Why Do We Need Shipping Information Upfront?

Learn more about the Mediapoint ordering process and why we require all shipping information / labels for print orders upfront.

Simply put: our print process is too fast to wait around for shipping information.

We need all info and necessary labels at the start of an order because once it’s confirmed every step of production and dispatch is locked in. We’ve invested time and money into creating a streamlined print process underpinned by leading edge technology. Once a job is placed into the production schedule it cannot be changed.

If you’re ordering any of our products with next-day turnaround guarantees (and order by the 12pm cutoff) it’s highly likely that your order will be on the production floor within a few hours and ready for dispatch the next business day.

Shipping information and labelling is an often overlooked point of criticality in the production process. How fast an order can be completed and dispatched hinges on having correctly labelled items.

Lack of Shipping Information Causes Delays

We run a double shift at Mediapoint and teams work until 10pm to ensure all jobs for the next day’s dispatched are finished, packaged and ready for collection by the various couriers. To have this completed on-time, everyday, we require all shipping information to be ready ahead of job completion. 

For other trade printing businesses, who leave this information until last, delays in dispatch are quite common. They need to chase down the required labels, destination and delivery partner while jobs are already in QA or waiting for dispatch. We think this is a particularly wasteful practice and want to ensure the most efficient turnaround for our clients. Any time a job is sitting idle in the facility is wasted time and potentially damaging to the reputation of our resellers.

Courier / Shipping Options from Mediapoint

Mediapoint customers have the option of selecting from a few different options at the point of ordering. There are a couple nuances for each option which we highlight below:

Direct Courier

If a point-to-point courier is requested (and therefore organised by the customer) the shipping information required a diamond label with the address. Simply select this option on our portal when ordering and note the address for shipping.

Road Freight

To ensure that our jobs can be dispatched across the entire country with ease and speed we have multiple carriers doing daily runs from our facility. As of September, 2022 we have TNT, StarTrack and CouriersPlease completing daily pick ups. To be included in these runs you’ll just need to create the label and provide at time of ordering.

Ad-Hoc Carrier / Shipping Method

If you require a bespoke/ or alternative method of shipping you’ll need to provide the label at ordering and time the pickup for when the job is complete. To accurately determine the required shipping information you can ask our team for an estimate of time for a job to be complete, or review our product guides. Most items will be ready for pickup next-day when ordered by the 12pm cutoff.

Clarity for Customers

Our Lean process and minimal manual service on the front end saves time and money. It enables us to price as well as we do and pass savings onto our customers. Being able to on-sell print with better margins, and peace-of-mind around turnaround times, is an appealing tradeoff for having to prepare shipping information at the time of ordering. It just requires a small process change from some customers to access the fastest trade printing turnaround times.

By being clear about our requirements we’ve made the ordering process much simpler for everyone leading to fewer mistakes, faster turnaround, and less time spent on administration.