With shoppers now demanding shorter delivery timelines (same day or next day) and free or low-cost shipping, so much pressure is being piled on merchants and DTC brands to reinvent their delivery logistics to match consumer expectations. 

But due to the rising costs associated with shipping, retail operations teams are starting to look into new cost-efficient fulfillment models and shipping tools that can help them satisfy shoppers’ need for instant gratification.

The new solution currently helping retailers meet these customer expectations is the FenixCommerce Carrier Rate Shopping platform deployed at checkout.

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Not only does carrier rate shopping at checkout help you improve the customer experience, but it also cuts the overall cost of your entire shipping operations and makes fulfillment more optimized.

If you’re wondering how that’s possible, then keep reading to find out.

Why Carrier Rate Shopping at Checkout is a Must-Do

Shipping costs and surcharges have increased drastically since the pandemic and this is affecting retailers’ bottom line. These incessant increases are making delivery and fulfillment operations a major cost center for merchants. 

Since shipping rates fluctuate a lot across multiple carriers, using a single-source strategy to send out customer orders is downright detrimental to your business. 

Why’s that?

It’s because, other than your chosen carrier, other carriers could ship a specific order for a far lower price and within a shorter timeline than your current carrier. Of course, that would save you money and still guarantee customer satisfaction by shipping on time.

This implies that the only way to ship with the best rate for every order and still get the package delivered by the promised date is to make use of software that gives you access to real-time shipping rates across multiple carriers so you can shop for the best one for every order. 

That’s what you get when you implement Fenix carrier rate shopping at the checkout. 

The best part about our rate shopping software is that it doesn’t just give you access to multicarrier rates in real-time. It also does the heavy-lifting for you by intelligently selecting the most cost-effective rate and carrier to get a customer’s order shipped faster and cheaper. 

This is much better than using other solutions that only do rate shopping at the time of label printing. With Fenix shopping the carrier rates for you at checkout instead of the label printing stage: 

• You no longer have to do repetitive manual rate shopping at the time of label printing
• Get more customers to convert with optimized shipping options and costs.
• Ship orders timely so that customer’s delivery date expectations are met every time

Fenix Carrier Optimization platform eliminates the biggest headache of how to reduce delivery costs and keep shipping on time, literally transforming your shipping operations from a cost center to a profit center. 

Why Retailers are Turning to Fenix Carrier Rate Shopping

Fenix carrier optimization platform makes use of your key data such as your inventory levels, warehouse locations, order operations rules, package parameters, and negotiated carrier contacts to search for the best rates and shipping options across multiple carriers. 

Then it selects and displays at checkout only the most cost-effective carrier services that ensure the package arrives by the required date. 

By using knowledge of the customer location and combining that with your inventory data, our platform eliminates unnecessary shipping options but only selects the ones that guarantee delivery at the best rates. 

The idea is to help you get the best value from every shipment by leveraging multiple carriers. That way, you can save money on shipping and even gain a few dollars from time to time. 

Consider the core features of the Fenix Carrier Optimization platform:

• Pre-Integrated carriers

We’ve pre-integrated with major US carriers including USPS, FedEx, UPS, and DHL. So our software can access your negotiated rates in real-time to provide optimal shipping options for each customer.

• Self-hosted Carrier Rate Database

In order to obtain rates, other solutions need to call carrier APIs for every order and that consumes a lot of time, eventually ruining the experience for the customer during API downtimes. 

At Fenix, we’ve built-in a self-hosted carrier database that is always updated with the latest rates for multiple carriers in real-time. That way, you can do faster rate shopping within milliseconds even if carrier APIs are down. 

• Advanced Date Shopping 

Our carrier optimization platform takes rate shopping one step further by maximizing your ability to get any shipment delivered by the promised target date. So after obtaining the best carrier services for an order, it intelligently displays only options that can guarantee delivery by the required date.

• Configurable Shipping Rules

Our platform allows you to configure specific business rules and restrictions so you can customize your shipping with major carriers to suit your retail operations.

Optimize Your Shipping and Delivery Operations with FenixCommerce

FenixCommerce helps retailers make optimal shipping decisions by balancing customer expectations with costs and delivery time. Being able to rate shop is a crucial component of order fulfillment. 

Join our growing clientele of 75+ leading eCommerce & DTC brands to create a streamlined delivery system that reduces the overall cost of shipping while increasing conversion. 

Schedule a Demo to see our Carrier Optimization platform in action.