by You’ve handled every steak in your farm’s freezer with the utmost care, cutting it with precision and storing it under the ideal conditions.
After making its way to your customer’s kitchen, they’ll treat it with the same care, seasoning, searing, and plating it to perfection.
But between your farm and the customer’s table is a long journey fraught with bumpy roads, fluctuating temperatures, and rough handling.
That’s why you need cold shipping partners you can trust to keep your goods fresh as they travel across the city, state, or country.
In this blog, we’ll take a look at three types of providers to help you transport your products, package them securely, and ensure a smooth cold shipping process from point A to point B.
Cold Shipping Logistics
If you’re just starting your farm e-commerce business, there are two key questions to answer: How far will you ship your perishable goods, and who will you choose to transport them?
For example, if you plan to start small and offer pickup and local delivery, you can rely on your own fleet of drivers to handle your cold shipping logistics. But if your dream is to share your farm’s products with customers across the country, you’ll need a nationwide cold shipping provider.
Regardless of your goals, here are three cold shipping providers to check out:
- FedEx: With FedEx, businesses and healthcare providers can keep products between 35 and 46 degrees Fahrenheit throughout the shipping process. FedEx also offers a wide range of packaging materials like insulated boxes and envelopes for an added layer of protection.
- UPS: UPS is a trusted provider that ships goods all across the country. While UPS doesn’t offer a dedicated cold shipping service, they offer guidance for merchants who sell perishable products that need to be kept at a certain temperature.
- Your own delivery fleet: If you’re planning to deliver only within your neighborhood, it might be cheapest and easiest to hire and manage a fleet of delivery drivers. With this option, you can choose what days you deliver, guarantee timely order fulfillment, and offer top-notch customer service.
Cold Shipping Supplies
Even the most reliable shipping provider can only do so much to protect your goods on their journey across the country — which is why you need to package them with best practices in mind.
You need sturdy boxes to protect your products from crushing, high-quality insulation to minimize temperature fluctuations, and informative labels to boost your customers’ confidence in your brand.
Here are three suppliers to look into for your cold packaging needs:
- ULINE: ULINE offers a wide range of shipping supplies for businesses in all industries. We’ve included them on our list because they offer insulated boxes in various sizes for affordable prices.
- Nordic Cold Chain Solutions: This provider offers an array of sophisticated cold shipping supplies. We recommend checking out their polyurethane cooler boxes for long-distance shipping, EPS shipping coolers for closer deliveries, and temperature loggers for quality control.
- Pluumo: If you’re looking for an innovative solution to keep your products cold in transit, check out Pluumo. This cold shipping provider uses chicken feathers to create sustainable insulation.
Order Management Software
Farm e-commerce success depends on impeccable organization and efficiency.
But between managing the endless cycle of harvesting and planting and caring for your livestock, you might not have the time to keep track of your online orders.
That’s where order management software comes in. This tool will handle your farm’s online sales from start to finish, helping you build a website, process sales transactions, and fulfill orders with ease.
Above all, we recommend choosing an order management software provider that understands the intricacies of farm e-commerce and offers farm-specific solutions for weight-based sales of perishable goods.
Let’s explore three providers who can meet your cold shipping needs:
- Shopify: Shopify is a leading POS e-commerce provider that can help you build a custom website for your farm and manage a large volume of online orders. While Shopify isn’t built specifically for farms, they offer a long list of add-on features.
- BARN2DOOR: BARN2DOOR offers order management software designed for food suppliers. Along with their website builder, this provider offers graphic design assistance to take your farm’s marketing strategy to the next level.
- GrazeCart: GrazeCart offers an all-in-one software solution built to help you sell online and in person seamlessly. Our website builder, sales by weight feature, and flexible order fulfillment options are all you need to grow your farm.
Tackle Cold Shipping Like a Pro With GrazeCart
To master the art of cold shipping, you need the right tools and the right team behind you.
GrazeCart offers powerful farm e-commerce software to help you offer options from local pickup to nationwide cold shipping, manage your online orders, and boost your sales with unique features like subscription boxes and loyalty rewards.
As you put these tools to work for your farm, you’ll also have 24/7 access to a team of industry experts who are committed to your success.
Get started with GrazeCart by checking out our pricing tool or launching your free, two-week trial.