Three ways your department can save money on shipping costs

Earlier this year, Procurement & Supplier Diversity Services signed new contracts for Mail, Bulk, and Express Services with Federal Express and UPS. The new contracts are expected to bring savings on shipping costs of about 20%, or $200,000 annually to the University.

While that’s cause enough to celebrate, there are a few things your department can do to save even more on shipping costs:

1. Make sure that your shipping account is up to date and on the contract.
Accounts that were on the previous contracts have automatically been transferred to the new contract pricing, but some account contact information is old or incorrect, and some accounts have been established outside of the contract.

· View our shipping contract FAQs for more information

2. When sending a package, consider Ground Shipping.  Currently, University accounts are shipping 65% of packages by Air, and 35% by Ground. Shipping goods by air is more costly to the University and also to the environment:

3. When ordering goods, choose a less urgent “Need By Date” on Purchase Orders.
The #1 zone we receive expedited shipments from is our own zone. That’s like overnighting a package from Richmond to Charlottesville when Ground Shipping would get it here almost as quickly and for much less money.

To make sure that you’re maximizing your department’s savings on inbound freight, we recommend using the “Need By Date” field on your POs. This date defaults to two days after your purchase order is created, which can communicate a false sense of urgency to your supplier.

How to change your iProcurement Preferences