Are you considering Infor M3 Multi-Carrier Shipping to improve your delivery options? With eCommerce growing at an unprecedented rate, it makes perfect sense. Ecommerce sales jumped to $26.7 trillion globally because of the pandemic.
Many sellers are finding their current shipping solutions ineffective, and customers are quick to go elsewhere if their desired delivery options aren’t available.
Businesses need flexible and cost-effective shipping solutions to meet ever-changing consumer expectations in 2021. Integrating multi-carrier shipping options with Infor M3 enables enterprises to improve their supply chain and the customer experience.
Read on to explore why single-carrier shipping is fast becoming a thing of the past and how multi-carrier shipping will help take your business forward as the dynamics of global shipping continue to evolve.
What Is Multi-carrier Shipping?
Multi-carrier shipping software is a platform that helps businesses automate and streamline the freight process. With these services, customers can compare quotes from different carriers and choose their preferred shipping partner that suits their delivery needs.
For customers of Infor M3, multi-carrier shipping allows them to integrate all their transportation processes directly with their M3 enterprise resource planning (ERP) system.
This software can streamline your logistics department, increase supply chain efficiencies, profitability, and ultimately improve customer experience.
Why Single-carrier Shipping Is Becoming Obsolete
Businesses shipping with a specific carrier benefit from predictable costs and delivery guarantees, but the single-carrier shipping model has drawbacks. Here, we examined some of them to spotlight why this legacy model is losing its relevance.
Shipping contract limitations can hinder growth
Analysts expect eCommerce sales to almost double in the next three years.
Though this presents an opportunity for business growth, it poses massive operational challenges. For starters, it leaves suppliers facing an overwhelming parcel volume.
Regrettably, carriers that experience increased parcel volume tend to enforce capacity limits to manage the surge. Some carriers even surcharge businesses for exceeding their agreed weekly volume. If unable to meet the demand, other single-carrier providers go as far as terminating their contract with shippers, limiting shippers’ ability to fulfill customer orders.
Furthermore, relying on single carriers limits you from shipping from all your origin points and fulfilling orders from all sources. This limited flexibility can be a hindrance that prevents your business from staying agile to respond to market changes.
Incurring more risk than necessary
Relying on a single carrier is tempting fate. It leaves you at the mercy of the carrier. For example, the carrier might eliminate shipping service to some regions, change their service level, or a shipment might even get lost in transit.
If this happens, your business can grind to a halt. You’ll lose sales in the short-term and may lose customers, and important contracts in the long term as your reputation for reliable delivery takes a hit.
Unfortunately, many companies find themselves in this position, as ditching the carrier for another could consume time. Therefore, they are stuck with little leverage for negotiation.
Shipping costs
Single carriers give you fewer shipping options, which means you invariably end up with higher shipping costs—which continue to grow each year. As customers are the ones who often bear these additional fees, they might eventually jump ship to a cheaper supplier if you don’t offer enough options.
Why The M3 Multi-carrier Shipping Approach Is The Must-have Shipping Strategy
A multi-carrier approach provides sellers the power to choose between carriers, giving them more flexibility in how they manage their shipping costs, routes, and risks. Let’s explore why forward-thinking enterprises are using Infor M3 with multi-carrier shipping.
Tap into the opportunities arising from growth in eCommerce and DTC
The pandemic catalyzed a rapid increase in ecommerce, as more brands began to sell directly to consumers. Without the middlemen in the supply chain, a lot of industries now have more parcel volume to ship, albeit in smaller quantities.
Multi-carrier shipping ensures you make this transition without hurting your business, giving you the flexibility to fulfill more orders seamlessly with a few clicks.
Mitigate supply chain disruptions
Supply chains are breaking down in the face of the global reset, forcing businesses to skate on thin ice. When using a single carrier, there is a higher risk that some of your parcels may be lost in transit or delayed because of bad weather.
Diversifying the carrier mix helps reduce these risks and gives you greater negotiating power, enabling them to outmaneuver the uncertainty of supply chain disruptions.
Take financial control amid the steady rise of shipping costs
A single carrier is often attractive to organizations due to its predictable cost. But unfortunately, that promise may be fleeting, as prices can change rapidly. Moreover, predictable cost doesn’t automatically translate to lower shipping costs. And sadly, the shipping costs will worsen during peak seasons.
A multi-carrier strategy expands your options, allowing you to compare rates, routes, and delivery options, making it more cost-effective. Furthermore, multi-carrier shipping lets you narrow down to the carrier best suited for each shipment.
Meet (and exceed) customer expectations
Shipping experience is crucial to retaining customers. Multi-carrier shipping enables your business to cater to customer’s expectations.
Some customers may have personal preferences about which carrier you use. B2B customers might prefer that you ship or freight their packages on their own account, while others may wish to leverage special services like pick-up and drop-off (PUDO).
Additional benefits
Some other reasons we recommend multi-carrier strategy include the following:
- It drives agile expansion, enabling organizations to scale with ease and respond rapidly to change and growth.
- Multi-carrier shipping enables proactive rerouting, making it seamless for companies to handle product returns and reverse logistics, regardless of the volume.
- It shortens the time between receiving and fulfilling orders, protecting order cycle time, and driving repeat businesses.
Doppio’s Partnerships with ProShip and ProcessWeaver
Transitioning to a multi-carrier is a good start, but automating the processes is even better. That will help you maximize efficiency and productivity at every touchpoint in the supply chain.
Doppio Group, an Infor M3 integration expert solution provider, partners with Proship and ProcessWeaver to help forward-thinking businesses automate and build predictability into their operations.
Proship is a leading provider of automated multi-carrier shipping software, empowering businesses to ship at lightning speed, stay carrier compliant, and re-imagine their customer experience. ProcessWeaver, now part of Elemica, enables businesses to digitally integrate to over 250 global carriers across more than 90 countries.
These collaborations ensure Doppio Group provides its clients with innovative solutions to streamline their shipping processes.
Wrap Up
We live in a different world now, as the COVID-19 pandemic has changed the landscape of global business, shipping, and delivery. With the spike in eCommerce sales and customers’ cravings for omnichannel shipping options, your business must meet the increased volume and accommodate personal preferences for freight shipping.
Now, a multi-carrier approach is an intelligent choice for enterprises that want to keep their customers happy with reliable, cost-effective shipping. Solutions like Proship and ProcessWeaver integrate seamlessly with Infor M3, enabling businesses to automate and streamline their supply chain processes.
Our team of Infor M3 experts is on standby, ready to help you leverage an interconnected supply chain to drive down shipping costs, achieve operational efficiency, exceed customer expectations, and stay competitive, regardless of your parcel volume.
Get in touch with Doppio Group by filling out the contact form to see how we can help you succeed with Infor M3 multi-carrier shipping.
