E-commerce is becoming one of the biggest challenges for most companies worldwide.
The high level of competition between brands and the need to respond quickly to consumer needs has led companies to look for solutions that will help optimize their sales processes and reduce the associated costs. One of these solutions is the implementation of Warehouse Management Software (WMS), a valuable resource with various functions that help you organize business shipping and get better-optimized responses to consumer needs.
In this article, we will introduce you to “Cartonization” and “Best Rate Shipping,” two different features of Shipedge’s WMS that will improve the quality of your business, get better customer reviews, and significantly reduce the cost of shipping procedures. Let’s start with cartonization:
What is Cartonization?
Cartonization is an automated Warehouse Management Software (WMS) process that determines the most appropriate packaging for an item or group of items destined for shipment. This WMS function is responsible for increasing order fulfillment efficiency and reducing the overall cost of packaging and, therefore, shipping.
If your warehouse decides to implement cartonization into your workflow, you will get an automated analysis of the best way to pick each carton based on the size, weight, height, and length of the products you sell.
That process will be valuable in increasing fulfillment efficiency and lowering its associated costs. See how cartonization WMS works in the following example.
How Cartonization Works & Main Benefits of WMS Feature
As mentioned above, cartonization is a feature of the Warehouse Software Management System that improves your business shipping performance and reduces the costs of your orders.
Cartionization is the process of determining the best packaging for orders based on the dimensions of the products being shipped.
As an example, let’s imagine you are selling soft goods or uniquely shaped objects. Instead of your employees needing to check the specific size of your product every time they pick a package for it, the cartonization tool will automatically find the best packaging based on the item(s) going into the box/parcel. Apart from the benefits of an automatic process, this feature is handy as it helps you save money by optimizing the overall carton space during the packing process, reducing labor costs.
Other advantages of the cartonization process are:
- Increase productivity: Speed up your fulfillment process and reduce manual errors
- Quicker processes: with cartonization, you can reduce or eliminate the need for laborers to manually select and enter each shipment’s dimensions, therefore increasing the overall order fulfillment speed.
- Reduce material costs: Algorithms suggest the most cost-effective packaging sizes, reducing void fill and material waste.
- Multibox shipping order: Sometimes, you will have multiple packages for a more significant charge. The cartonization tool can make suggestions based on what ends up in each picked tote. That will help you generate multi-box shipping labels under the master track for the entire order
- Better relationships with customers: Reducing costs per order could add significant savings and higher profitability to improve customer relationships
Up to this point, we have learned about some key benefits of implementing a cartonization feature into your WMS for your organization. In the following sections, we will review how this function can become even more effective when combined with the shipping tariff function. But first, let’s go over the meaning of shipping rate.
What is the Shipping Rate Feature?
The best rate shipping feature is a transportation management system (TMS) feature prepared to simplify warehousing operations with the best rate shipping elements.
When well implemented in your business, this tool will be able to:
- Reduce Shipping Costs: Automated best-price shipping allows you to set up combinations of carrier service levels under one or more rules to ship and ensure your ship at the lowest possible price
- Diversifying Carrier Strategy: Keep up with 2-day shipping becoming the new standard introduced by Amazon
- Meet Delivery Expectations: Rate shopping rules also have the ability to restrict methods by regional availability and max transit time for your customer
If you’re looking for a way to improve your brand deliveries, combining the cartonization feature with the shipping rate feature could be a perfect investment. Let’s review how these unique tools can work together.
How can Cartonization and Shipping Rate Features Work Together?
Understanding how cartonization and shipping rate features work together is fundamental, especially for those looking for the best tools to improve their business deliveries.
The first visible advantage is giving your business the ability to get a better and faster response for your customer’s orders. That can be an excellent strategy to convince your customers that you are offering the best service from all points of view.
Cartonization will help you customize the best package for all your shipments, and with the best shipping rate, you will be able to deliver all your orders in the fastest and best conditions.
Besides that, having those features working together in your business will help you reduce the costs of your deliveries, allowing you to offer more convincing prices for your clients.
Now that we know the main benefits of these tools working together, Let’s go to the next step that will show you where you can find these services with the combination of the best price and better conditions.
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Where Can I Find the Best Combination of Cartonization Tools with Best Rate Shipping?
By combining both cartonization and best-rate shipping tools, you will find a new level of operational efficiency in your organization, and ways to reduce costs.
By combining cartonization and best-rate shipping, using the smallest package possible for the product allows you to get cheaper shipping, and even CHEAPER shipping by having the opportunity to compare all possible carrier pricing based on distance/routes and weight.
Shipedge Warehouse Management System
Shipedge is an e-commerce convergence system that provides cloud-based omnichannel fulfillment and distribution software via native mobile apps and an online WMS/OMS.
Recognized in the market as one of the best warehouse software management systems, Shipedge WMS is a product that offers the best of both worlds. With our advanced technology, the Shipedge Warehouse Management software allows best-rate shipping and cartonization tools to be used in conjunction with one another in the same WMS.
Some advantages of Shipedge’s WMS are:
- Increase your warehouse productivity and efficiency: WMS software streamlines the fulfillment process by tracking everything from receipt to order shipment. WMS manages invoicing, labor, integrations, and additional reports
- Maximize your profits: By reducing shipping, fulfillment, and packaging costs
- Improve your deliveries: Shipedge integrates with more than 40 shipping carriers to take advantage of the best delivery methods in every fulfillment situation. Customers will receive their orders quicker and cheaper, strengthening your consumer/brand relationships
- Reduce labor costs: With the advanced technology of the WMS from Shipedge, you can control every warehouse process with an internet connection. Additionally, with cartonization, you will be able to reduce the space your delivery takes up, saving you more money on cartons, and approval costs.
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