The 10 best shipping companies for your e-commerce business

Delivery speed and reliability are among the main competitive battlegrounds in online sales, and being able to guarantee express shipping is often the difference between a completed sale and an abandoned basket.

In this article you'll find some key considerations for choosing the carrier best suited to your needs, plus a list of the main shipping companies to look at for delivering your e-commerce orders in Italy and around the world.

Buona lettura.

What do shipping companies do?

Le aziende di spedizione consegnano pacchi, ovviamente. Ma c'è di più.

Beyond delivery itself, each company offers many additional services. These range from transporting perishable goods to insuring valuable ones, not to mention delivery to the door, Saturday delivery, 24-hour delivery, tracking, customs assistance and much more.

Every option that might appeal to your customers is a competitive advantage, but the most important quality is probably a carrier's reliability.

Once goods are in transit, the quality of your service depends largely on the quality of your carrier's customer service.

In most cases, as long as nothing goes wrong, carriers can seem more or less equivalent, even with large price differences… But it's when something does go wrong that the difference shows.

If a parcel isn't delivered on time, gets lost or is delivered to the wrong address by mistake, how does your carrier respond?

L'azienda di spedizioni è in grado di fornirti informazioni tempestive e una soluzione chiara o ti lascia brancolare nel buio?

In the first case you can communicate effectively and professionally with your customers, turning the extra cost into an investment in loyalty; in the second you risk losing a repeat customer.

How to choose the right shipping company for your e-commerce business

As we've said, the criteria for selecting a carrier depend largely on the type of products you sell and your customers' expectations. There are, however, some general questions worth asking when choosing a shipping company.

‍Che tipo di consegna vogliono i tuoi clienti?

Amazon's efficiency has made life more complicated for every other e-commerce business — for example by "spoiling" its customers with lightning-fast free delivery — but not everyone who shops online is that impatient.

Understanding your customers' wishes and expectations in depth (perhaps through a survey), without ever taking anything for granted, is an excellent way to decide which shipping options to offer at checkout and which additional services to add.

Che tipo di consegne garantiscono i tuoi concorrenti?

Understanding your customers' expectations is an excellent starting point — but people don't always know what they want until it's offered to them. 

For many people it isn't easy to go back to standard shipping after experiencing the thrill of 24-hour delivery. That's why it's always a good idea to keep an eye on your competitors too.

Di quali servizi necessiti?[H3]

The additional services each carrier offers are an excellent way to make a first pass at narrowing down shipping companies.

Whether it's transporting specialist goods or more basic services such as tracking or customer support, over the long term using a carrier with better services can make a big difference to customer satisfaction — and to your own.

When did you last test a carrier?

Your choice of carrier shouldn't be an irreversible decision.

Shipping companies are constantly evolving and growing. They open new branches, form new partnerships and update their offering. The delivery firm you tested and rejected 5 years ago could be completely different today, and well suited to your needs.

Not settling, and keeping up with the constant changes in offerings over the long term, can deliver big advantages in both cost and service.

Which shipping companies are used most

Un'analisi effettuata da statista.com on data gathered in 2020 gives us an idea of which shipping services are most used in Italy, and an excellent starting point for our analysis.

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When looking at this data it's important to remember it was gathered during the pandemic, and therefore in extraordinary circumstances. That said, given the spike in online sales caused by lockdown, this data is a snapshot of unprecedented e-commerce activity and is therefore very useful for gauging how popular these shipping companies are when it comes to online sales.

BRT (Bartolini)

Bartolini has been delivering goods in Italy for almost 100 years, with 190 sites across the country and a fleet of more than 1,400 vans.

BRT tratta tutti i tipi di spedizioni, dalle buste fino ai carichi pesanti e ha prezzi estremamente competitivi.

Seeing it at the top shouldn't come as a surprise.

What's more, since DPDgroup acquired a majority stake in the Italian delivery firm in 2016, BRT can make use of its parent company's routes, guaranteeing competitive delivery across Europe. 

Vantaggi BRT

• Prezzi molto concorrenziali
• Capillarità sul territorio italiano
• Partnership with a European delivery network
• Nessun limite di peso

Svantaggi BRT

• No Saturday delivery
• Inconsistent service quality between branches
• Problem resolution can be slow

Poste Italiane

With almost 13,000 offices across Italy, Poste Italiane has broader coverage than any other company, especially in hard-to-reach areas.

They have a limit of just 20 kg per parcel, but allow collection directly from the post office nearest your customer (handy if the customer can't be home for delivery).

Despite the postal network's vast reach, delivery times are usually slower than other carriers'.

Vantaggi Poste Italiane

• Nationwide coverage
• Allows parcel collection at post offices
• Attractive prices for small shipments

Svantaggi Poste Italiane

• No Saturday delivery
• 20 kg limit per parcel
• Tempi di consegna più lenti rispetto ad altri vettori

Amazon Logistics [H3]

Many of Amazon's deliveries are handled through partnerships with external shipping companies (such as FedEx or UPS), but Amazon also has its own fleet delivering goods directly from its warehouses.

Because everything is centralised, their efficiency and speed are formidable, and they deliver on both Saturdays and Sundays. 

To use Amazon Logistics, however, you have to sell through Amazon and be part of the programma FBA.

UPS

United Parcel Service is an American company founded at the start of the twentieth century. For more than a hundred years they have been making deliveries and acquiring other shipping companies to expand their network worldwide, and today their fleet numbers more than 125,000 vans and 290 aircraft.

UPS makes customer service quality one of its defining traits, guaranteeing fast, secure delivery and staff always ready to step in if something doesn't go as planned.

The flip side is prices that are on average much higher than the competition; that said, for very light parcels without added services you can strike a good cost/quality balance.

Vantaggi UPS

• Outstanding service quality
• Fast delivery (with the option of next-day delivery)
• Saturday delivery available
• Molti servizi aggiuntivi
• Spedizioni internazionali

Svantaggi UPS

• More expensive than the competition
• Much more expensive for heavy parcels

GLS

GLS was founded in Amsterdam in 1999 as a merger of various European carriers. Today it's controlled by the UK's Royal Mail, but European shipping remains this carrier's strong point.

GLS has very competitive prices and good reliability, though its limited presence in Italy makes it ideal only for shipments to the main commercial areas.

In these areas GLS offers plenty of options for managing delivery times.

Unfortunately, when problems arise, the automated switchboard isn't the best way to resolve the situation quickly.

Vantaggi GLS

• Rete di consegna in tutta Europa
• Prezzi molto competitivi
• Consegna di sabato
• Additional services for the main commercial areas.

Svantaggi GLS

• Limitata presenza sul territorio nazionale italiano
• Tempi di consegna più lunghi in molte zone secondarie
• Centralino automatizzato

FedEx

FedEx is another American shipping giant, distinguished by very fast delivery and an exceptional ability to handle any type of goods, including dangerous ones.

FedEx offers interactive services that let your customers manage delivery themselves, and allows you to ship through their shipping centres without opening a personal account.

Vantaggi FedEx

• Consegne molto rapide
• Many additional services for specialist goods
• Consegna sabato e domenica

Svantaggi FedEx

• Costi elevati

DHL

DHL was founded in the 1960s in San Francisco by three university students. Today it's run by Deutsche Post and is one of the best carriers in the world. DHL has a large fleet of vehicles of every type and excellent customer service, with great care taken over parcels.

DHL has a wide range of express delivery offerings across various price points.

Vantaggi DHL [H3]

• Rapido e affidabile
• Consegna di Sabato
• Tracking incluso
• Spedizioni internazionali

Svantaggi DHL

• Costi elevati

TNT

TNT is a Dutch company reasonably well established in Italy, acquired by FedEx in 2016.

Although part of the American giant (and sharing its fleet), TNT offers separate services, guaranteeing mid-range costs and delivery within 24 hours in the main commercial areas.

TNT non è altrettanto efficiente e affidabile nelle zone più periferiche o rurali.

Vantaggi TNT

• Prezzi ragionevoli
• Consegne rapide
• Parte di FedEx

Svantaggi TNT

• No Saturday delivery
• Poco efficiente fuori dalle principali zone commerciali

Nexive

Once part of TNT, Nexive was Italy's first private postal service, specialising in the fast delivery of envelopes and documents, with dedicated, innovative services partly extended to parcel shipping too. 

Nexive was acquired by Poste Italiane at the start of 2021. For now, the Nexive site redirects to Poste Italiane's.

Mail Boxes Etc.

Mail Boxes Etc. isn't strictly a shipping company: it's a franchise with sites around the world acting as an intermediary with local carriers, providing shipping, fulfillment and printing services.

How to get the most out of your shipping

Despite the wide choice available, shipping always involves some trade-off between price and service quality. Trying to meet every customer's expectations would often mean managing an excessive number of carriers, complicating customer service. But there is a solution.

A specialist logistics partner could manage carriers, shipping and customer service on your behalf, removing all the difficulties and offering every one of your customers a wide range of options.

SendNet can handle every aspect of your D2C e-commerce logistics and prove to be the winning choice.

Ti interessa? Get in touch with one of our experts and request a quote right away.

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