While attending a wholesale trade show earlier this summer I had the opportunity to talk with some glum faced presenters. The desolation showing on their faces did not compare to the desolation shown on their booth. It wasn’t quite bare but close enough to show that they had fallen into a common enough pit of shipping difficulties.
Delayed shipments or damaged cargo is a serious headache for any business but can be a disaster when that shipment contained all your equipment or merchandise for a trade show. The thought of hundreds or even thousands of potential customers taking one look at… well, nothing and moving on is enough to bring tears to a wholesaler’s eyes.
While attending a wholesale trade show earlier this summer I had the opportunity to talk with some glum faced presenters. The desolation showing on their faces did not compare to the desolation shown on their booth. It wasn’t quite bare but close enough to show that they had fallen into a common enough pit of shipping difficulties.
Delayed shipments or damaged cargo is a serious headache for any business but can be a disaster when that shipment contained all your equipment or merchandise for a trade show. The thought of hundreds or even thousands of potential customers taking one look at… well, nothing and moving on is enough to bring tears to a wholesaler’s eyes.
Despite the potential for catastrophe it is amazing how often trade show attendees make poorly informed snap decisions about their shipping company. Otherwise presenters often cut a corner on trade show shipping and sometimes they pay the price with an empty or inadequately stocked exhibit.
This is precisely what happened with the presenters mentioned above. They told me that they believed that shipping should consume no more than 12% of their total show budget and in order to get below that they experimented with a shipper they found online and now they’d been told that their shipment would arrive the next day. One wryly commented that it would arrive just in time to load out and go home.
In hindsight the pair knew that an all-important trade show was not the time to explore shipping alternatives. At a time like that you need to be absolutely sure of timely delivery and if you can get an excellent price and no hassles it’s a bonanza for any wholesaler.
Believe it or not it is not that hard to find all these qualities in a shipping company. It might take some research; research that should be performed outside of tradeshow crunch time. A tradeshow presenter should look for two characteristics that separate good shipping solutions from bad ones.
The first is experience generally and experience with tradeshow and less than truckload shipping specifically. Shipping is a difficult business requiring both the organizational skill required in keeping incredibly tight schedules and the mechanized know-how needed to keep a fleet of trucks on the road. A transport firm that has been around a long time has shown that they have overcome these challenges or they’d be out of business. However, even a venerable shipping company may not have experience with the unique difficulties presented by a tradeshow shipment.
The second characteristic is ease of use. A shipping customer shouldn’t have to spend time learning a new software package, playing phone transfer tag, or waiting for callbacks. These things all devour time and cause a budget to creep up. Ideally, a customer should be able to handle almost all aspects of arranging shipment online but be able to talk to a real person if they need to.
As I said, these traits do exist in the shipping industry. One company I often to suggest to just about anyone who asks about shippers is Small Business Transport and their online presence Freight101.com. They have been in business for more than twenty years and enjoy an excellent reputation for reliability and tremendous customer service. Best of all, during those twenty plus years they have delivered countless shipments to trade shows and know how important it is that nothing goes wrong.
However, the most commendable aspect of the way Small Business Transport does business is the dedication to making shipping a simple and largely self-served process shown by their informative and user friendly website. A useful collection of shipping tools including a real-time rate quoting system that allows a shipper to comparison shop, package density calculators, and even a glossary of shipping terms.
Don’t worry too much about price either. Small Business Transport’s rates are among the best in the industry. The company proudly states that they can save a customer up to 70% over other less than truckload shipment companies. Customers don’t have to take their word for it either, remember that real-time quote system I mentioned earlier? A shipping customer can validate that claim with a click of a button.
Trade shows are a key component of many businesses today and shipping is a key component of a successful show. Simply because visitors will never notice the positive result of quality shipping is no reason not to look for the best service available. They will certainly notice the results of shipping gone wrong, just ask the glum presenters.
Art Micklewraith is a freelance writer and regular contributor to Top Ten Wholesale. He can be reached at Content and Solutions or by email at artmicklewraith@gmail.com.
