If your business is paying the standard list rates for FedEx shipments, you’re paying too much. You’ll find that more than one method of attaining FedEx shipping discounts is available through various services and programs. It’s worth exploring these options — as well as others like shipping consulting — to see which provide the most benefit, fit your shipping profile, and help you maximize your shipping budget.
The FedEx Advantage Program
The FedEx Advantage is a program offered through many associations and business relationships. Through it, your company can take advantage of discounts without enrollment fees, minimum purchase or minimum shipping volumes.
Associations: Your company may be eligible for FedEx discounted rates through a business association or mem car rentals, hotels, copy and printing services, and shipping discounts.
Discounts offered through the FedEx Advantage program can differ depending on which associate you sign up for the program through, but it’s not uncommon to see discounts as high as 50% on some parcel services like 2-day Express. When determining which program to sign up for, see if you can download a rate sheet. Cross referencing the program’s rate sheet with a sample set of your recent shipments will give you an idea of how much you’ll save through that particular association’s FedEx Advantage program. Different association’s programs will offer different rates and benefits, but here are some examples of savings benefits you may see across various programs:
- 40% to 50% off of FedEx Express services
- Up to 50% flat off of FedEx 2-day Express
- Up to 40% off of FedEx Home Delivery
- 20% to 40% off of FedEx Ground
- Up to 40% off of FedEx Ground returns
- Up to 25% off of Residential Delivery Surcharges
Enrollment is free with the program, and there are no shipment volume requirements. Your company can also get a 5% discount on shipping rates for creating a FedEx shipping label on eligible FedEx Express shipments, when using FedEx Ship Manage.
Be sure to read the fine print to understand what is included and excluded though. The eligible services and discounts may change while you’re enrolled, and discounts may not apply to FedEx surcharges, accessorial charges, special handling fees, or other features. Here are some examples of large organizations offering customers access to their FedEx Advantage Program.
Walmart Marketplace: The FedEx Advantage program can be used when selling on Walmart Marketplace. FedEx Advantage through Walmart Marketplace may waive a $1 return label fee, and give up to 40% off on FedEx Ground, up to 50% off Fedex Express, as well as 50% off flat discounts for multiple FedEx international shipping rates for those ordering from Walmart Marketplace Mexico and Canada. The program offers the same tracking information you would get with other FedEx shipments.
American Express: If your company uses a corporate AmEx card, you can enroll in a FedEx Advantage program for small businesses. You’ll need to link your American Express Business Card to your FedEx account to start.
ms may offer savings in combination with your current FedEx discounts or promotions.
Hertz Business Rewards®: A membership provides access to various benefits, including potential savings for businesses. Members can enroll in the FedEx Advantage program at no cost. This program offers discounts on select FedEx services:
- up to 16% on FedEx Express® U.S. shipping
- up to 12% on FedEx Ground®
Additionally, payments made with an American Express OPEN Business Card may qualify for further discounts:
- an extra 5% on eligible FedEx Express and FedEx Ground®
- up to 10% on eligible FedEx Office purchases
Shipping software: If you’re constantly asking yourself questions like, “Is FedEx or UPS cheaper?” then a multi-carrier shipping software might be useful for you. In addition to rate-shopping technology that allows you to ship deliveries at the lowest possible cost between various carriers, many shipping software subscriptions come with pre-negotiated, discounted rates with multiple carriers. Discounts will vary across each software, so it’s important, when shopping for an app, to examine the discounts each offers for different carriers.
Negotiating Contracted Rates with FedEx
For businesses shipping high volumes, for example, spending $250,000 or more annually on shipping costs, contacting a FedEx representative to secure a FedEx agreement with customized rates is often the best, most cost-effective route. The FedEx business discounted rates you’re able to get depends heavily on your shipping volume as well as your negotiating ability. Shipware has helped thousands of businesses negotiate best-in-class FedEx rates and offers carrier negotiating support for businesses wanting to optimize their agreements.
Benefits of negotiating and shipping on your own carrier contract, instead of a third-party’s, include:
- Negotiating discounts that match your shipping profile. For example, if your business ships food items and is heavily reliant on overnight and 2-day shipping, you may want to negotiate higher discounts on Express services while making concessions on Ground services. Fixed rates attained through a third-party program may not provide the flexibility you need.
- Negotiating discounts on highly-assessed surcharges. If, when looking through your data, you find that your costs are heavily impacted by certain surcharges, you can target greater discounts for those specific fees.
- If your business is growing or has very seasonal shipping volume, you can negotiate customized revenue bands, also called revenue tiers, to complement your shipping trends. Revenue bands offer greater discounts as you ship more volume with FedEx. Your business can negotiate higher or smaller discount jumps between revenue bands depending on whether you may want to be highly rewarded for jumping into a higher revenue band, or minimally penalized for falling out of a revenue band. Successfully negotiating appropriate revenue bands requires in-depth analysis of your shipping trends and profile.
- A FedEx rep will be assigned to your account and offer a direct line of contact for any questions or issues.
How to get the most out of your FedEx contract
To ensure you’re paying the lowest shipping cost, you should consider optimizing your shipping service contract. Many companies negotiate contracts on their own, but without access to marketplace data or extensive experience in negotiating around FedEx’s cost-to-serve pricing model, we’ve found that most shippers leave money on the table.
Switching from UPS to FedEx
FedEx offers deep discounts to incentivize customers to shift volume from competing carriers, like UPS, to FedEx. Through Shipware, if you currently ship over 50% of your volume with UPS or another carrier, you can attain huge discounts by converting volume to FedEx. To learn more about our FedEx discounted rates and how to sign up, speak to a Shipware representative.
Unlike traditional methods that require setting up complex accounts, our Shipware services enable quick access to FedEx discounted rates. We provide discounts to a range of FedEx rewards, including those for the highly sought FedEx international priority and FedEx Priority Overnight. Your new FedEx rates can be easily plugged into most common shipping and e-commerce software.
This ease of access to eligible Fedex services and shipping rate discounts is most beneficial for small and medium-sized e-commerce businesses spending $50,000 to $250,000 annually on shipping
Tailored Services for Diverse Shipping Needs
Shipware helps shippers optimize their contracts by diving into their shipping data and analyzing it to better understand what services, accessorial charges, destinations, package sizes and other important factors influence their shipping costs. Even Fedex ground shipment rates and Fedex international economy rates, which are designed for cost-effective delivery, can be optimized for your benefit. After determining these points, Shipware’s experts can fine tune a negotiation strategy, understanding what elements of the contract are open to change, and by how much. We find that our clients can save as much as 30% on their shipping as a result.
This negotiation process isn’t just happening every few years as the contract comes due for renewal either. Tweaks can be made at any point, like when an accessorial fee goes up, or new yearly rates are introduced.
Comprehensive Invoice Auditing for Money Back Guarantees
While not a direct FedEx discount, another important way to get the most out of your FedEx spending is by using invoice audit recovery services. With the help of our proprietary software, Shipware identifies invoice errors that yield credits or refunds. You can be eligible for refunds due to late deliveries, incorrect address correction fees, duplicate entries, or other billing errors. Occasionally, an invoice might not correctly apply a negotiated discount on a service rate or accessorial charge. The software looks for multiple points of failure to refund credits back into the customer’s account.
Shippers are often surprised to find out that this invoice audit recovery service can recover 1% to 9% of their invoice amounts, and that the service is provided with no out-of-pocket costs. It’s funded by a percentage of the amount recovered from the errors made by the carriers. The program runs behind the scenes, with no effort on the shipper’s part, and the set-up is quick. No downloads, just quick and regular audits.
Saving with Shipware
At Shipware, our experts leverage comprehensive benchmarking data and their experience as former FedEx and UPS pricing insiders to skillfully optimize shipping contracts. We ensure you achieve the most favorable terms for not only FedEx, but for businesses who want a diversified carrier mix, we help negotiate significant UPS volume discounts and special rates with DHL and regional carriers.
To learn more about how Shipware can help you lower your FedEx rates and capture invoice audit savings, contact us today.
