80% of Businesses Unknowingly Overpay for Shipping—Here's Why (and How to Fix)

For many businesses—especially small to mid-size ones—shipping is a major operational expense. It quietly erodes margins, often accepted as an unavoidable cost of doing business. But the truth is, many companies are losing money in ways they don’t even realize. Overcharges, inefficiencies, and missed savings often hide in plain sight, buried in invoices or obscured by manual processes.

The good news? These challenges are solvable.

Here are the key reasons businesses often overpay for shipping—and how you can fix it.

1. Limited visibility into shipping spend

You can’t fix what you can’t see. Many smaller businesses lack the resources to track and analyze:

• Late deliveries or service failures
• Surcharges like address corrections or residential fees
• Shipping from suboptimal locations
• Use of premium services when standard would suffice

Without real-time visibility into where every dollar is going and why, it’s easy to continue overpaying for underperforming or misaligned services. Platforms like Catalyst by Intelligent Audit centralize shipping data and bring spend anomalies to the surface—so you can take action fast.

2. Single-carrier dependence

Relying on a single carrier may seem convenient—but it can reduce flexibility and increase costs over time.

A multi-carrier approach allows you to:

• Compare rates across providers
• Route shipments based on real-time performance
• Avoid being locked into one set of terms or service levels

3. Using manual processes to audit (or not doing them at all)

Shipping invoices are complex. Overcharges, service failures, and incorrect accessorials are more common than most businesses realize.

Without automated auditing:

• Refund-eligible deliveries may go unclaimed
• Contractual terms may be unenforced
• Human error in billing may slip through unnoticed

4. Service-level misuse and gut-instinct decision making

Without automation or expert guidance, SMBs often default to the wrong shipping choices—costing both time and money.

Common issues include:

• Overusing express services when ground would suffice
• Guessing which service level to choose
• Failing to adjust routing or timing to optimize cost

From cost center to competitive advantage

With better visibility, smarter automation, and proactive optimization, businesses can transform logistics from a blind spot into a competitive edge.

Catalyst™—built for small to mid-size businesses, fills the gaps in bandwidth, plugs revenue leaks, and ensures every shipping dollar is working harder for your business.

If you’re ready to take control of your shipping spend through automated parcel audit, spend optimization and refund recovery, sign up for a free 90-day trial of Catalyst today.