uShip: How To Optimize Your Shipping Business

What is uShip?

uShip is a marketing platform that connects movers with people who are trying to ship things, from furniture to pets.

How it works

The site works much like competitor, Citizen Shipper, in that independent movers and truck owners are encouraged to sign up and create a profile.

Once on the platform, shippers can search for customers either based on a starting location — or based on the route they’re planning to drive. You bid on open jobs, saying how much you would charge and when you could do it.

If the customer accepts, you do the job at your agreed-upon rate.

uShip Review

If you’ve got a truck that you regularly use to ship things for others, uShip can help make your business more efficient and profitable by connecting you with on-the-way jobs. At least in theory, that should provide additional income — without a lot of additional work and miles — for you. And, because you’re not going terribly far out of your way, you can potentially offer a better-than-average shipping rate to the customer, too.

Payments

The shipper determines what payment methods they’ll accept and how they’d like to be paid. uShip offers several options, including collecting a deposit upfront and allowing the shipper to collect the remaining balance on delivery. However, you can also have the site collect payment on your behalf and release it as soon as you mark “delivered” on the app.

The site takes a commission on each shipment, which ranges from 10% to 20%, depending on the goods that are being shipped and the total cost of the shipment.

Helpfully, the site provides a calculator that allows the shipper to simply fold the site’s fees into their bid. So, let’s say you want to earn $500 on a shipment, you plug that into uShip’s calculator and it might tell you to bid $595. That gets you the $500 you wanted, while the extra $95 pays the site’s fees.

Penalties

The site is generally user friendly, but penalizes drivers if they cancel too many jobs or cancel at the last minute. (This would understandably upset customers.)

uShip vs. Citizen Shipper

Although uShip and Citizen Shipper work similarly — i.e. they let shippers set their own rates; bid on the jobs they want; and determine their own payment terms — there are a few differences.

Citizen Shipper charges a flat monthly fee for using the service vs. a commission at uShip. The flat fee is relatively modest but you pay it regardless of whether or not you get work.

With uShip, you only pay fees if you book a job. And at least in theory, you can recover the fee by simply folding it into the cost of your bid. But percentage fees can add up to considerably more than Citizen Shippers relatively modest flat rate, particularly if you get a lot of jobs.

Meanwhile, Citizen Shipper expects movers to collect payments directly from the client. uShip can collect payment for you. That allows your clients to use more payment methods than, say, a personal check or cash.

Recommendations

These are both good platforms for shippers and customers alike. There is little downside to signing up with both apps. And that would be our recommendation to get the most work. You can learn more about Citizen Shipper here.

You can sign up with uShip here.