This article reflects information as of 2021. For the latest details, please contact us.
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Hello! Thanks for reading. For this installment of our e-commerce series, I'll focus mainly on how to choose among the various delivery carriers! You all use EC and the like a lot, and each time, all sorts of carriers turn up — Yamato, Sagawa Express, Japan Post, and so on... Let me walk you through this area! For context, imagine our shipper is a farmer grandpa or a shopping-street retailer.
Point 1: Is There a Branch Nearby?
Whether there's a branch office nearby is one important point. You can have them come collect your parcels, but with some carriers, dropping parcels off at a branch earns a discount. Yamato Transport, Sagawa Express, Japan Post, and others offer discounts. (As far as I looked into it, Japan Post's 120 yen is the largest discount.) Having a branch nearby also makes it easier to consult about shipping matters, so closer is better!
Point 2: Redelivery
If the item you're shipping is frozen or perishable, getting it to the customer as fast as possible becomes important. With Yamato Transport, you can request redelivery from the website, app, or LINE account. Of course you can also do it via the redelivery notice slip.
Easy redelivery requests, plus more finely divided time-slot options, make it more likely items reach the customer. Yamato Transport and Seino Transportation use 5 slots, while Sagawa Express and Japan Post use 7 — it varies by carrier, so it's worth checking as a point of comparison. Sagawa Express has a service called "Sagawa Just Time," which costs extra but can deliver at a specified time.
https://www.sagawa-exp.co.jp/service/h-justtime/
Point 3: Pricing
The biggest point is probably pricing. Shipping fees vary with distance and the size and weight of the item. Each carrier's shipping fees are as follows.
For 60 size: Tokyo (Kanto) – Osaka (Kansai/Kinki)
For 100 size: Tokyo (Kanto) – Osaka (Kansai/Kinki)
Prices are more or less flat, but Japan Post's weight limit is higher. That said, various other factors also require consideration. What about corporate contracts? What about refrigerated or frozen shipping, or overseas shipping? Carefully assessing the fit with the products you handle becomes important. Depending on size, some options are a bargain — like Yamato Transport's Nekopos and Japan Post's Yu-Pack — so please look into them. For reference, carrier market shares are roughly: Yamato Transport 42%, Sagawa Express 29.3%, Japan Post 22.7%, Seino Transportation 3.2%, and others 2.8%.
In Closing
This time I briefly introduced the points for choosing a carrier. There are so many angles, and it's surprisingly a hassle... We support not only EC site production but also EC service operations, so if you're even a little interested, please contact us below!
https://ecpack.tentus.jp/?fbclid=IwAR0uyZwOt411kJdM4yllllt0ZSrwtd388rndpsKORVPVy4QgJkvuRNqevIY