What "cheap shipping" actually means

Duyên sells housewares in Binh Tan district, around 400 orders a month. She told me she had switched carriers three times in one year, every time because "the other one is cheaper". After each switch the money going out stayed about the same, and some months it went up.

I asked her one question: how much did returns cost you last month?

She went quiet, then said she did not know.

That is where nearly every shop loses track. The rate printed on the card is the easiest number to compare, so everyone compares it. It is not where most of the money goes.

Four places the rate card never mentions

Returned orders. A return means paying freight both ways, plus a product sitting on a truck for a week that nobody is buying. If your return rate is high, a rate that is two thousand dong cheaper per order will not save you.

Broken goods. Not entirely the carrier's fault, but compensation policies differ, and the difference only reveals itself at the exact moment you need it. Reading the terms at that point is too late.

Your own time. Three calls to a hotline, three different agents, the whole story retold from the beginning three times. A morning like that is a morning not packing orders, not answering customers, not running ads.

Cash flow. COD arriving a week late means a week without money to restock. For a small shop running on thin capital, that hurts far more than the freight difference.

Add those four together, then compare. At that point "cheap" is a completely different number.

So how do you choose

I am not saying the rate does not matter. It matters, especially at volume - two thousand dong extra per order, a thousand orders a month, is two million, exactly what Duyên pays for her storage.

But the order should be: first pick the carrier where, when an order goes wrong, you know who to call. Then optimise the rate inside that choice.

The reasoning is practical. Rates become negotiable once your volume rises. "Who to call" is not negotiable - it either exists or it does not.

What I can actually do

I am a partner of SPX Express. Stated plainly: I earn commission from SPX when a shop registers through me, and your rates do not change because of it - the commission is what SPX pays the referral channel, not something added to your freight cost.

I say it because it explains the motive. I have a very real reason to keep your shop shipping for years rather than disappearing after the signature. If your shop stops, so do I.

What I can do: you get one person's phone number. An order gets stuck, you message me. COD does not match, I sit down and reconcile it with you, then take it to SPX. I do not promise every case gets fixed - the shipping contract is between your shop and SPX Express Co. Ltd, and I am the introducer and the support. But you will not be left to sort it out alone.

One thing worth doing this week

Open your books and work out, for last month:

• how many orders were returned, and what each one cost
• how many arrived broken, and how much was actually compensated
• how many days late COD was against the stated cycle

Those three numbers tell you what you are really spending. Then go compare rates.

If you have no books to work from, that is the first job - not switching carriers.