Introduction to Multi-carrier Shipment
It is a firm belief that collaborating with a single carrier company is best suited for warehousing and logistics businesses. When they have to interact with only one vendor, managing the operations and supervising the contracts becomes easier and hassle-free. However, given the dynamically changing delivery landscape, this belief might soon lose its truth. Most businesses need to dispatch orders to varied customer locations, with both regional and oversee addresses. As a result, relying only on a single carrier vendor will do no good to your business, especially since you need to fulfill the orders at the earliest with optimal quality and customer satisfaction.
This is where the concept of using multi-carrier shipment software comes into the picture. It is meticulously designed to allow businesses collaborate with different carrier companies and function seamlessly with each one of them, ensuring zero conflicts and confusions. If you are yet to acknowledge the benefits of such an incredibly designed software, it’s time you get to know the details in-depth. That being said, we have curated a concise guide for you to understand the broad scope of a multi-carrier shipping software, its benefits, features you can explore, and many other relevant aspects.Multi-carrier Shipment Software: What Is It & How Does It Work?
The first thing that we should focus on is understand what exactly a multi-carrier shipping software is and how is it different from a single carrier software. When we say the phrase “multi-carrier”, it means that the business will be involved with a myriad of shipping channels or exporters simultaneously. These can be postal, regional, parcel, truckload, national, and international carriers who can dutifully execute both domestic and oversee deliveries. Managing and operating these many carrier channels simultaneously isn’t a walk in the park.Professionals not only need to have a real-time view of the best routing arrangement but should also be able to make the right call for the delivery partner suitable for a specific order. To make this work less complicated, it is rational to use a combination of hardware and software systems that can allow tracking and operation from a centralized platform. This is what we call the multi-carrier shipment software, a specially designed system that allows shippers to manage, control, and supervise more than one carrier from a centralized platform. It also allows the automation of different workflows involved with the outbound shipping process.
Working Of a Multi-Carrier Shipping Software
To understand the functional behavior of a multi carrier shipping software, we have briefly described the happy path of the
workflow in this below section.
Step 1
Firstly, all the involved shipping carriers are integrated onto a centralized platform, either through direct loading
or accessing the cloud-based software.
Step 2
Now, the professionals will compare the shipping rates, routes, and other variables to select the best carriers for a
specific customer order and generate the shipping labels.
Step 3
The multi-carrier shipping software compares all the chosen carriers and points out the apt name based on given
input criteria, which can include variables like cost, shipping speed, compliance, and many more.
Step 4
Once the shipment leaves the warehouse or logistic facility, the software will track its movement in real-time and
manage the variables for all shipping channels.
Step 5
It can be leveraged to generate various reports on the carrier channels for introducing further improvements.
What Are Distinct Features Of Multi-carrier Shipping Software?
Multiple Courier Integrations
A typical multi-carrier shipping software will allow businesses to integrate multiple courier channels on a single platform. It
usually doesn’t require any additional cost, regardless of the number of carrier channels your business is involved with.
Furthermore, it also allows the integration of both local and national carrier companies without any hassle.
Simplified Order Tracking
Tracking orders with multiple carriers can be quite hectic if done manually. This is why integrating a multi-carrier shipping
software is more feasible for e-commerce businesses since it allows professionals to track and manage any specific order in
real-time. the order can be searched by using any specific detail, like customer number, order ID, and so on and the
software will display all the current information.
Updates Carrier Channels
Any change in the shipment will be automatically updated on the platform, thereby allowing professionals to switch to the
specific courier and view the updates. Furthermore, the automatic update cycle can be scheduled at regular intervals or in
a periodic manner as per the business convenience. This specific feature helps businesses to streamline different carrier
channels and manage the shipments with ease.
Customized Variables
One of the key features of multi-carrier shipping software is the customization of variables for selecting the best carrier. In
other words, you will be able to define the exact variables, like cost, shipping speed, route, and many more to determine
which carrier will be apt for the concerned orders. What’s more is that the software will allow you to define more than one
selection variable at a time and scale the list on the go.
Product Specific Rules
If your business handles different product categories, you can define the delivery rules for auto-selection of the carrier. For
instance, you can define a specific carrier for orders involving fragile goods and another exporter for vulnerable products
based on their experience and skills. This way, you won’t have to invest time and effort in searching for the best carrier at the
time of order dispatch.
Automatic Shipping Label Generation
The multi-carrier shipment software will also allow you to automatically generate and print the shipping labels once the
carriers are confirmed for order dispatch. It enables cross-border shipping within a few clicks, ensuring businesses won’t
have to tackle the tedious job manually any further. Apart from this, a few applications also allow paperless invoice
generation for cross border trades
What Benefits of Multi-carrier Shipping Software Can Be Leveraged for your Business Growth?
Now that we have learned about the key features of multi-carrier shipment software, let’s focus on its benefits that every e-commerce business can leverage with ease.
Flexibility In Carrier Choosing
Firstly, the software will allow you to choose the best carrier for one or a group of orders based on various filter variables, like cost, speed, geographic reach, delivery channel, route to be taken, and many more. With this, you can flexibly choose the best delivery route and carrier partner to meet your specific business requirements.
Access To Competitive Rates
Not all carriers offer the same price rate for a specific delivery. Sticking to a single carrier might incur huge costs and overheads, which could otherwise be avoided with a multi-carrier shipping software. It will display the price rates for a given delivery to be made so that you can select the apt carrier with affordable charges.
Risk Elimination And Mitigation
Working with a single carrier for versatile orders comes with numerous risks. For instance, if there is a carrier strike or geographical limitation of the delivery route, your dispatched order won’t reach the customer on time. You can easily mitigate these unprecedented risks by using the multi-carrier shipping software and distributing the orders to the best exporter. Even if there is a strike or compliance issue, you can flexibly switch to another carrier and carry out the order dispatch without any hurdle.
Automated Carrier Selection
Selecting the carrier for a specific set of orders manually is not only time and effort consuming but also leaves rooms for errors. However, the multi-carrier shipping software will automate this task for you by selecting the carrier by itself based on your requirements, like the fastest delivery route, optimal charges, greater geographical reach, and updated compliance.
Integrated Technology Stack
The multi-carrier shipping software can be easily integrated with your existing tech stack, like customer relationship management software, ERP applications, billing and finance software, and so on. Therefore, you won’t have to operate it separately, import or export data manually, and perform other types of tedious tasks. Integration of these applications will reduce production delays, risks of delayed deliveries, and loss of customers’ trust in your business service.
Enhanced Customer Satisfaction
One of the key benefits of investing in multi-carrier shipping software is an enhancement of customer satisfaction rate. It will help you track every shipment and carrier movement in real time. If a problem arises midway, you can quickly think of a workaround and opt for an alternative so that the order gets delivered on time without any hassle. With happy and satisfied customers, you can easily improve business relations.
Offers Scalability
It’s natural to expect that your business will grow with time, and so will the order volume, outreach, and so on. Therefore,
you need a software that can handle the growth without having to start everything from scratch. The multi carrier shipping
software offers an incredible level of scalability, ensuring you can modify its features on the go to meet your increasing
business needs and satisfy all customers.
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Conclusion
In this article, we have discussed the major facts about a multi-carrier shipment software that every ecommerce, warehousing, or logistics business should know. So, now all you need to do is choose the right vendor who will - to meet your technical and business requirements. You can also choose a subscription-based software model where you will be in control of the application solely whereas the vendor will supervise and monitor the platform and infrastructure.