Australian shipping service for small businesses, Sendle has launched a new savings program that will offer ecommerce businesses greater discounts and benefits to help manage rising costs, as Australia Post announces record parcel price hikes of up to 10%.

The new program called Ship & Save is designed to reduce pricing complexity and offer dynamic discounts for small businesses on comparable MyPost Business savings bands. Using Sendle’s Ship & Save program, small businesses can access discounts over 50% at Sendle’s Level 6 compared to Australia Post maximum discount of 40% at Band 5 (for $2,000 or more in the last four weeks or over $20,000 in the last 12 months).

Through Sendle’s Ship & Save program, small businesses are set to save 18% on average for the same city and national parcels compared to Australia Post, equating to $2 on average per parcel.

Sendle Australia managing director, Laura Hill said that small businesses will be the hardest hit by recent parcel price hikes and the Ship & Save program couldn’t come at a more important time. 

“Small businesses are the backbone of the Australian economy generating 70% of GDP and employing almost three quarters of the workforce, but they are systematically under-served, under-represented and over-charged when it comes to shipping. That’s because the market is controlled by Australia Post, a functional monopoly supported by the government and funded by Australian taxpayers,” Hill said.

“Australia Post has been dictating prices and fixing terms for decades because small businesses haven’t had a choice. But now they do. Thousands of small businesses rely on Sendle to ship to their customers. The more small businesses that ship with us, the more efficiencies we get to share with our customers. Now we have a program that also recognises and rewards each of those businesses with significant discounts.”

From mid-July 2023, small businesses can access these benefits of the Ship & Save program: 

Dynamic discounts – The more you ship, the more you save. To access a higher discount level, a small business simply has to ship more with Sendle and cross a series of minimum spend thresholds. As soon as a threshold is crossed, customers enjoy deeper discounts on their shipping the next day. Spend is calculated on a regular four weekly basis so customers start each new four weekly period where they left off.

Upgrade for existing customers – Sendle’s existing customers will be the first to enjoy the new Ship & Save program as they are automatically upgraded from their current plan-based pricing to the new model. Existing customers will start their Ship & Save journey based on their spending with Sendle in the four weeks leading up to the launch. For example, a customer spending $100 a month will save up to $2.90 a parcel for same city delivery and $1.24 on national delivery. Similarly, a customer spending $1,000 a month will save up to $4.10 a parcel for same city delivery and $2.69 for national delivery.

Status matching guarantees – New customers who have a MyPost Business account with Australia Post can show their last month’s statement on their MyPost savings band and Sendle will level them up to get them started. For example, a customer on the MyPost Band 2 will automatically jump up to Ship & Save Level 3 when switching to Sendle. 

A better solution for lightweight parcels – Australia’s cheapest parcel, Sendle’s unique 250g parcel priced at $3.98 ex GST,  is automatically included in the Ship & Save program. With Australia Post bumping up the price of their smallest parcel to well over $10, the savings with Sendle will only get better. 

Free pick-ups – Sendle picks up and delivers parcels door-to-door and Sendle’s Ship & Save program will continue to honour this courier delivery service for small businesses, in contrast to MyPost Business, which charges $13.95 for pick-ups.