Big Bookstore Shipping Savings

08/09/2012 — Scott Frederick

PartnerShip has been helping college stores and retailers save substantially on their shipping for over 20 years. It's always great to hear testimonials and success stories about just how much PartnerShip was able to help some of these organizations. To better capture and share a few of these many success stories, PartnerShip has started a process of requesting and collecting customer recommendations and developing case studies.

One example of a great case study success involved The University of New Mexico (UNM) Bookstores. UNM sells textbooks, courseware, technology products, suppliers and spirit apparel to students, alumni, and fans of the university. With so many products coming in and going out, shipping expenses are a significant factor for UNM.

PartnerShip used a five step process to help UNM analyze its shipping and develop the right solution:

• Perform an up-front freight analysis

• Negotiate discounts on LTL freight shipping with reputable carriers

• Create a full-service inbound management program, including supplier routing instructions and compliance

• Setup invoice auditing and consolidation

• Provide administrative support for claims and customer service issues related to shipping and carriers

The new inbound vendor management program for UNM was really at the heart of the overall solution. To implement it, we reached out to UNM textbook and general merchandise suppliers to setup new shipping instructions and ensure it was receiving the lowest possible price on every shipment. In many cases, that meant switching the routings from supplier prepaid to inbound collect so that UNM could take advantage of the NACS Shipping Program that PartnerShip has created for UNM and other members of the National Association of College Stores (NACS).

After enough time had passed, a complete post-shipping analysis was performed for UNM showing that UNM was saving at least 9% annually on its shipping under the new program. As UNM's business division manager put it ... "(We receive) all the savings and we get to support the National Association of College Stores ... it was a no-brainer!"

Click the button below to download a PDF version of this case study.