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A supply chain network consists of many moving parts that may be overwhelming to handle them all. Simplify your business processes with shipping solutions such as freight auditing and denied party screening. The following lays out various shipping solutions that you may need for your business to thrive in this international consumer landscape.
Do you find yourself spending more time on your supply chain network than focusing on logistics? You shouldn’t!
Save time on your shipping process and improve its efficiency with these shipping solutions to boost customer experience.
Address Validation Solution
Keeping clients and customers happy is a big priority for businesses. That means making sure that their experience with your company is a good one. One of the most significant factors in a happy customer experience is to ensure that the delivery process is on time with little to no delays. These delays can be caused by incomplete or inaccurate addresses.
Avoid being dragged down by delayed deliveries, returned shipments, and missing packages by implementing an address validation solution. All these problems can end up costing your company money that you could’ve allocated to updating your supply chain technology instead of fixing problems.
Validating addresses helps ensure prompt and accurate delivery of your shipments. Increase your confidence in your data with real-time address validation to catch address entry errors before you even ship. By acquiring an address validation solution, you can achieve customer satisfaction and prevent extra transportation costs.
Automated Export System (AES)
Is your company exporting goods worth more than $2,500 internationally? If so, you’re probably required to file the electronic export information (EEI) through the AES.
The U.S. Census Bureau collects this information to compile U.S. export and trade statistics, but other government agencies use this information for trade enforcement purposes. The U.S. Foreign Trade Regulations make your company liable for the accuracy of the information that gets filed (or not filed) through AES in which your company can be penalized for up to $10,000 per violation.
An automated export solution can simplify the filing process by prompting you to enter all the required information before submitting to AES which will reduce user errors if you were to manually file the information.
Carrier Portal
Bridge the gap between your company and shipping providers with a platform that allows for real-time communication and high visibility through the whole shipping process. A carrier portal is a solution that connects you to shipping carriers for efficient shipment tracking with an easy and secure exchange of information.
You can build a collaborative network to improve service levels, reduce costs, and gather data for decision-making. Having a solution where you can vastly improve your communication with carriers will give your company more control over the shipping process. Does this shipping solution sound good to you?
Vendor/Supplier Portal
Companies operate in a complex network of trading partners who need to share information to collaborate on business processes. Supplier portal solutions offer a platform that’s seamless and easy to access on both ends to achieve better visibility and help control freight costs.
Each supplier portal solution doesn’t necessarily have all the same features, but there are some basics that it should have. Suppliers should be able to see their assigned purchase orders, provide order acknowledgments, confirm on delivery dates, enter freight information, generate shipment notifications, create carrier shipments on purchasers account and generate inbound delivery.
Dangerous Goods/Hazardous Materials Solution
When your company is preparing to ship hazardous materials or dangerous goods, be aware of the potential documentation errors. Shipping dangerous and hazardous items must accurately meet many regulatory requirements beyond the declaration or shipping paper, such as packaging, marking, and labeling the shipments. Failure to do so may result in criminal charges and monetary penalization. Yikes!
A shipping solution specifically for dangerous goods/hazardous materials will take care of the important aspect of the shipping which is to accurately identify, correctly label, and clearly communicate the goods on the shipments. It ensures that the shipping labels match the requirements of the specific dangerous goods declaration or hazardous materials shipping paper for your shipment.
Denied Party Screening
Do you know who you are not allowed to ship goods to, according to the U.S. government? U.S. agencies publish lists of individuals and organizations that businesses are restricted from exporting to. If you or any shipper fail to comply with this regulation, it will result in a violation of U.S. law. This situation may result in incurring large fines and/or denial of export privileges. With that said, it’s important for companies that ship their products to keep vigilance in this area.
Every company is responsible for maintaining an updated list of denied parties. The U.S. government recommends exporters to perform screenings regularly. It sounds like tedious work. However, there’s a shipping solution to automatically scan the Denied Party List against your shipments.
Your business can do so with a Denied Party Screening solution which runs your clients against the database of restricted parties. Some solutions can do this in-real time to efficiently ensure compliance. This solution can accurately identify restricted parties before the goods leave the port and help your business avoids fines and other penalties.
Freight Auditing
Your company’s success depends on the supply chain network’s efficiency by keeping careful track of the freight charges. Your business should regularly perform freight auditing to ensure the accuracy of the freight bills and to assist in making smarter business decisions.
The sheer volume of the freight bills adding up can be overwhelming if you’re auditing them manually, especially if they’re not consolidated on one platform. When done manually, there’s more room for error and you might overlook outstanding charges like duplicates.
Save time and money by using freight bill auditing software, which is a shipping solution that simplifies and speeds up your auditing processes. An auditing solution will ensure carrier contract compliance, alleviate freight charge inconsistencies, and improve your business performances.
Freight Forwarding Service
As a business, your primary focus might not be on the supply chain and its many elements. That’s why freight forwarding services are there to use their specialized knowledge to handle your entire shipping process – from pickup to storage to delivery.
Freight forwarders make the shipping process seamless for your company as their direct responsibility is to ensure service, accuracy, and speed with every shipment, while also saving you money by negotiating with carriers. A freight forwarding solution provides business tools like email templates, notifications to customers, and dashboards for a forwarder to be successful. Overall, freight forwarding solutions expertly manages your supply chain process and troubleshoots related issues to keep your business moving along and growing.
Multi-Carrier Shipping System
Every company is always looking for the best cost-effective method to ship its products which includes picking the cheaper carrier per shipment. When you do it manually, you must go to each carrier’s website, log into their portals, and manage individual shipments from there. You end up with managing all the shipping data and information from multiple sources which isn’t convenient and wastes time, especially if you have high volume shipments.
A multi-carrier shipping system solution would solve all those problems. Within the shipping solution, you’d be able to manage all your shipments on one spot. It allows your end uses to select and compare shipping carriers to secure the best rates, transit times, and arrival dates for each shipment. Having this solution will improve your shipping efficiency and increase performance.
Ocean Freight Management
As an asset-heavy industry, the ocean carrier market needs huge financial investment to cover its cost of operations like fuel and containers. Whether your company is big or small, you want to keep looking for ways to cut down costs while keeping clients and customers satisfied.
There are many moving parts when using ocean carriers, but they can all be streamlined into one platform with an ocean freight solution. A smart shipping solution for your business can facilitate the entire shipping process that fulfills your specifications while also fulfilling the requirements of the import and export countries. Key features like rate management, regulatory compliance, and transportation management will give your business enhanced visibility of your shipments and optimized supply chain process.
Sales Order Management
Many growing companies have challenges regarding internal connectivity. One of its shipping challenges involves making fulfillment mistakes such as late order placements or wrong items delivered. It’s important to keep the customers and clients satisfied for the company to build a lasting reputation and to maintain retention rates. Everyone wants happy and loyal customers, am I right?
The sales order process starts from the placement of the order to the order fulfillment and, finally, to the delivery of the order. The order fulfillment consists of carrier selection, packing optimization, billing determination, and more. Having these processes streamlined in a sales order integrated solution will help avoid delays and mistakes to ensure customer satisfaction. Do you think you can benefit from using this shipping solution?
Shipping Label Software
Companies are required to be aware of their goods’ shipping label requirements. Exporters must keep in mind that shipments have specific markings and labeling that must:
- Meet shipping regulation and policies
- Ensure proper handling
- Conceal the identity of the contents
- Help receivers identify shipments
- Ensure compliance with environmental and safety standards
Without clear shipping labels, shipments could get lost or be mishandled which could hurt client relations and lose sales. A good shipping label software makes it easy for businesses to create and print shipping labels in-house, while also integrating with multiple carriers. The solution takes the hassle and stress out of label creation for you to focus on developing your company.
Shipment Tracking
Sometimes cheaper is not always better in terms of shipping. Investing in shipment tracking software is worth the cost to provide your business and your customers the comfort of knowing where the packages are.
Without a tracking software, your company is at risk for unsatisfied customers because of delayed deliveries or missing shipments. By having a tracking software, you will be able to provide an extra incentive for your clients and customers to continue doing business with you. You might be able to find this useful feature in integrated shipping solutions.
Transportation Management
There are many moving parts when it comes to the supply chain process, both literally and figuratively. From carrier quoting to delivery, companies are always on the lookout for ways to streamline the shipping process. Luckily, there are transportation management solutions to optimize logistics and operations.
Eliminate unnecessary time spent during the booking process with automation from a transportation management system where all the processes are centralized for your convenient use. With this shipping solution, your company can gather valuable insights, improve cash-flow for freight transportation, and improve end-to-end visibility.
Warehouse Management
Products are continually coming and going in a warehouse to fulfill order placements and to keep a healthy inventory for future business. As part of the day-to-day operation, your warehouse manager must be able to manage the company’s inventory. It must be easy to locate the needed items for packing and shipping to customers.
With a warehouse management system, your business gains wide traceability and real-time speed and responsiveness. It efficiently manages the warehouse’s inventory and supports processing of the good’s movement. The benefits of a comprehensive warehouse management solution include reduced fulfillment time, higher space utilization, reduced labor cost and much more.
What are the right shipping solutions for you?
If you don't know what you need, answer the questions in our shipping solutions checklist to build your personalized list of opportunities for growth!
Each company is different in terms of size and its operation. Depending on your business demands and customers’ needs, you can pick and choose the solution you need to run your supply chain operations efficiently. Luckily, there are shipping software companies out there with a long list of solutions for you to customize to your company.
