Logistics Tips for Small Businesses

Small businesses often struggle with logistics. You can have everything in place from a great product to smartly developed website. Yet if you fumble the logistics, your business might not survive very long. If your product is your company’s heart, and your sales point infrastructure is its brain, logistics is the blood that keeps both of those other components healthy. Consider a few tips when it comes to planning for small business logistics:

1. Make logistics objective oriented. Many things in your business might be dictated by attitude or personality. Small businesses often have a fun element – quirk is often what creates sales niches that didn’t exist before. Logistics must be concerned with harder details: where, when, and how. Orient your logistics objectives around hard goals.

2. Fulfill customer’s needs. You’ll be tempted to design your logistics around your needs. You have to consider this, but don’t overlook customers’ needs. These come first, and they’re the difference between one-time customers who never come back and return customers who tell all their friends.

3. Beware of “too good to be true.” There are many fly-by-night operations who will promise you the moon when it comes to shipping your goods. These companies will often undercut what’s needed for safe, secure shipping and put your shipments at risk. Once enough people complain, they’ll change their name and go right back at it. Compare quality of shipping, not just price.

4. Ask questions. Any shipping company should be prepared to answer reasonable questions. If they treat you as wasting their time, or rude for asking, consider that a red flag. You need hard information to be able to entrust your products with them. If they can’t give it to you, then they’re not good enough for your business.

5. Consider contract logistics. What is contract logistics? This involves a logistics company acting for you as logistics-as-a-service. Small businesses can’t realistically hire a full-time logistics expert, let alone a logistics department. This creates a need that contract logistics fills. We can establish your supply chain and handle logistics matters for you. This allows you to focus on your strengths within your business.