories.

Here are some tips we have for you on where you can get a quotation.

From the Carrier Directly

No doubt you can get a quotation directly from a carrier’s website. Only we are unsure if that is the most sensible thing to do. It is both time wasting to check each and every carrier yourself, and the retail rate is often extremely costly.

Of course, it would be a different story if you have a huge volume of daily shipment to back your business, in which case you would be given a discounted rate from them. I’m talking about Nike- and Adidas-level businesses. If you are merely a start-up or growing business, you may want to consider the other options.

From Comparison Platforms

As an alternative solution to the carriers’ website, there are a lot of comparison platforms in the market for shipment quoting and booking.

Easyship is arguably the pioneer of them all. Other providers of similar nature include Spaceship and Parcel Monkey. They are the best if you are an individual trader or a very small start-up. This is because a lot of them allow you to quote online immediately without even signing in, and its self-servicing model gives you the autonomy to arrange the shipments at any occasion you deem appropriate.

Their rates however are still more expensive than logistics partners for businesses like us. Another down side is their lack of operation support to help you through any queries you may have.

From Logistics Partners

When your business is growing, you would want to get an even more competitive pricing, hopefully with the choice of having a dedicated customer support team to assist you and your clients on any enquiries you may have, from shipment status to custom clearance and transport regulations.

This is where we come into place. Instead of getting a quote online right off the bat, the likelihood is you would have to ask for and/ or receive one from one of our team members before gaining a log-in to our shipment web portal if you would like to use our service.

Usually, we would request for some very simple information of your shipments, e.g. monthly volume, general size and weight, as well as common origin and destination. This is so we can formulate the most suitable solution for you, and open up the right access to our system.

It started off a little more complicated than the comparison platforms, but we usually bill our on-going clients only once a month. Not to mention the functionality of batch upload and the integration with your e-commerce platforms which enables direction order information syncing, we are going to simplify the process of each shipments you have to deal with. So think about the time and money you would save to actually put into developing your business further.

Next time, we will let you know all the smallest details you would have to beware of when you are asking for a quotation. So stay tuned! Meanwhile, feel free to get in touch should you have any questions at all.