How to start a shipping business?

To start a shipping business, you must decide what you want to ship, choose a business name and entity, and purchase equipment. Wholesale businesses can be extremely successful, but you must understand your specific market and consumer trends.

How To Become A Shipping: What It Is and Career Path

What is a shipping and how to become one

Updated January 8, 2025

3 min read

A shipping professional is in charge of preparing outgoing shipments, tracking, and sending to the customers to ensure they all arrive at the right person at the right time. The personnel also notify supervisors and management of product shortages, handle issues arising in shipping, and keep files of goods shipped and received by regular shipping and receiving reports for managers. You are to participate in preparing packages for delivery by prepping contents, compute goods costs to determine budgetary requirements for shipping and work with other shipping clerks to see that all invoices are handled promptly.

A high school diploma is a minimum requirement for this job. Apart from this, you should also have basic knowledge of computer applications and basic mathematics. Organizational, documentation, communication, leadership, and exemplary customer care skills are also essential for the job. For this, you will earn an average annual salary of $49,942.

ScoreShippingUS Average

Salary

2.4

Avg. Salary $31,192

Avg. Salary $59,228

Stability level

6.3

Growth rate -3%

Growth rate 0.3%

Diversity

10.0

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 0.74%

Asian 7.29%

Black or African American 10.84%

Hispanic or Latino 21.36%

Unknown 4.19%

White 55.57%

Gender

female 26.27%

male 73.73%

Age - 43

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 3.00%

Asian 7.00%

Black or African American 14.00%

Hispanic or Latino 19.00%

White 57.00%

Gender

female 47.00%

male 53.00%

Age - 43

Stress level

6.3

Stress level is manageable

7.1 - high

Complexity level

7.3

Complexity level is challenging

7 - challenging

Work life balance

6.0

Work life balance is fair

6.4 - fair

Key steps to become a shipping

Explore shipping education requirements

Most common shipping degrees

High School Diploma

53.7 %

Diploma

15.2 %

Associate

12.8 %

Start to develop specific shipping skills

Skills	Percentages
Customer Service	14.61%
Pallets	14.50%
Electric Pallet Jack	9.27%
Shipping Receiving	7.98%
Load Trucks	6.25%

Complete relevant shipping training and internships

Accountants spend an average of 1-3 months on post-employment, on-the-job training. New shippings learn the skills and techniques required for their job and employer during this time. The chart below shows how long it takes to gain competency as a shipping based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data and data from real shipping resumes.

Research shipping duties and responsibilities

Pull orders for customers and ship via grind, LTL and company vehicles.
Communicate with LTL carriers ob a daily basis for pickups or any problems.
Communicate with UPS/ FedEx/ DHL staff via phone and email to resolve delivery issues.
Prepare and packages assets for shipment via FedEx, DHL, or delivery to local customer.

Prepare your shipping resume

When your background is strong enough, you can start writing your shipping resume.

You can use Zippia's AI resume builder to make the resume writing process easier while also making sure that you include key information that hiring managers expect to see on a shipping resume. You'll find resume tips and examples of skills, responsibilities, and summaries, all provided by Zippi, your career sidekick.

Choose from 10+ customizable shipping resume templates

Build a professional shipping resume in minutes. Browse through our resume examples to identify the best way to word your resume. Then choose from 10+ resume templates to create your shipping resume.