Small and medium ecommerce companies that can’t manage their shipping costs won’t be around unless they adopt the right technology. Amazon has set expectations for many shoppers, with most now expecting free or low-cost shipping in one seamless transaction. Small companies can offer their customers a similar checkout experience but often end up losing money or time when shipping out orders because shipping rates and surcharges are unpredictable.
Each year, between late December and early February, the major carriers increase their parcel rates – roughly 3.9 to 4.9 percent in early 2017. These increases do not include the once-a-month changes in fuel surcharges or other annual rate changes, such as surcharges for residential or extended area delivery. These fees can increase the costs of a shipment by 4-30 percent. Finding the most cost-effective and efficient way to ship each package without back-end automation means companies end up comparing rates by hand or shipping using the same option for all packages, unaware they are wasting money.
Today, ShipRush solves this problem with its proprietary Rate Dashboard. For the first time, small business shippers can rate shop with real-time, side-by-side comparisons of parcel rates on a single screen, using the product’s Rate Dashboard. ShipRush is the only SMB-facing shipping solution with single screen comparison of these rates. Using the Rate Dashboard, ecommerce companies will save money on each shipment during fulfillment by comparing total rates and delivery times in real-time.
“Ecommerce companies constantly struggle to stay on top of shipping rate and surcharge changes,” according to ShipRush Founder, Rafael Zimberoff. “For companies offering free or flat rate shipping, shipping costs and surcharge variations can have a significant effect on their bottom line.”
The ShipRush Rate Dashboard automatically receives orders from over 50 major shopping carts, marketplaces, payment systems and CRM/accounting systems, so it knows the destination of every shipment. Package weights and dimensions are populated from business rules, ecommerce system data, or templates. The Rate Dashboard takes all this into account to show all the rate and delivery time options on a single screen. Companies can also automate this process using ShipRush’s automation rules. A business can set up rules to automatically ship via the lowest cost option, or the lowest cost for a certain delivery commitment. For example, a company could rate shop 3 carriers and ship using the cheapest service that gets the package there within 3 days. Combined with discounted USPS postage that offers up to 60 percent off base USPS rates, and savings of up to 21 percent off another leading national carrier, ShipRush allows customers to lower their shipping costs, and see all their delivery commitments on one dashboard, shipment by shipment.
“Using ShipRush’s Rate Dashboard, our customers often save 3-8 percent per package,” said Zimberoff. “Since they need to offer free shipping to be competitive, this can make a big difference to their bottom line.”
With US online retail sales reaching more than $500 billion by 2020, according to Forrester Research, SMB ecommerce merchants’ fulfillment challenges will only increase. Automation will be key to productivity and margins. ShipRush’s mission is to help small SMB’s take charge of their fulfillment. In 2017, ShipRush will continue to build out its product offering to expand the ways ecommerce companies can automate their shipping processes and optimize their profitability.
Companies can go to ShipRush.com now and sign up for a free 60-day trial.
Source: ShipRush Press Release
Note: Monday’s issue of EcommerceBytes 411 delved into how online sellers can take advantage of ShipRush’s comparison-shopping tool – just as shipping is about to get more complicated with annual carrier rate hikes. We also shared some rules of thumb sellers should keep in mind when comparing rates.
