Yona Avoids Surcharges and Cuts Shipping Costs by 35% with Operating Crew’s Parcel Optimization

“As a growing furniture brand, shipping can make or break your margins. Operating Crew gave us clarity, strategy, and execution — all while making sure our new product launches were future-proofed for shipping costs.”

Yaniv | Founder at Yona

Company Overview

Yona is a direct-to-consumer home furniture brand designing modern essentials for everyday living. Their products are high-quality, but shipping large, oversized packages directly to customers made costs unpredictable and margins unstable.

"Operating Crew gave us clarity, strategy, and execution — all while making sure our new product launches were future-proofed for shipping costs. "

— Yaniv, Founder and CEO

Challenges Faced

Furniture shipping is unforgiving.

Yona faced three intertwined challenges: 

  1. Escalating shipping costs: Carrier policy changes — like UPS’s shift to a cubic inch surcharge threshold — threatened to increase costs by 20–30%.

  2. Dimensional risks: Larger boxes needed for new products risked triggering Additional Handling Surcharges (AHS) and dimensional weight billing.

  3. Carrier inflexibility: Relying on a single carrier left Yona exposed to sudden cost swings, surcharges, and limited negotiating leverage.

Yaniv knew that without a new strategy, every new product launch would be a gamble on shipping costs.

How We Helped

Operating Crew went beyond benchmarking rates — we rebuilt Yona’s shipping strategy from the ground up.

1. Data-Driven Analysis

  • Shipment Profile Review: Collected dimensions (41" × 27" × 5", 41" × 27" × 7"), weights, and destination data.

  • Invoice Analysis: Studied historical UPS/FedEx invoices to reveal the true all-in cost (fuel + residential + DAS + peak surcharges).

  • Policy Monitoring: Tracked UPS’s new 8,640 cu in AHS threshold and FedEx’s new “rounding up” rules on package dimensions.

2. Cost Modeling & Scenario Planning

  • Threshold Impact: Validated that Yona’s 41" × 27" × 5" (5,535 cu in) and 41" × 27" × 7" (7,749 cu in) boxes remained under the surcharge trigger.

  • Rounding Rule Analysis: Confirmed that Yona’s whole-number dimensions were protected, but flagged risks of future fractional increases.

  • Surcharge Sensitivity Testing: Modeled how holiday surcharges, fuel spikes, and DAS fees would flow through to margins.

  • Spreadsheet Validation: Ran simulations across hundreds of zip codes, mapping out cost per zone and per box size, ensuring Yona could see costs in normal and peak conditions.

3. Packaging & Product Advisory

  • Partnered with Yona’s product team to adjust box sizes, packaging materials, and bundling strategies around carrier thresholds.

  • Ensured that new product designs were “shipping-optimized” before launch.

4. Multi-Carrier Setup

  • Activated both UPS and FedEx accounts to enable “pivot on the fly” flexibility.

  • Onboarded DHL for international shipments, providing walkthroughs of portal use and commercial invoice setup.

  • Built workflows for claims, returns, and daily rate monitoring.

The Transition

Execution mattered as much as strategy.

We:

  • Configured carrier accounts and payment integrations.

  • Ran live test shipments to validate savings against modeled results.

  • Troubleshot discrepancies in ADH discounts and fuel surcharges until real-world invoices matched models.

  • Trained Yona’s ops team on labels, pickups, and claims to operate smoothly under the new setup.

The transition was managed end-to-end without disruption to customers.

Results Achieved

With Operating Crew’s support, Yona:

  • Cut shipping costs by ~35% on its larger box formats.

  • Protected margins by staying under cubic thresholds and modeling surcharge scenarios.

  • Built resilience with a multi-carrier setup, avoiding over-reliance on any one provider.

  • Launched new products confidently, knowing packaging decisions were grounded in shipping cost analysis.

Gained operational clarity through tested spreadsheets and zone-based cost modeling.

Key Takeaways

  • Proactive Monitoring: Keep a close eye on carrier announcements before they hit margins.

  • Scenario Modeling: Use real invoice data to test sensitivity to surcharges and rules.

  • Carrier Flexibility: Multiple carrier accounts = negotiating leverage and operational resilience.

  • Product-Centric Logistics: Involve shipping strategy in product design to avoid surprises at launch.

  • Hands-On Execution: Success isn’t just about rates — it’s about getting the daily operations right.

Want to work with us?