Carrier Fuel Surcharge Opportunity for the Holidays

With all the negative economic issues affecting retail buyers today, many companies are questioning how holiday sales will be this year. We feel that despite an overall retail sales decrease, Internet sales will be higher for 2008. We also feel that these sales will be spread over many more retailers than in years past. For many it could be tough. Many retailers who did not sell on the Internet in past years are now turning to Internet retailing as a way to increase overall retail sales. Many of these are huge, well funded companies. The reason for all of the interest is mainly due to energy costs. Experts feel that more buyers will be shopping from their PCs rather than driving to stores in 2008. With many more established Internet retailers creating a much more competitive market this holiday season, everyone will need to be more innovative to survive.

Keeping this in mind, we have noticed in the last week that the major carriers have announced a decrease of their current fuel surcharges, starting October 6, 2008. This decrease in cost could be an opportunity for you to increase your company's sales right now. With the uncertainty in the energy market, it's possible these prices may not be around very long. To see examples of the decreases, you can visit the UPS and FedEx Fuel Surcharges links on this Blog page.

Now you ask, "How can I benefit from this carrier fuel surcharge decrease?" That is easy. You need to focus on offering deals to your visitors to purchase heavily from your web site during the month of October.

Offering a lower flat-rate (or even free) shipping for volume purchases is a great special to take advantage of this opportunity. If you are a CPS user, now is the time to use your Flat Rate Report to help you determine the right strategy for flat rate or free shipping. We feel this is a good time to get a jump on the holiday market before the fuel surcharges increase again. Let's face it - the odds are in favor of them going up again. And if that's wrong, you still got a jump on 2008 holiday sales.