How to Reduce Shipping Risk

When you’re operating a globally active business with customers spread across multiple continents, shipping is bound to form a significant part of your supply chain.

In this case, you’ll want to mitigate the many risks associated with sea freight, allowing your business to get on with what it knows best – its products.

While you manage your products and supply chain, Blu Print can take care of commercial printing, labelling and courier bags.

As a global business ourselves, the Blu Print team has a wealth of experience navigating the global supply chain and the risks associated with international shipping. You can trust us to offer the best advice, products and services to connect fellow Australian businesses to the world.

First, What Are the Risks?

Leading digital freight forwarder, DFreight, has outlined six significant shipping risks.

Economical risks include variations in demand, capacity, fuel prices, and rates.

Political risks include international sanctions such as those imposed on Russia during its invasion of Ukraine.

Environmental risks include pollution and emission levels from a given vessel, as well as inclement weather, which can halt transportation.

Similar to political risks, geopolitical risks occur when the tension between states prevents the movement of goods through a certain region.

Operational risks include accidents that delay a vessel or the maintenance procedures which are relied upon for safe travel.

Finally, financial risks include interest rates and currency fluctuations which may cause shipping to become infeasible or too expensive.

How to Manage These Risks

No matter how big your business is, it is vital that you take these shipping risks seriously.

This begins when you choose your shipping company and perform your due diligence. A reputable shipping company should have a good reputation with flexible services and capable data collection technology.

Ensure that they have ample capacity to cater to your business as it grows and that their network is diverse enough to manage widespread disruption.

The next step to reducing shipping risk is to perfect your packaging. While Blu Print can’t provide lengthy advice on choosing a shipping company, we can talk all day about packaging.

By matching items with suitable packaging, you not only remove the risk of goods being damaged in transit, but you also improve delivery efficiency.

Oversized packaging can reduce the capacity of any vehicle and slow your dispatch rates. This of course will cause delays for customers and hurt your reputation.

Our Enviro 80 eCom satchels are a great option for apparel, sturdy electronics, stationary, beauty products and much more. Their lightweight design allows more to fit in a smaller space than something like a cardboard box would. If you want to reduce the risk of delays while improving your dispatch output, consider the benefits of soft-shell courier bags and satchels.

One of the best ways to mitigate economical shipping risks is to make use of IoT and tracking technology. These tools can collect shipping data for analysis so that you can detect the weak spots in your supply chain.

Once the data is digested, you can quickly and effectively go about fixing the holes and reducing the risk of parcels being lost or delayed.

Get in Touch with Blu Print

If you have any questions about the above or want to discuss any points of interest, our team is always up for a chat. We built our business from the ground up and want to help similar businesses do the same.

Image source: https://unsplash.com/photos/3XjMwxUHx0Q