Newfangled Ways to Facilitate Old-Fashioned Shipping

Even in this age of e-mail, fax and e-commerce, businesses still ship products or documents the old-fashioned way--by air, rail, truck, sea or bicycle messenger. But that doesn’t mean technology isn’t having an impact on this industry.

Shipping companies such as Federal Express, UPS, DHL and the U.S. Postal Service have been working overtime to use computers and the Internet to improve their service and make it easier for customers to ship packages.

Each has a Web site that not only provides information to shippers but that also makes it easier to fill out air bills and other documents and to track packages once they’ve been shipped.

Federal Express, probably the most innovative and technically savvy shipping company, has a “new and improved” FedExInterNetShip service that lets you prepare your own air bills directly from the Web site to print out and attach to the package. You can also maintain an online address book with up to 75 names and addresses, and use the FedEx “Ship Alert” e-mail notification service to inform recipients of a shipment. The company also offers software that you can run on your PC in case you don’t want to use the Internet.

FedEx requires you to have an account to use the service. If you don’t have one, you can apply online, but it takes up to 48 hours before a FedEx courier delivers your account number.

UPS has an easy-to-use online shipping form that, as does FedEx, lets you fill in all the information on the screen. It takes only a couple of minutes to register and, unlike the way it is with FedEx, you can register and use the service immediately even if you don’t have an account number.

DHL’s Web site teaches you how to fill out an air bill, but you can’t fill one out online. You can, however, download free software that lets you use your PC to create air bills.

The Postal Service has lots of online documentation and forms as well as a system for tracking express mail, but there isn’t an interactive form for ordering Express Mail service.

All of these sites provide rate information, but what they don’t do is help you find the lowest possible rate for your package or document. That’s where SmartShip.Com comes in. The Irvine-based company operates a Web site that makes it easy to compare rates from Airborne Express, Federal Express, UPS, the Postal Service and--for West Coast shipments--Golden State Overnight.

When you visit the Web site, you can either register with your name, address and company information, or sign on as a guest. Either way, you enter the ZIP Codes of the origin and destination, and get a chart showing the rates and service options from several companies. Eventually, says company Vice President Mark Hawkins, you’ll be able to make all of your shipping arrangements with any of the carriers directly from the SmartShip site.

Today, the only company that you can ship with directly is Golden State Overnight, which delivers only to California and parts of Nevada at prices that happen to be a lot lower than those of any of the other firms on its site. If you choose to use a carrier other than Golden State, you’ll need to go directly to its Web site or contact it by phone.

Another start-up, Shipper.com, offers an innovative service that handles not only shipping but also warehousing and fulfillment. The Industry-based company plans to provide “e-tailers” with same-day delivery services to Southern California and the San Francisco Bay Area, and later, throughout the country. Businesses that sell via the Web must store their products at Shipper.com’s warehouses so the company can deliver products quickly after an order is processed.

Lawrence J. Magid can be reached at [email protected]. His Web site is at https://www.larrysworld.com.