Until recently, winter had been pretty calm and warmer than normal for most of the U.S.
But then, you read the news headlines and see that winter’s first big snowstorm is coming to your area. It’s late January, after all, and winter weather really isn’t uncommon this time of year, is it? So, after reading about this storm approaching, you decide to check your ice cleat inventory. Only to realize you’re low on stock – or worse, completely out! Now, the panic starts to set in, “Oh man, I wish I had done something about this a few weeks ago.”
If those ice cleats don’t arrive before the storm hits, it’s not good news for your employees’ health and safety, your safety record or the company’s bottom line.
Time to get to work. You decide to re-order the ice cleats you’ve been using. You select the sizes you need. All that’s left to do is pay, right? Not exactly. With a winter storm barreling down on your area, you’ve got one last question to answer: How do you want that shipped – standard ground or overnight?
Below is the real-world pricing on ground shipping vs. overnight shipping. Simply put, it’s the cost difference between proactive purchasing vs. reactive buying.
Say your ice cleat costs $34.95 per pair. You need 100 pairs of traction cleats. Your total is roughly $3,500 without shipping.
Shipping this order to, say, Denver, CO, costs about $260 for standard ground shipping. Ground shipping is normally four days for your location. So your total expenditure, with ground shipping, is roughly $3760.
But there’s no guarantee you’ll get them BEFORE the storm hits. So you decide to overnight it. The overnight cost now skyrockets to just over $2050 for this location. Your total expedited shipping cost with overnight shipping is now more than $5500.
In other words, you could protect 50 more employees with proactive purchasing and keep that $1800 expedited shipping cost difference in your budget.
Don’t spend more than necessary. Proactive purchasing and winter preparedness will keep your workforce safer, improve your safety record and minimize the costs to your budget.
What’s the craziest shipping bill you’ve seen for expediting materials? Share with me on LinkedIn.
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Bill Coyne is the VP of Sales for Winter Walking. He has been helping organizations across a wide variety of business sectors eliminate workplace slips and falls incidents in ice and snow for over 15 years. Email Bill bill@winterwalking.com or visit www.winterwalking.com for additional helpful information and resources.
