Shipping Strategies
Shipping prices
International Shipping
How to Keep Shipping Costs Low in 2025
Last Updated
June 25, 2023
6 minutes
Written By
Alise Birzniece
Shipping costs can quietly erode margins for small e-commerce businesses, whether they're already selling or just getting started. Tackling the cost drivers early lets a business grow faster. This guide covers what actually pushes shipping costs up and the most practical ways to keep them low without cutting corners on speed or reliability.
Why affordable shipping matters more than ever
Delivery costs have kept climbing due to fuel price swings, labor shortages, rising carrier surcharges, and pressure on last-mile networks. Large enterprises can absorb these increases; small e-commerce businesses feel every cent. How shipping costs are managed today shapes how competitive the business can stay — securing predictable rates, cutting avoidable fees, and tightening the shipping workflow before costs get out of hand.
Shipping volumes
More shipping volume generally means better carrier rates, which is why many small businesses default to a single carrier, assuming that consolidating volume minimizes cost. The catch: that one carrier isn't necessarily the best rate for every shipment, so money can still be left on the table. A shipping platform that pools volume across many customers can unlock rates normally reserved for much larger shippers.
Fuel costs
Fuel is a major driver of rising shipping costs, with prices under continued pressure from macroeconomic and geopolitical instability. Carriers build fluctuating fuel surcharges into their rates, which is part of why the same route can get more expensive over time even without other changes.
Shipping speed
Faster delivery costs more. Expectations set by major players offering low-cost fast delivery have raised the bar industry-wide, so smaller businesses need to offer competitive speed options without letting that erode their margins.
Tips to keep shipping costs down
The core discipline is choosing the most cost-efficient carrier for each individual shipment rather than a single default carrier for everything. The practical obstacle is that manually comparing carriers for every order isn't realistic at scale, which is why shipping platforms that automate that comparison exist.
Best option for affordable shipping
A platform like Swotzy compares offers from dozens of carriers in real time, so a business can simply pick the cheapest, fastest, or most sustainable option per shipment, with no contracts or volume commitments. That includes real-time rate comparison, multi-carrier access without separate contracts, a flexible choice of cost, speed, or sustainability per shipment, and a simple workflow without technical integrations. The platform is free to use.
Shipping costs are shaped by four main levers: shipping volume, parcel weight and dimensions, fuel surcharges, and delivery speed. Picking the most cost-efficient carrier for every single shipment, rather than defaulting to one provider, is the single biggest lever small businesses have.
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