Over the summer, UPS quietly made a change to their fees. After another small change in September though, shippers need to start listening, or this Holiday Season is going to be a rough one for their bottom line.

Back in June, UPS implemented a new audit fee on shipping charge corrections (SCC). From their website:

“The Audit Fee will be assessed if the average shipping charge correction in an invoice week is more than $5.00. The Audit Fee will be the greater of $1.00 per package subject to a shipping charge correction or 6% of the total amount of shipping charge corrections during the applicable invoicing period.”

The parcel carriers routinely raise their fees, so this was nothing new. In September however, UPS went a step further. They lowered the average SCC amount to $2.00 for the fee to be assessed. This drop leaves very little wiggle room for shippers, and makes avoiding errors critical to stopping profits from leaking out of your supply chain.

But there’s good news! We here at Zero Down are in the giving spirit. Here are three Holiday reminders that can help mitigate this new fee, and bring some cheer back to your Holiday shipping season:

Watch Your Figure:

Manifesting accurate dimensions is crucial to avoiding this fee, as SCC’s for dimensional weight can easily start to add up.

Make a Wish List:

Identifying areas in your supply chain that are currently being hit with SCC’s can help you negotiate better discounts in these areas, helping to lower the average.

Don’t Make the Naughty List:

Allocating resources to avoid mistakes on the shipments with the most costly SCC’s, such as expensive zones, priority services or accessorial charges, can take the sting out of this new charge.

Our companies’ expertise and business intelligence tools can help facilitate all these strategies.

Contact us today for a free demo, and unwrap the gift of savings this holiday season!