3 Tips For Shipping Produce During Peak Season
Produce refers to agricultural products and any other farm-produced plants. By nature, most agricultural products fall under perishable goods, which are goods that tend to deteriorate in quality if you don’t store them appropriately. Many business owners are into selling such products, and some produce them locally for the local market. In contrast, others export them to where there’s demand.
In this business, you must transport your produce from the farm or warehouse to the market for sale. This process is called shipping; you can ship by air, road, or water, depending on the route to the destination.
Like any other industry, there are peak and off-peak seasons. Peak season is when there’s high demand for goods, while the off-peak season is when there’s low demand. As an entrepreneur, you want to take advantage of the peak season since, in most cases, prices tend to be higher than during the off-peak season. It increases the chances of you making profits. Therefore, all processes must run efficiently during this season, including shipping.
How should you go about shipping to ensure its efficiency during peak season? Read on to learn the tips you should adopt.
It’d help to:
- Find A Suitable Partner
Shipping produce isn’t like any other product. For most agricultural products, you must maintain certain temperatures to prevent spoilage. Therefore, you’ll need special trucks with refrigerators and other features to provide optimum conditions for your produce. As a small business, you might lack the financial capability to acquire such trucks since they don’t come cheap.
Fortunately, there are businesses like Minus 1 solutions whose sole operation is transport and logistics, commonly referred to as 3PLs. They’re likely to have invested in all types of trucks to meet their client’s needs, including temperature-controlled trucks. These are the businesses you should partner with. With them, you can focus on your business operations without worrying about shipping. A reliable shipping partner will deliver your agricultural products to the market on time without damaging them, ensuring you take full advantage of the peak season.
- Plan Beforehand
As the saying goes, ‘failing to plan is planning to fail.’ As a farmer, planning must be one of the cornerstones of your operations since you must know when to prepare your land, plant, and harvest. However, your planning skills shouldn’t end there; they should extend into your shipping. How?
You can easily predict when there’ll be a peak based on trends in the previous years. In most cases, shipping during peak season tends to be expensive, and you want to minimize your operational costs as much as possible. With information on the potential peak period, you can get into a partnership with a logistics company earlier on and pay fewer fees since it won’t be peak season. When the peak season comes, the company will ship your goods to the market, ensuring you retain as much profit as possible for your business.
- Pack Your Produce Appropriately
As an agricultural business, your crops are the most valuable asset. Without it, you won’t be in business. You’ll only thrive in business if your products reach your customers in one piece. Only then can you increase customer satisfaction and retention and create room for gaining more customers. On the other hand, the narrative isn’t the same should your goods get damaged during transit and your clients receive them in this condition. You’ll likely lose your customers to competitors, which is undesirable.
You can avoid such mishaps by packaging your product appropriately. During peak season, you’ll find that shipping companies need to deliver several goods within a short timeframe. For optimization, they’ll likely ship goods with the same destination together. It means there’s a high possibility of stacking and squeezing for products to fit. Here, your agricultural products will likely get smashed if they have improper packaging. It’d help to package your product in strong and thick packaging to prevent it from getting damaged while in transit.
In addition, you want to package your goods in a way that won’t absorb scents from the other goods in transit. Consider lining your produce with polythene wrapping before placing them in the packaging box. The scent will less likely penetrate this material. This way, your products will reach the market with the same high quality, ensuring you get a great deal from them. Consequently, you’ll make more sales during the peak period, increasing your returns.
Conclusion
The discussion above shows how you can take advantage of your product’s peak season through shipping. With this insight, you can ensure you make as many sales as possible and gain profit during this period.
