Get Started
February 21, 2023
- Written By
Ben Emmrich
Shopify is one of the most widely-used ecommerce solutions on the web, and for good reason—the company's highly intuitive and rich features allow small to medium businesses set up shop online relatively quickly. Meanwhile, larger companies that need to scale may also find the company's enterprise offering—Shopify Plus—attractive, thanks to its advanced features designed for high-volume online stores.
Because of its popularity, Shopify has a large app ecosystem. As of 2023, there are over 8,000 apps in the Shopify App Store, and you'll find solutions for streamlining various components of your business—including marketing, operations, customer service, and of course, shipping
If you're reading this, you're likely interested in that last item. Shipping is an area of ecommerce that many merchants struggle to optimize mainly because it involves so many moving parts, such as multiple carriers and fluctuating costs.
In addition, consumer expectations regarding shipping are higher than ever. Shoppers today want their items sent to their door quickly, and they have little patience for merchants that can't… well, deliver.
Industry data shows that 23% of consumers who experienced delivery failures said they would avoid ordering from the retailer again, and 21% said they'd lose trust in the merchant after a failed delivery experience.
It's a tough landscape, but the good news is that there are a number of Shopify apps that can help you streamline your shipping processes, lower costs, and save time.
If you're a Shopify merchant grappling with shipping issues, the following apps are worth checking out.
As one of the leading shipping management systems on the web, thousands of businesses use ShipStation to manage their shipping activities, including order management, label printing, and carrier handling.
ShipStation helps merchants streamline their practices through built-in features and automation rules. For instance, it allows you to print shipping labels in bulk, lowering printing expenses. ShipStation also has shipping rate comparison features to ensure you don't overspend on shipping.
In addition, ShipStation enables you to automate various order fulfillment processes, like generating labels and sending tracking information to customers. Plus, you can create shipping rules based on order weight, destination, and other factors to reduce manual work and human error. All these features enable you to save time and labor costs.
Take, for example, the online clothing store Homefield Apparel, which uses ShipStation to manage its shipping processes. Before ShipStation, the Homefield team relied solely on Shopify to take care of every step of the shipping process, leading to inefficiencies and wasted time.
According to Homefield's customer story, the business switched to ShipStation in 2021, allowing it to ship higher volumes in less time.
"It's significantly increased our ability to stay on top of things and keep moving, especially now with where we're at. It's literally just a click of a button to verify the order and everything prints out. It has completely streamlined that fulfillment process for us," said Jerelyn Cox, Fulfillment Manager at Homefield Apparel.
Large-volume merchants with multiple warehouses often have to split orders from different shipping facilities based on product availability. If a customer orders six different products, and three of those items aren't available in their area's designated warehouse, you'll have to ship the rest of the products from a different facility to fulfill the entire order.
It sounds simple enough, but manually splitting shipments is extremely time-consuming when you're generating dozens or hundreds of orders per day. Unfortunately, ShipStation currently doesn't have a feature to automate splitting shipments.
Enter SplitOrder, a Shopify app that promises to do exactly that.
SplitOrder automates order splitting so you can quickly fulfill orders from different warehouses or locations. Using the app, you can split or hold orders based on factors like:
These capabilities speed up the shipping process, saving time and money. And because you're able to fulfill orders more efficiently, you can reduce shipping errors, returns, and customer issues.
You've invested a lot in acquiring customers and driving sales, so the last thing you want is to drop the ball at the post-purchase stage. Taking care of your shoppers after you've made a sale improves customer satisfaction and loyalty, so you can keep them coming back and improve your bottom line.
Wonderment helps you do this by giving you tools that optimize the post-purchase experience.
With Wonderment, it's easy to send beautiful, branded transactional emails to provide order notifications and updates in style. The solution lets you replace Shopify's generic alerts with emails you can customize, segment, and measure.
And with branded order tracking pages, Wonderment helps bring customers back to your website whenever they need to track their orders. So rather than being sent to a third-party tracking page, shoppers are treated to a branded experience—and you have another opportunity to engage them (and drive additional sales).
What's more, Wonderment gives you better visibility into shipping performance. You’ll spot delays quickly and track order updates, which means you can take action and notify customers if needed.
All of this leads to increased customer satisfaction and higher retention, ultimately improving your bottom line.
ParcelPerfrom is a parcel tracking and analytics solution that gives you real-time insights into your carriers and parcels.
Parcel Perform lets you track shipments from multiple carriers in one place while offering carrier intelligence tools so shippers can predict the arrival of packages and anticipate issues. Parcel Perform' logistics intelligence capabilities serve "as a single source of truth for all your carriers, markets, and products."
Embed: https://youtu.be/lQQHOfFXnAw
In a nutshell, Parcel Perform equips merchants with powerful data and analytics tools for measuring, analyzing, and predicting parcel performance. It helps shippers make smarter decisions, lower fulfillment costs, and improve customer lifetime value and retention.
One example of a merchant who found success with Parcel Perform is Bikes Online. As the retailer expanded, Bikes Online started experiencing high volumes of WISMO requests, which led to missed engagement opportunities.
This promoted the company to adopt Parcel Perform, giving it a better handle on parcel insights; this helped Bikes Online engage customers more effectively. According to Bikes Online's case study, switching to Parcel Perform led to an 80% open rate for delivery notifications and an increase in product reviews.
Dealing with shipping address errors can be a pain. At best, shippers spend hours verifying and correcting mistakes, contributing to delays. At worst, they spend time and money shipping to the wrong address, leading to wasted resources and unhappy customers.
Validar prevents these problems by checking for shipping address errors before customers complete their purchases. As such, any mistakes—like missing apartment numbers or misspelled street names—are detected while shoppers are still on your website. You can catch issues before they become major headaches, which helps ensure your order fulfillment processes are implemented without a hitch.
Embed: https://youtu.be/o8axtcBfmQ4
Validar verifies shipping addresses based on the rules you set up. You can, for instance, configure the app to avoid PO boxes, DHL ship stations, and more.
While not all shipping delays are unavoidable, you can still minimize their negative impact by getting ahead of issues and taking action quickly. ShipAware helps you do just that. This Shopify app proactively sends alerts about shipping issues, so you'll know about them before your customers do.
You can configure the software to send late shipment notifications based on preset time frames, which means you're not caught off guard if and when delays occur. ShipAware also notifies you about shipments that have yet to leave your warehouse after a certain number of days, empowering you to get to the bottom of issues early.
ShipAware integrates with various platforms, including ShipStation, ShippingEasy, eBay, and of course, Shopify.
Ok, we may be a bit biased, but hear us out: Tusk Logistics saves shippers time and money by enabling you to tap into a shipping network of regional carriers so you can lower your shipping costs and implement faster deliveries.
Tusk Logistics doesn't have a Shopify app; however, the software works incredibly well for Shopify merchants using ShipStation. Our platform enables you to work with multiple regional carriers through a single connection, so there's no need to manage several carrier relationships.
Simply select Tusk as the shipping option on ShipStation and you can make sure shipments are sent through the right regional carrier.
If you're using Shopify and ShipStation, Tusk Logistics' integration will fit in perfectly with your workflows and allow you to easily work with regional parcel carriers.
Shopify is an excellent ecommerce platform, and it'll work even better when connected to the right apps. If you're looking for solutions to streamline your ecommerce operations—especially when it comes to order fulfillment—the apps above are solid options to look into.
And if you need help with regional parcel carriers in particular, Tusk Logistics' shipping network offers easy access to pre-negotiated rates from top-tier regional carriers.
Get in touch to discover how Tusk helps you spend less time on tedious work and focus more on shipping orders and serving your customers.
