The holiday season is a magical time of year. In the span of 24 hours, Santa Claus travels at a speed of more than 4 million kilometers per hour to reach children in 800 million homes around the world. At that rate, Santa doesn’t have time for malfunctions, whether it be of the sleigh-and-reindeer variety or package delivery. And the same goes for small online businesses, as they start to think about their own international shipping strategy for the holidays.
We’d like to make your season a little easier by offering a holiday cheat sheet for international shipping. Here are a few things to keep in mind when your small business starts to prepare for the season.
Before you start packaging your international shipments, you’ll need to know the USPS® shipping cutoff dates for the holidays. It’s also important to keep your customers well aware of the deadlines so that they know when to purchase gifts intended for global addresses. Think about posting your holiday ship-by dates somewhere visible on your website and don’t forget to leave some wiggle room in your processing time.
To view additional 2015 USPS holiday shipping deadlines, please click here.
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Shipping deadlines for military mail are also important for you and your customers to keep in mind. Military families will be thinking about what to send their loved ones serving away from home or overseas, so you’ll want to make sure their gifts arrive on time.
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As an online retailer, we’re sure you’re already aware that FedEx® and UPS® started applying dimensional weight pricing to Ground shipments, which means larger, lightweight packages might cost more this year.
This pricing applies to UPS and FedEx international packages, as well. As the holiday season approaches, be sure to take a look at your international shipping strategy to ensure that you’re selecting the best mix of carriers for your business.
The holiday season is stressful enough without having to deal with issues shipping across international borders.
Normally it can take an average of 20 days for postal packages to reach their destinations in Latin America due to customer clearance lags, duties and taxes. Nobody has time for that, and especially during the holidays.
If you frequently ship packages to Brazil and Mexico during the holiday season, Endicia Global Service can serve as a good option for your small online business. With Endicia Global Service, packages clear customs in hours instead of days, typically arriving in the customer’s hands in eight to 10 days.
Stocking up on shipping supplies is probably a given during the holiday season. But, you might not know that you can get all of the U.S. Postal Service shipping supplies you’ll need for free at the Endicia Online Supplies Store.
For more information on holiday shipping, visit our international shipping page.
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