If you’re looking to get your orders and holiday shopping done early, you’re not alone. Due to the disruption of logistics and supply chains, it’s better to be prepared early on than too late. Here are some of the best ways to ship items, and the best things to look for when you begin to ship items this year and beyond. 

Types of shipping 

There are three popular ways for you to choose the shipping that you’d like.They are: 

• Air,
• Ground 
• Sea 

These are all basically efficient ways to do this, but some are faster than others, and you’ll probably use one or more of these for each shipping.  Usually, you have to use ground for shipping to ports anyways for example. 

Air Shipping 

First, let’s go over the different types of air shipping. Express air is the best way, and they can take as little as three days to get to the customer. DHL is a good one, as they usually get customs clearance real fast.  It’s also pretty time efficient.

However, that doesn’t mean I’s perfect. It’s pretty expensive, but if you do this at fulfillment centers, there are ways to help with offsetting the costs. You’ve also got the standard air forms of shipping, which usually take about 18 days at most to get to. They’re also pretty fast and are very reliable. 

This is great too if you still want to use air shipping but want something a bit more cost effective. 

Sea Shipping 

Sea shipping takes a lot longer, but it also is one of the bests for reducing costs, and when you do this right, it’s reliable. It’s great for delivery times that have a bit more leniency, and for bigger orders, this is the best way to do this.

However, when ordering this during the holidays, this is one you’ve got to manage the logistics for the most, especially if you need stuff to get there at the right time, as this does take a lot longer. 

Standard sea shipping usually can take about 50 days or more sometimes, but it’s also the cheapest way, especially for super big orders. One thing to consider, is for super large orders, this is actually the best for the price. But expect to also add in another week for those huge orders, as they usually don’t fit everywhere.

One thing about this, is that it doesn’t really work well during the holidays, as while it is reliable, it’s not ideal for this time of the year. 

How to Plan this better 

This is important to plan early on.

Ground shipping usually takes about a week or so, but for other kinds of shipping, it can take a whole lot longer. Not to mention, we’re still feeling the effects of the pandemic, so if you’re going to launch a product that’s seasonal, plan this pretty well in advance. 

When you’re planning to ship for the holidays, you should plan about two months beforehand. That means, if you’re planning for Christmas, you should have everything ready to ship out with sea shipping by late October at the very latest, or early November if you’re going to use express shipping.

For the air shipping, you have a bit more leniency, but not a ton.

You should make sure that if you’re going to use specific types of ordering and different means, that you always let the customers know about this, so that they’re able to make purchase decisions beforehand, and aren’t caught holding the bag and frustrated as well.