Whether you’re shipping building materials, using them on a construction site, or selling them in a retail store, shipping plays a critical role in your success. More efficient shipping processes contribute to your bottom line—a benefit you can share with your company, network, and customers.
Here are three ways you can improve your freight logistics and stand out from the competition.
Tip #1: Keep Everyone In the Loop With Shared Live Tracking
In the building and construction materials industry, visibility and timeliness is everything. A late shipment to a job site means wasted labor hours and deliveries that are delivered past the “arrive by date” for distributors results in their inventory taking a hit. Ultimately, the timeliness of your shipments can greatly impact your customers—and their customers too!
The best way to ensure satisfaction across the board is to provide accurate tracking to the right people. When booking shipments through MyCarrier, you can share live tracking information with the receiver of the freight or the purchaser of the goods. This allows them to better plan for the shipments arrival without having to rely on manual updates.
Tip #2: Maximize Efficiency With Your Shipping Data
You’re sitting on a goldmine of data—how are you using it? Your shipping, carrier, and lane data can play a powerful part in demystifying costly expenses and bottlenecks, allowing you to gain a clearer picture of your logistics operations.
MyCarrier’s Advanced Analytics feature is a centralized repository of data with powerful reports that provide a comprehensive understanding of shipping costs. Here are some ways you can use our pre-built dashboards to uncover opportunities to increase efficiency and lower expenses:
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Use the Shipments Summary dashboard to better understand your shipment and freight spending habits. With everything in one place, you can identify areas of excessive spending and peaks in activity then use these insights to make cost-saving decisions.
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Use the Lane Analysis dashboard to get a birds-eye view of your shipping activity across all of your various lanes and better consolidate outgoing shipments to avoid minimum charges.
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Use the Carrier Summary dashboard to view trends in your carrier’s activities. Use these insights to optimize the way you schedule freight. For example, if you have a carrier that tends to show up earlier in the day, optimize your freight and staffing accordingly.
By increasing your efficiency, you can reduce internal costs and adjust your margins to reflect those improvements. As a result, products can be more competitively priced and the savings can be reinvested in other initiatives or passed along to your partners and customers.
Tip #3: Take Advantage of Insurance To Prevent Costly Headaches
Competition never stops, especially in the building and construction materials industry. With each damaged shipment comes expenses for both the shipper and the recipient. Cargo and freight insurance is not just about reducing risks of loss or damage during transit; it’s about protecting your investments against the unexpected.
Securing your freight with full-value coverage allows you to deal with unforseen issues quickly and helps keeps projects moving smoothly. Insurance can be purchased through third-party services for each of your shipments. However, claims management can quickly become a headache as your company grows. MyCarrier partners with Loadsure to give shippers the ability to get full-value coverage with each quote you create. Our Claims Portal also makes it easy to file, manage, and track claims—all in one place!
The MyCarrier Solution: Packaging It All Together
In a commoditized industry, it can be hard to stand out on product alone. Companies shipping building and construction materials can stay competitive by optimizing their shipping processes.
Leveraging shared tracking links, digging into their data, and securing shipments with cargo insurance can pave the way for sustainable growth and resilience in a competitive market.
