What Is Multi-Carrier Shipping in eCommerce

Every eCommerce business has one major goal in mind. That goal is a success, i.e., to reach new areas of growth and expansion, and to increase their customer base. But in order to reach this goal, one major step in the process is to switch to multi-carrier shipping. There are smart solutions available for all potential problems that may arise due to multi-carrier shipping. Making good use of tech and employing the right services enables any ecommerce business to use multi-carrier shipping to reach the top of the competitive ladder.

In the Ecommerce industry, the term multi-carrier shipping indicates a movement made by an enterprise to increase the number of carriers they are tied up with so as to fulfill the sudden increase in orders being received. This basically means that more orders from more customers are being received, therefore more carriers are needed to maximize fulfillment and maintain profitability. You’ll find yourself dealing with more WISMO calls and delivery exceptions than you can even imagine. However, to combat this all you need is a well-equipped multi-carrier shipping solution or software.

A multi-carrier shipping solution is an external system or software that can be integrated with an eCommerce platform to enable more structured and easier courier management and order tracking.

Multi-carrier shipping solutions are the latest in logistics tech and are helping eCommerce businesses everywhere keep track of their orders with different carriers with ease as well as perform other important tasks for an enhanced delivery experience.

Hopefully, by this point you have a basic understanding of what a multi-carrier shipping solution is. In simple terms, it’s a tech-enabled solution to many of your multi-carrier shipping problems. To give you a clearer idea of how a multi-carrier shipping solution can help you, here’s a list of the most important functions carried out by an Ecommerce multi-carrier shipping solution.

The first and foremost thing a good multi-carrier shipping solution should give you is a unified view of all your orders with every one of your partnered carriers. So you would only have to check a single platform to find any order at any given point of time and easily handle WISMO calls.

A truly efficient multicarrier shipping solution should use multiple API integrations to give you real-time order tracking updates. This would enable you to receive status updates on each orders journey as soon as a courier partner is updated about the same, thereby reducing delays in determining an orders whereabouts.

All shipments and deliveries are reliant on shipping labels and AWBs to successfully complete their journey. These contain all relevant information about the order and its journey, including tracking identification numbers and delivery address. With a good multi-carrier shipping solution, the process of generating the AWB and shipping labels should be automated.

AWB and shipping label generation aren’t the only processes that can be automated. In fact, numerous aspects of your delivery workflow can be automated with a multicarrier shipping solution, including sending tracking updates to customers about their orders and dealing with delays or stuck shipments, as well as monitoring carrier performance.

One surefire way to reduce obstacles that occur in delivery and to reduce costs is by ensuring the right carrier is selected for each order. Multicarrier shipping solutions typically provide courier recommendation engines that are supported by AI. These AI can be configured to handle order-specific metrics like size and weight, as well as business-specific metrics like RTO% and stuck shipments.

Exception management is exceptionally important when it comes to both delivery and returns. An effective multi carrier shipping solution can break down the process of dealing with different types of exceptions and enable you to create an automated workflow for all potential delivery exceptions and return exceptions you may encounter. It can also help you monitor exceptions to determine other potential solutions.

The eCommerce industry has come a long way since its original inception and it is steadfastly becoming the go-to marketplace for retail and wholesale solutions. While this means a greater customer base and more growth for your business, the best way to ensure you keep up with this type of drastic growth is by utilising the right tools. One of the most popular tools for this purpose is a multi-carrier shipping solution. This can help you with everything from tracking orders and selecting the right carriers to solving recurring problems in your delivery experience and post-purchase customer experience. These solutions make use of technology in the smartest way to provide high-end logistics solutions and help your business continue to grow exponentially and combat major obstacles in performance.

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eCommerce Expert

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