Primary Audience: West Midlands DTC founder
Summary: Shipping costs are rising, but the fix is mostly commercial and operational: decide what you subsidise, tighten your packing rules, and stop letting checkout promises run your depot.
Suggested Posting Day: Friday
Shipping costs are going up again.
And most founders are treating it like a courier problem.
It isn’t. It’s a pricing and process problem that shows up in your warehouse first.
I keep seeing brands chase a cheaper label while the real leak is happening before the parcel even hits the cage.
Mini-example from this week: a West Midlands brand selling a £28 item. Their checkout promised a fast service and “free returns”. The packaging rule was basically “grab a box that fits”.
So half the orders tipped into the next weight band or got hit with volumetric charges. Same product. Same courier. Different box.
When we tightened it up (one mailer size, one box size, and a simple packing note for the odd-shaped SKUs) their cost per order dropped without changing carrier.
Practical takeaway:
1) Decide what you’re subsidising: speed, tracking, or margin. You can’t subsidise all three.
2) Lock your packaging rules. If your packers are guessing, your margin is guessing.
3) Put a “shipping cost trigger” in your weekly numbers (orders, AOV, average parcel cost). If it moves, you act fast.
If your shipping cost went up 10% tomorrow, what would you change first: your checkout promise, your packaging rules, or your courier?
Source Notes:
- UK ecommerce sellers are reporting rising last-mile delivery costs (84% experienced increases; 39% saw rises of more than 10%) and last-mile accounting for 53% of total shipping costs: https://channelx.world/2026/04/shipping-cost-pressures-intensify-for-uk-ecommerce-sellers/